Mother 3/Unused graphics

Unused Battle Backgrounds
8gNx8oPefQs There are many unused enemies in the game, and most of them also have unused backgrounds.

The most notorious ones, shown in the video at left, are a series of placeholder enemies with glitched names who use a sequence of morbid backgrounds, reminiscent of the final battle against Giygas in the two previous games. Itoi mentioned he originally intended the Final boss battle as a nightmarish sequence without any dialogue, but later changed it because it was too terrifying; so the graphics shown above might have been remnants of the original plan. Also notable is the Tiny Forest enemy, who only lacks an overworld sprite – this enemy is complete in all other aspects.

These background graphics are not used with any enemy in the game. There are some more, most of them being variations of the skinny Pigmask guy.

Boss Back Sprites


Unused battle graphics of the Steel Mechorilla, the Almost-Mecha Lion, and Master Eddy from behind. They never appear in the game because they, being bosses, cannot be approached from behind.



The Masked Man also has a "back sprite" which shows him unmasked, but while still holding weapons.



This enemy, Alkaline Man, is an extremely interesting and original palette swap of Battery Man. He is still unused, and thus we never get to see his wonderful sprites.



As seen in the video above, the Tiny Forest is an unused enemy and the only other enemy to have unique sprites.



An unused bear sprite. In the game, an item named Honey Shower allows you to summon bees to hit enemies, but sometimes the narration says that a bear showed up instead; no bears actually appear graphically, though.



A palette swap of a Navy SQUEAL.

Unused Character Sprites


In the final game, the Barrier Trio never leave their spot. You walk up to them and the battle quickly begins. Because of this, a large set of sprites go unused. This includes full walking graphics and a very awkward dance that wouldn't be entirely out of nature for the Trio to do.



A set of graphics of the Masked Man exploding, floating, being repaired, and firing his arm cannon Mega Man style.



Two sets of sprites showing Porky in an early design. The first set shows Porky closing his pod, while the second shows said pod destroyed.



Graphics of a Porky Bot or young Porky with bizarre flashing eyes.



There is no sprite of a Porky Bot that matches this sprite's clothing. In-game, the first Porky Bot met has an explosion and battling the Porky Bot army just makes them disappear.



In the game files, there lies two strange graphics of Duster and Kumatora in unused clothing. They appear to be teleporting, but it's very different from the PSI Teleport used in the Mother trilogy and is most likely unrelated. What the graphics could have been used for is anyone's guess.



Kumatora shouting out in her unused clothing.



Another vague animation with Kumatora in her unused clothing, yet again.



Unused item tent sprites.



A sprite of the Item Guy's cart door open to reveal a person inside. According to an unused memo, this was meant to be a healer.



Possibly an early version of the rope snake.



Some text that resembles the "The End" text that appears in the ending.



Butch eating an entire loaf of bread.



Tiny sprites of Salsa. Since they're in the same style as the small player sprites during the Refrigerator scene, it's possible that Salsa would have originally been in the party during Snowcap Mountain.



These unused graphics are actually more remnants of the lost coupon mechanic!



Flint stabbing something, most likely the Mecha-Drago, with the Drago Fang.



Wes does have a rocking chair in his house, but he never sits in it.



A rocking chair that is found with the previous graphic of Wes.



At the end of Chapter 2, there is a graphic that closely resembles to this unused one, but it lacks the bubble.





These are very creepy sprites of Bud and Jackie. Due to the characters facing only one direction, they weren't meant to be talked to casually and were meant for a cutscene. There are many other sprites of people surrounded with this specific type of sparkles and, since it is indicated in Chapter 8 that Porky has a method of brainwashing people, it is likely that Bud and others were meant to be brainwashed.



This sprite is of Bateau knocking on a door. It resembles Thomas's knocking animation that is used in the first chapter.

Overflowing Toilet Animation


In Chapter 8, in the toilet dungeon, there is an inaccessible room which contains an unanimated toilet overflowing. The animation of it overflowing is loaded with the other room graphics.

Other Graphics


This is loaded while the game is showing Nowhere Islands in the intro. However, it's covered up by the body of water surrounding the islands, making it invisible unless the player uses an emulator's tile viewer. It says 仮, which means "temporary".



A low-quality picture of the Ostrich Burgers Historic Summit Inn Cafe on Route 66. It's possible that it was simply inserted into the game to test how the game displayed graphics.



A giant grey pig attached to a ship; likely an early Pigmask zeppelin.



A weird yellow Pigmask. Interestingly, the "foot" of the left sprite is actually a fix for the Pigmask's left eyebrow, which uses the same bottom pixels as the right eyebrow. The right sprite shows what the Pigmask should look like with the eyebrow fix added.