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It's always interesting to see how a game changed during development. With The Wing of Madoola, we don't have any prototype builds to play, but there's still some preview screenshots to scrutinize.
These come from a preview article (scan courtesy of Hubz) that was printed in the October 17, 1986 issue of Famitsu. Given print lead times, these screenshots were likely taken at some point in September 1986, about halfway through the game's development.
At this point in development, much of the art was different from the final game. Lucia looks completely different (she's drawn from the side instead of diagonally), the trees and waterfalls look different, and the HUD uses the same font as Atlantis no Nazo. According to Kenji Sada, this version of Lucia was drawn by Kazuyuki Sugiura (who also did the BG art and map design), while the final version was drawn by "Kiritan" Shimomura. It looks like the enemy behavior is just placeholder at this point, all the Nomajis are sitting on the ground.
This screenshot gives us a look at what underground environments looked like at this point in development. The layout is definitely placeholder, and there's nothing in the background.
These are a set of screenshots that Sunsoft used for Wing of Madoola promotional material intended to promote the game before its release. The screenshots seem to be from a mixture of builds. These were used for an advertisement and a preview article that were both printed in the December 5, 1986 issue of Famicom Magazine (scans courtesy of Hubz), as well as a preview article that was printed in the January 1987 issue of Monthly Shonen Captain. With printing lead times, it's likely these screenshots were taken in November 1986, about 3/4 through the game's development. Given the overlap in screenshots between these three sources, I think it's safe to say that Sunsoft was not sending out builds of the game at this state.
These three screenshots appear to come from the same build. It looks like enemy behavior is starting to be implemented (one of the Nomajis is in the air), and you can see a Nipata as well as the Nomajis. It's hard to tell how far the level design is at this point (especially with the one screenshot where the level start marker is right next to the goal), but a lot of the level design in these screenshots appears in Stage 9 in the final game. The HUD looks closer to the final game than in the first screenshots, but it's still rougher with no border around the text.
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The sprite design is a lot further along by this point, although the artist seems to be having trouble getting Lucia's hair and headband right. It looks like at this point, they were trying to get the snake thing from Lucia's headband on the promo art into the game. I think they made the right decision to avoid doing that in the final game. For the standing pose, Lucia's right hand is also by her side rather than on her sword like in the final game. I wonder how the sword swinging animation would have looked like in this build.
This screenshot appears to come from a later build, as Lucia's hair looks a lot better than in the above screenshot where she's standing. I think it was a good choice to use this area for promo screenshots, it looks really good for a 1986 NES game.
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Lucia's hair is definitely improved here, although it's still not as poofy as in the final game.
These screens seem to be from the same or a similar build as the last overworld screen above, as Lucia's head looks the same as in that photo. These are interesting because they depict an area that got cut from the final game. They also show a few tiles that didn't make it into the final game, such as the statue of the guy holding an upside down table, the dragon statues, and the jazzy background in the warp door. The HUD still hasn't been changed from the above set of screenshots.
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These sprites look to be further along than the above sprites. The main differences are the positions of Lucia's arms, her hair being less fluffy, and the palette used for her sword.
These are a set of screenshots that were used for printed materials that had to be ready at or near The Wing of Madoola's release. These were likely taken at most a few weeks before the game's release. Some examples of where they were used are the back of the game box, the promotional flyer, and the Wing of Madoola game book. There's no overlap between screenshots (besides the back of the game box, which uses the same screenshots as the flyer) so I can't tell if they actually come from the same exact point in development, but they're likely at least taken around the same general time.
At this point in development, the sprite graphics seem to be completed and most if not all of the enemies are implemented. According to Kenji Sada, a few developers got added onto the project near the end of development to work on the enemy behavior. This also matches the game code, as the Nomaji code (the only enemy type visible in all but one of the screenshots before this point) is in a separate place from the rest of the enemy code. That work seems to have largely taken place between when the last set of screenshots were taken and when these were taken. The main differences between these screenshots and the final game are some of the stage and enemy palettes, and the enemy placement. It looks like the game was going through a final round of tweaks and testing here.
