Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (GameCube)

Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg
Also known as: Giant Egg - Billy Hatcher no Daibouken (JP) Developer: Sonic Team Publisher: Sega Platform: GameCube Released in JP: October 9, 2003 Released in US: September 23, 2003 Released in EU: October 31, 2003 This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused cinematics. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden level select. This game has a prototype article This game has a prerelease article

To do: Look for regional differences in the Japanese and European ISOs. Action Replay codes for US and JP versions.

Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg is a unique platformer that involves using oversized eggs and hatching them to befriend animal friends contained within them. Cock-a-doodle-doo!

Sub-Pages

Prototype Info

Prerelease Info

European Demo A European demo based off the final version.

USA Demo A US demo based off the final version.

Debug Menu A debug menu letting you access various parts of the game.

Unused Video

There's an unused video in the game's files titled mv_boss_clear7.sfd. It's identical to the first part of the ending, except it doesn't have any audio. This may have been used after defeating Dark Raven, but the ending plays automatically after doing so in the final game. The actual ending movie, mv_ending.sfd has this part baked into it with audio.

Unused Sounds

tosakaget.adx

An unused fanfare. Considering the name "tosaka" in the filename, it's likely an early version of the fanfare for collecting an Emblem of Courage. The fanfare used is eb_get.adx.

Unseen Textures

In the stage select menu, the underside of the book that leads to the Egg Gallery cannot be seen normally due to the camera angle. Moving the camera reveals that it is fully modeled and has a unique texture for the cover.

Unseen Level Details

An area of mission 1 in Blizzard Castle contains a stack of crates on top of ice shards. The upper-middle crate is not properly aligned with the others. Since you cannot get to this area in mission 1 and there are no crates at this location in any other mission, it's possible that this level underwent several changes during development.

Unused Graphics

An icon for a tornado is stored in the same texture as the icons for the egg and foot pads. This may have originally been used in Mission 2 of Sand Ruin to deactivate the fog trap, but the game has a standard switch that must be pushed down with an Egg Driver instead.

Unseen Behavior

If hacked into boss battles, Egg Animals are capable of hurting bosses and deal a very large amount of damage to them. To see this behavior for yourself, use the following PAL Action Replay code to replace all standard eggs with Cipher eggs, then hatch Cipher in any boss battle that has fruit:

04003E30 2C030000
04003E34 40820008
04003E38 38600014
04003E3C 2C030063
04003E40 4813F344
04143180 4BEC0CB0

(Source: Ralf (GC-Forever))

Debug Information

The game has a feature to display a few pieces of debugging information at runtime.

• Heap free size - How much memory remains in the heap.
• Heap Max size - The current size of the heap.
• Exec Time - Indicates how long it took to run a full game loop.
• Disp Time - Indicates how long it took to render a frame.

To show this information, activate the following PAL Action Replay code.

0400C380 60000000
0400C390 3C600011
0400C3A8 3C600011
0400C3C4 3CC00011
0400C3E4 3CC00011

(Source: Ralf (GC-Forever))

Memory Leak Check

To do: Find if there's a way to make this screen do anything significant. Also check if there's a way to enable this in the prototype.

There's a memory leak check hidden in the game. On the right side shows the same list of files featured in the debug menu.

Pressing B toggles rendering the text, and pressing Start exits the screen. It seems to be non-functional in the final build: no additional information is displayed, and no other buttons do anything.

To enter this screen, activate the following PAL Action Replay code, then enter the Egg Gallery from the level select screen.

04032788 381F000A
04183274 38800016

(Source: Ralf (GC-Forever))

Regional Differences

JP	International

The egg is tilted slightly in the international logo.

JP	International

The middleware screen in the Japanese version lacks the Dolby logo and the Game Boy Advance connectivity notice.

• The Japanese and European versions have a language select menu, with the Japanese version having language options for Japanese and English.