There are two unused pieces of headgear in the files of the original Nintendogs games: a chonmage wig (a Japanese male ponytail haircut worn by samurais in the Edo period to hold their helmets in place), and an afro wig. The chonmage has an unused description found in the Japanese version of the games and had all of its assets in the international releases replaced with the data for the Rainbow Wig. The afro on the other hand was finished enough that you can use cheat codes to make a dog wear it, but it does not have any leftover text or item attributes that let it be obtained as an item. It may have been cut from the games late into development due to concerns over racial offense and replaced with the Rainbow Wig, which has a very similar appearance to the afro, but with a rainbow-colored texture instead of one resembling black hair.
In the release build of Super Mario Maker, there were text strings relating to 13 unused Mystery Mushroom costumes: • BabyMario • BalloonFight • EGadd • GoldenRetri (presumably short for "golden retriever") • MarioUs (presumably Mario's appearance from what is known in Japan as Super Mario Bros. USA) • Mashiko (Japanese name of Mary O.) • MrSaturn (from EarthBound) • Muncher • Nabbit • Popo • Tetris • WindowsLogo
Baby Mario, Balloon Fighter, E. Gadd, Mary O., Mr. Saturn, and Nabbit would eventually be added in updates, as would an Ice Climbers costume featuring Popo alongside his friend Nana, while a power-up that turns Mario into his Super Mario Bros. 2 self would be introduced in an update to Super Mario Maker 2.
The most notable names are "Tetris" and "WindowsLogo", two non-Nintendo franchises that otherwise go unrepresented in Super Mario Maker. Tetris was formerly published on handheld and home consoles by Nintendo between the 1980s-1990s, and has been featured through music and Spirits in the Super Smash Bros. series, which is used as the basis for Super Mario Maker's base-game third party costume selection. WindowsLogo seems to be some kind of remnant of a Microsoft Windows operating environment being used to develop the game, as Nintendo has never been involved with the Windows line of software.
In the "3rd Mix PLUS!" variant of this game, there is unused data for the song "TOTAL RECALL" by ULTIMATE HEIGHTS. This includes unused graphics, step charts and lyrics for the song.
Normally, when the player decides to build a public works project, Isabelle will prevent the player from going to the beach while scouting out a potential site due to the instability of the sand there. However, if the player uses cheats or glitches to bring Isabelle to the beach and then talks to her, she will give them the option to state whether or not they want to start construction. Despite this, she will deny the request anyway if the player answers yes; however, she will not cite the quality of the ground, but rather will state that there is no available space. Depending on where they are standing, she will state that the proposed site is either too close to the ocean or too close to the cliff, statements which do not otherwise come up in normal gameplay. This dialogue implies that building public works projects on the beach was considered at one point in development.
Interestingly, out of this batch, the Iquanodon is the only dinosaur to have any more data pertaining to it with its own "Iguan.ini" file, which makes it the only cut species with a known Length (Aprox. 9 Meters Long), Health (500), Life Span (4 Years and 6 Months), and Herd Size (1-15 Individuals). It also had a known attack damage (150), which would have it made it the strongest Ornithopod in the game had it been included.
In the source code for Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales, a string of text can be found reading "no smutty comments please", suggesting there were previously inappropriate developer comments in the code thet were deleted.
Within the Saturn port's data is an unused English language option, suggesting that the title may have been considered for a Western release. Fan translator Malenko made the discover before creating a patch to re-enable the option.
The NTSC release of the Nintendo DS version of Max & the Magic Marker has the entirety of the song "Wonderwall" by Oasis in its files, complete with audio tag metadata and the cover artwork of their album (What's the Story) Morning Glory?.
Earthworm Jim: Menace 2 the Galaxy has unused text pertaining to Game Boy Printer support. It's thought that this feature would have allowed players to print out level passwords.
The game's files cointains data of multiple unused alternate endings for various characters such as Maya and Jago. These endings weren't properly implemented due to time constraints.
The prototype for Virtual Bart shows an ending screen at the end of the credits instead of just the player's score. It is a crudely written "THE END" in cursive with the nonsensical text "You are a true Bart Simpson" alongside the score. The "You are a true Bart Simpson" text is in the final game's code.
After loading up the Commodore 64 version of the game and waiting until the title screen appears, going to address 8F40 with a memory viewer will reveal a hidden developer message. The message to discourage hackers from cracking the game is presumably from the game's creator Manfred Trenz, and reveals the date that the game began development:
"HI FOLKS, THE MANIAC IS BACK !!! ONE QUESTION: WHY DO YOU WANT TO CRACK THIS PROGGY ??? CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW MUCH WORK I DID TO MAKE A GAME LIKE THIS ???
HERE SOME INFORMATIONS ABOUT: STARTING TIME: 01.02.1989 (OH YES) ALL THE IDEAS,GAMEDESIGN,ALIENROUTINIES,GRAPHICS,PLAYBILITY,TECHNICAL PROBLEMS AND MUCH MORE TOOK A LOT OF TIME AND WAS VERY OFTEN NERVE-RACKING!
ECHT AETZEND YOU WOULD SAY ... SOMETIMES I WORKED MORE THEN 14 HOURS A DAY, ONLY INTERRUPTED BY ESSENTIAL THINGS LIKE FOOD,COKE AND MTV.
I MADE THIS GAME NOT ONLY FOR TO EARN MONEY BUT NEVERTHELESS I'M SURE YOU AGREE WITH ME, THAT I WANT TO EARN FOR MY WORK.
SO DO ME A FAVOUR AND DON'T CRACK AND SPREAD THIS GAME !! IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS CALL: 0211/5280-0 BYE NOW AND THINK ABOUT !
PS.: DO YOU KNOW WHAT A GROELATZ IS ?? YOU BETTER DO NOT !"
In Sonic the Hedgehog, there is an unused "PRESS START BUTTON" graphic. This would eventually be used in an exclusive revision of the game included in the Sega Top Ten compilation cartridge for Brazil and Asia. This version of the game is otherwise identical to the original release.
The file header (the game's name used as an introduction for its code) for Sonic the Hedgehog is supposed to have a line break in the middle, so it reads as:
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG
However, this line break was done through spaces instead of an actual line break, so if one plays Sonic the Hedgehog on an emulator that shows the file header name (such as Kega Fusion), it will instead read:
SONIC THE...............HEDGEHOG
[Note: periods added due to VGFacts automatically removing multiple rows of spaces.]
The game's files contain a pair of unused name labels, one for the life bar and another for the VS screen which read as "Franken" and "Frankenstein" respectively. These were likely abandoned names for Victor, the Frankenstein's monster-based character.
The game’s files have four .txt files titled DEUTCH.TXT, ENGLISH.TXT, ESPANOL.TXT and FRENCH.TXT, suggesting German, Spanish and French versions were planned for the game. In the end, only an English version exists.
One of Star Fox Adventures' most infamous scenes is within the final Krazoa Shrine at Krazoa Palace where Fox McCloud is about to engage in combat with General Scales, seemingly the game's antagonist and final boss, only to be suddenly interrupted by Andross' spirit, who forces Scales to give the last Krazoa spirit to Fox, abruptly ending the fight. Per admitted by developers of Star Fox Adventures during a February 2008 edition of Rare's Scribes, Scales was meant to have a proper boss confrontation, but this was scrapped entirely due to the impending Microsoft buyout that was announced in September 2002, forcing the team to focus on only the Andross boss fight.
However, looking further into Dinosaur Planet and Star Fox Adventures' development cycle, one can see a more complex story going on in regards to the notion of General Scales having a boss fight. The Dinosaur Planet condensed story promises a true final confrontation between Krystal and General Scales within the Desert Force Point Temple, as she places her final SpellStone. After Scales' defeat, the King EarthWalker would barge in and tell Krystal to take his belt (that was provided by Drakor), but then it would turn into stone, resulting in the player into having to swap over to Sabre's story, who takes it to the mutant Shabunga in Willow Grove to help reactivate it, which allows him to enter Dragon Rock unharmed.
However, the leaked December 2000 build of Dinosaur Planet features no such boss fight for Krystal's final visit to the Desert Force Point, instead having a cutscene where Krystal, Scales and Kyte are teleported outside of the temple after the former places the final SpellStone. Krystal plummets into a nearby pond safely, but Scales falls onto a rock and breaks his back, completely incapacitating him. Instead of the King EarthWalker, it's the BoneHead SpellStone guardian who first appeared in CloudRunner Fortress that instructs Krystal to take the Kamerian belt to Sabre so he can have Shabunga revitalize it, as Scales whispers that he'll have his revenge as he passes out.
When Dinosaur Planet was being transitioned into Star Fox Adventures over on GameCube, unused voice clips and also hints found within the 2002 E3 kiosk indicate that Rare planned on revisiting Scales having a boss fight by essentially doing a rematch against his flying galleon like in the game's prologue, though instead of playing as Krystal flying on the CloudRunner, it'd likely would have been Fox in his Arwing. The voice lines reveal that Falco Lombardi would actually appear earlier than in the final game and assist Fox in taking out Scales and his galleon. After Scales' defeat, Fox would land in Krazoa Palace and partake in the Test of Sacrifice, which is where the General Scales "boss fight" occurs in the final game.
Curiously, the 2002 E3 kiosk shows that the dev team had later hoped to include a 1-on-1 fight on-foot against Scales. The fight is very incomplete and Scales is strangely smaller in size than usual, but he will actually attack the player in this version instead of simply walking towards Fox and assuming a fighting stance. He has a number of unique attack animations which aren't used in the final game, though these attacks don't connect with the player. He can be attacked without immediately activating his defeat cutscene here, and will block most of the player's attacks and recoil when an attack is successfully landed on him. His health doesn't seem to decrease, so there doesn't appear to be a way to end the fight.
If one moves Hank's Microsoft Agent actor file into the the main Microsoft Bob application, he can be used as a main Bob assistant, complete with his own character bio, suggesting that he was meant to be part of the wider Microsoft Bob program. Some of his text is generic placeholders and he does not have a background (instead using a close-up of what appears to be his knee or elbow).