Neo Racer 3: Turbo

Neo Racer 3: Turbo (ネオレーサー3：ターボ - Neorēsā 3: Tābo) was a game meant to be released for the SNES, Super Famicom, Sega Genesis, and the Mega Drive. However, soon after this game's initial announcement, it was swiftly canceled.

Over the years, there have been many different theories as to why the game may have been canceled so soon after the first announcement. However, the main reason that the game was canceled was due to the horrible performance of the previous game in the series, Neo Racer 2: Revenge of X (ネオレーサー2：Xの復讐). The game failed to meet sales expectations as well as critical review expectations. One developer said, "簡単に言えば、そのゲームはドッグシットの山盛りでした. " which translates to, "To put it lightly, the game was a steaming pile of dogsh*t," which some may consider being a little rough compared to the actual Neo Racer 2 game experience.

Nevertheless, Neo Racer 3: Turbo met the fate of cancelation after the higher-ups were informed of the fact that the game would use many of the same mechanics as Neo Racer 2, with minimal changes. They soon stepped in and ended production. Not only that, but Ocean Games believed that after such a failure as Neo Racer 2, it would be a good idea for the series to move away from the numbered releases. This shows, as Neo Racer: Into the Zone, performed significantly better than Neo Racer 2. This is most likely attributed to the fact that the game wasn't poorly designed, but the title still may have played a role, if small, in the success of the game.

Neo Racer 3: Turbo actually got pretty far into its development before getting the boot. The developers were able to make a stable demo of the game, which retained the monotonous gameplay of the previous installment. It also highlighted the developer's confusion in how to produce an actually stable product, as the demo was very glitchy and buggy. As you could guess, the team never showed the demo to the higher-ups, as they would probably all be fired immediately. One could say that the only good thing to come out of the demo would be the music, as it was composed by the classic Ocean Games composer Yoshiro Kamaki.