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After the protagonist travels underwater to the Palace of the Dragon God, Otohime performs a striptease for him. During this scene, the screen is completely black except for three colored spotlights which provide brief glimpses at her; at no point is she fully visible during this sequence. Despite this, each state of undress is fully sprited, something which can only be observed by hacking the game.
Pizza Tower first saw attention with the demo released in the fan-run Sonic Amateur Game Expo (SAGE) 2018. To coincide with the expo being themed around Sonic the Hedgehog, a temporary joke character named "Snick the Porcupine" was added, with a backstory detailing how Peppino (dressed in blue like Sonic) had intended to go to SAGE, but ended up at the "Snick Amateur Games Expo" and instead made do with Snick's games (Pizza Tower levels). Upon clearing the SAGE demo, Snick will then turn into "Snick.EXE", a parody of the Sonic.exe creepypasta, starting an exclusive mode called "The Snick Challenge" where Peppino must evade Snick.EXE while playing through all 3 stages in the demo in order. The completion reward is a fully playable Snick with a unique moveset and animations, with taunts referencing a set of YouTube Poop music videos by user iteachvader that were based on the animated series Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
Snick would later make a cameo in the SAGE 2020 demo for Antonball Deluxe - a game with connections to Pizza Tower - bringing back the same setting, playable Snick, and The Snick Challenge, but with Snick.EXE instead chasing the player through the regular demo playthrough and the requirement to collect "Ruckus Rubies" to unlock Snick. Since Snick was also not meant to appear in the final release, the Ruckus Rubies use directly-ripped sound effects from the Sonic series.
Despite his removal, Snick still makes many cameos in the final version of Pizza Tower. The tiles for the Slum hub area feature a Missing poster inquiring about Snick's whereabouts, the Refridgerator-Refridgerator-Freezerator stage features a similar Wanted poster on the side of a milk carton, one of Gustavo and Brick's taunts has Brick turn into Snick, and the Pizzaboy's Wash N' Clean area has Snick covered in a freshly-washed blanket, making him appear like a ghost. Peppino's blue outfit also returned under the name "Sage Blue", which can be unlocked by clearing Floor 1 in less than an hour.
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After getting Whisper's Love, a Rumrom called the Haunted Stone can be found in the Haunted House cellar. Its description refers to flying the Rocket to the Moon, but it's engraved with pictures of four arches leading up towards the Dragon. This depicts a cut area called "Dragon's Tail" that would have been used in a dream sequence triggered by Florence in the middle of the game, and revisited in a cut ending by reflecting two mirrors at a gate to create a tunnel to it. The area can be accessed through the debug menu, and was not removed before release as the developers never expected players to find it. They considered adding it to the 2019 rerelease in either a reworked form or as a DLC ending, but decided against it.
Designer Yoshiro Kimura and artist Kazuyuki Kurashima envisioned it as a purgatory where souls from real life and the game world meet before going to Heaven or Hell. It was inspired by books Kimura read that made him feel there were "other layers to humanity than what we normally experience in reality", as well as a one-man stage play he put on while working at Squaresoft called "Mononoke", about a bullied boy who enters a similar purgatory. Dragon's Tail was cut when Kimura designed the Monster Catch system and thought the ideas that came from it were more interesting and fitting with the game's themes, and because he found the area too similar to a chapter from the Osamu Tezuka manga "Phoenix". He recalled this as a stressful change as all the assets for the new ending had to be built out of clay and then imported into the game.
Dragon's Tail adds more backstory to a minor item in the final game called the White-Feathered Arrow. By interacting with Bilby, the Minister, and two papers in his bedroom, it's learned that this item Spoiler:was shot in the air as a ritual to randomly select a citizen to seal inside the cursed armor of the Hero and slay the Dragon. That person will endlessly chase and fight monsters until they die of old age. Since the game parodies contemporary RPGs like Dragon Quest, it's theorized that the White-Feathered Arrow is based on the cursor used to name player characters in that series. In the dream sequence, the Boy finds a crying naked boy who will follow him through the arches into a house at the end of the area. Inside is Spoiler:Gramby, where it's revealed that the naked boy is not only Gramby's presumed dead grandson, but also the Hero chosen by the White-Feathered Arrow who is destined to atone for killing monsters by healing them all. A long line of monsters and people from across history forms outside; talking to Florence and Tao at the end of the line will end the dream. In unused cutscenes and the cut ending, Spoiler:the naked boy evolves into the Dragon as he heals more monsters, and is eventually killed by the Hero, who he acknowledges is himself.
The game contains data for an unused saber-tooth cat enemy. It has idle, turning, walking, and running animations, as well as hurt and dying animations.
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.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future was originally released as JoJo's Venture in December 1998. This version suffered from a rushed development, reflected by the abundance of unused assets in its code, including both finished and unfinished sprites for various attacks, cutscenes, and HUD elements. An updated version would come out eight months later, this time using the series' full title and adding the Heritage for the Future subtitle. A significant chunk of the unused assets in JoJo's Venture would be polished up and incorporated in this newer version.
All the playable characters were originally intended to have heartstruck expressions where they blush with hearts in their eyes, but only Bean's expression is used in the final game as a rare random object which Amy can drop using the special move "Heads Up!"
The Flame Shield was originally intended to appear alongside the Aqua and Thunder Shields, but it was removed due to it being too similar to the Thunder Shield.
In a 2002 developer interview archived by the now-defunct blog GSLA, director Yoshiaki Koizumi revealed that the game's staff originally came up with ten different nozzles for FLUDD, devising new ones for each possible situation Mario might encounter. However, this was reduced to three to avoid similarities to the gameplay style of The Legend of Zelda series. Some remnants of this larger quantity can be found in the final game's data, which includes an unused model for a Yoshi head nozzle and parameters for a sniper nozzle. While the former's properties are unknown beyond its appearance (with its model lacking any associated animations), the latter would have been 100 times more powerful than the Squirt Nozzle and would've had a significantly larger hitbox. However, it also would've required Mario to charge it like the Rocket Nozzle and Turbo Nozzle.
While Grimace's Birthday seems to be a web-browser game mimicking the "retro" graphics of the Game Boy Color, it is actually a real Game Boy Color ROM being run in an emulator, and it's possible to extract the ROM and play it on a Game Boy Color or hardware that is compatible with its cartridges. Because the game was designed specifically for the system, its data includes an error screen typical of those found on other Game Boy Color titles that are incompatible with the original Game Boy. However, because Grimace's Birthday is intended to be played on McDonald's official website (which does not allow the player to switch between Game Boy and Game Boy Color mode), this screen is not viewable.
Within the data for version 1.2.6.1 is a placeholder chapter icon for "Farewell" depicting the Moon from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. The backside is an edited version of this image which scrubs off the moon's facial features. The placeholder icon was removed from the game's files shortly afterward.
The Dark Eternal Champion has unused frames of animation left over in the game's files. It is unknown if these were meant for an alternate victory animation or a scrapped special move.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit was originally going to be a novelty 16-bit SNES-style cartridge game before slowly venturing out into a full-fledged modern PC and console game. Many of the early 16-bit sprites and animations can still be found in the game files.
According to the game's director, John Johanas, Chai's hospital gown from Track 1 was meant to be an unlockable costume. However, the physics of the costume didn't respond well to Chai's moves and thus got scrapped.
The game's data contains unused sprites for Faraway Town's enemies depicting them with various emotional effects. As Faraway Town characters can't be made to feel emotions in-battle in the final game, this implies that the restriction was implemented relatively late into development.
In the original release of the game, attempting to quit during the scene where Spoiler:the player character walks in on the aftermath of Sayori's suicide would open a modified version of the exit prompt. The text in this version of the window is heavily distorted, and a rapidly flashing GIF portrait of Sayori appears in the leftmost region. This Easter egg was removed in the Version 1.1.1 update due to concerns that audiences would interpret this as the game mocking them for feeling distressed at Spoiler:a realistic depiction of suicide; another likely factor for its removal is the risk that the flashing could pose to epileptic or photosensitive players. Despite this, the prompt's assets are still present in the game's files.
Before the Earth was implemented as a level selection screen, levels in Tornado Outbreak were originally displayed on a 2D world map and rendered entirely with Adobe Flash.
There is an unused title screen in the Metal Slug bootleg game Terrifying 9/11 that suggests it was originally going to be released as a straightforward bootleg version of Metal Slug instead of a bad-taste cash-in on the September 11th attacks.
In the prototype of Hotel Mario, walking Toads are used as Super Mushrooms and 1-Up collectables. The final game changes these Toad sprites to bouncing mushrooms, but the manual still refers to them as Toads.
Pizza Tower first saw attention with the demo released in the fan-run Sonic Amateur Game Expo (SAGE) 2018. To coincide with the expo being themed around Sonic the Hedgehog, a temporary joke character named "Snick the Porcupine" was added, with a backstory detailing how Peppino (dressed in blue like Sonic) had intended to go to SAGE, but ended up at the "Snick Amateur Games Expo" and instead made do with Snick's games (Pizza Tower levels). Upon clearing the SAGE demo, Snick will then turn into "Snick.EXE", a parody of the Sonic.exe creepypasta, starting an exclusive mode called "The Snick Challenge" where Peppino must evade Snick.EXE while playing through all 3 stages in the demo in order. The completion reward is a fully playable Snick with a unique moveset and animations, with taunts referencing a set of YouTube Poop music videos by user iteachvader that were based on the animated series Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
The game contains data for an unused saber-tooth cat enemy. It has idle, turning, walking, and running animations, as well as hurt and dying animations.
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.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future was originally released as JoJo's Venture in December 1998. This version suffered from a rushed development, reflected by the abundance of unused assets in its code, including both finished and unfinished sprites for various attacks, cutscenes, and HUD elements. An updated version would come out eight months later, this time using the series' full title and adding the Heritage for the Future subtitle. A significant chunk of the unused assets in JoJo's Venture would be polished up and incorporated in this newer version.
All the playable characters were originally intended to have heartstruck expressions where they blush with hearts in their eyes, but only Bean's expression is used in the final game as a rare random object which Amy can drop using the special move "Heads Up!"
The Flame Shield was originally intended to appear alongside the Aqua and Thunder Shields, but it was removed due to it being too similar to the Thunder Shield.
In a 2002 developer interview archived by the now-defunct blog GSLA, director Yoshiaki Koizumi revealed that the game's staff originally came up with ten different nozzles for FLUDD, devising new ones for each possible situation Mario might encounter. However, this was reduced to three to avoid similarities to the gameplay style of The Legend of Zelda series. Some remnants of this larger quantity can be found in the final game's data, which includes an unused model for a Yoshi head nozzle and parameters for a sniper nozzle. While the former's properties are unknown beyond its appearance (with its model lacking any associated animations), the latter would have been 100 times more powerful than the Squirt Nozzle and would've had a significantly larger hitbox. However, it also would've required Mario to charge it like the Rocket Nozzle and Turbo Nozzle.
While Grimace's Birthday seems to be a web-browser game mimicking the "retro" graphics of the Game Boy Color, it is actually a real Game Boy Color ROM being run in an emulator, and it's possible to extract the ROM and play it on a Game Boy Color or hardware that is compatible with its cartridges. Because the game was designed specifically for the system, its data includes an error screen typical of those found on other Game Boy Color titles that are incompatible with the original Game Boy. However, because Grimace's Birthday is intended to be played on McDonald's official website (which does not allow the player to switch between Game Boy and Game Boy Color mode), this screen is not viewable.
Within the data for version 1.2.6.1 is a placeholder chapter icon for "Farewell" depicting the Moon from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. The backside is an edited version of this image which scrubs off the moon's facial features. The placeholder icon was removed from the game's files shortly afterward.
The Dark Eternal Champion has unused frames of animation left over in the game's files. It is unknown if these were meant for an alternate victory animation or a scrapped special move.
The game's data contains unused sprites for Faraway Town's enemies depicting them with various emotional effects. As Faraway Town characters can't be made to feel emotions in-battle in the final game, this implies that the restriction was implemented relatively late into development.
In the original release of the game, attempting to quit during the scene where Spoiler:the player character walks in on the aftermath of Sayori's suicide would open a modified version of the exit prompt. The text in this version of the window is heavily distorted, and a rapidly flashing GIF portrait of Sayori appears in the leftmost region. This Easter egg was removed in the Version 1.1.1 update due to concerns that audiences would interpret this as the game mocking them for feeling distressed at Spoiler:a realistic depiction of suicide; another likely factor for its removal is the risk that the flashing could pose to epileptic or photosensitive players. Despite this, the prompt's assets are still present in the game's files.
Before the Earth was implemented as a level selection screen, levels in Tornado Outbreak were originally displayed on a 2D world map and rendered entirely with Adobe Flash.
There is an unused title screen in the Metal Slug bootleg game Terrifying 9/11 that suggests it was originally going to be released as a straightforward bootleg version of Metal Slug instead of a bad-taste cash-in on the September 11th attacks.
In the prototype of Hotel Mario, walking Toads are used as Super Mushrooms and 1-Up collectables. The final game changes these Toad sprites to bouncing mushrooms, but the manual still refers to them as Toads.