Today we have some interesting trivia to share about two oddly familiar looking scrapped characters from Shin Megami Tensei, the 1992 Super Famicom installment of Atlus’ popular Megami Tensei series.

During the game, players will eventually have to explore an area called “Tokyo Destiny Land” an off-brand version of the real-life Tokyo Disney Land. Apart from the theme park aesthetic, the original dungeon doesn’t feature anything particularly noteworthy. However, it turns out Atlus may have at some point planned for more references to Disney Land than the area’s name.

Decades after the game’s release, fans discovered unused sprites for twisted versions of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, two of Disney’s most iconic characters. It is believed that Atlus was going to include them as monsters for players to fight in Destiny Land, but decided otherwise to avoid drawing the ire of Disney’s lawyers.

Adding credence to this theory, NPCs that seem loosely based off Mickey and Donald appear in the TurboGrafx-16 version of Shin Megami Tensei. These characters are called “Zombie Mouse” and “Demon Duck”, and look much less similar to the previous sprites, so perhaps that was Atlus’ way to getting around the copyright issue.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.