F-Zero Maximum Velocity

F-Zero Maximum Velocity
Also known as: F-Zero for Game Boy Advance (JP) Developer: Nd Cube Publisher: Nintendo Platform: Game Boy Advance Released in JP: March 21, 2001 Released in US: June 11, 2001 Released in EU: June 22, 2001 Released in AU: June 22, 2001 Released in CN: 2007 This game has unused music. This game has debugging material. This game has regional differences. This game has a prototype article

A launch title in most countries, that curiously ended up as the final GBA release in China six years later.

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Prototype Info

Silence

Through hex editing or patch codes, it's possible to play the multiplayer-exclusive track, "Silence - Open Circuit", in Single Player mode.

By freezing RAM address 3000C01 at 29 and opening the Pawn Cup in Training Mode, one can run a Time Trial on Silence. It always uses the Best Lap time of Tenth Zone East I (Snake Circuit) as its Best Time. Completing a Time Trial on Silence before setting any records on Tenth Zone East I will result in the Best Lap for the latter being set to 59"99.

It is also possible to view a Rankings screen for Silence by freezing RAM address 03002CA8 at 29 and viewing the Pawn Cup Rankings. However, no records of any kind can ever be made for the track. The game will display the track's name ("Open Circuit") and displays the correct horizon image, but it can't call the right location name ("Silence") and, instead, displays random tiles. As the track doesn't belong to a Cup, it also places the track name in the wrong place.

Curiously, Silence doesn't seem to have an associated music track, resulting in the background music being appropriately silent. However, this could be intentional, as the course can only be played in the game's Single-Pak mode which, due to the size limits of the Game Boy Advance's boot RAM, only transfers what's necessary to play a proper game with sound effects. F-Zero GP Legend and F-Zero Climax's Single-Pak multiplay mode are also without music and use exclusive Single-Pak courses. However, the locations for those courses - Big Blue and Fire Field, respectively - also appear during the Single Player Cups and the unique courses, themselves, will play the appropriate music if they're forced into a Single Player mode in those games.

Unused Music

There are four music tracks which go completely unused in this game.

A theme that sounds vaguely remeniscent of the original game's title theme.

A jazzy little ditty. It slightly resembles the race results tune of the final game.

An inspirational song that could either fit as a track theme or possibly an ending tune.

A somewhat nervy theme that would sound right at home in any twitchy race course.

The last tune above is located just before Empyrean Colony's theme, whereas the other three are back behind a handful of sound effects at the very beginning of the ROM's audio data.

Debug Menus

Parts of a debug menu still exist in the game, but the code that would have handled entering and exiting them appears to have been removed from all versions. One can still cheat to access them, however.

Note that, while most of the values displayed by the debug menus are editable, changing vehicle stats has no effect. That happens because the debug menu only edits a copy of the vehicle stats. At the beginning of every race the game loads stats for every vehicle into RAM and the debug menu allows you to edit those, but the game otherwise ignores them and uses the stats from ROM instead.

Debug Menu 0

These are all stats for the current vehicle.

Debug Menu 1

These are all stats for the current vehicle.

Debug Menu 2

These are all stats for the current vehicle except B, C, and D whose purposes are unknown.

Debug Menu 3

These are all stats for the current vehicle.

Debug Menu 4

These are all stats for the current vehicle except HANE, SUM, and FREQ whose purposes are unknown.

Debug Menu 5

• ROT - Determines how fast the background under the course rotates when the camera turns.
• S SP - The scale factor of the background under the course.
• CAR - The vehicle that is being played as.
• G, G DK, G BIG - These affect gravity.
• LD SH, LD P, LD R - Purpose unknown.

Debug Menu 6

These are all stats for the current vehicle that are related to its appearance.

Debug Menu 7

The number in the middle represents whether AUTO mode is enabled, wherein the player's vehicle is controlled by AI. The other two numbers represent which vehicle is being played as.

Debug Menu Cheats

To access one of the 8 debug menus in the US/EU version, use one of the following Action Replay 3 cheats during a race:

Access debug menu 0 during a race:
    7C821FD2 DDBD8045
    FA073965 8A256A62
    F7E6E2F0 EBF7FBDF
    7434FA69 D72BEB83

Access debug menu 1 during a race:
    7C821FD2 DDBD8045
    FA073965 8A256A62
    F7E6E2F0 EBF7FBDF
    A0B890CF F3EE0FF3

Access debug menu 2 during a race:
    7C821FD2 DDBD8045
    FA073965 8A256A62
    F7E6E2F0 EBF7FBDF
    01DB219C 305CAD13

Access debug menu 3 during a race:
    7C821FD2 DDBD8045
    FA073965 8A256A62
    F7E6E2F0 EBF7FBDF
    FE15E81D 8263B054

Access debug menu 4 during a race:
    7C821FD2 DDBD8045
    FA073965 8A256A62
    F7E6E2F0 EBF7FBDF
    3F134851 A9794D10

Access debug menu 5 during a race:
    7C821FD2 DDBD8045
    FA073965 8A256A62
    F7E6E2F0 EBF7FBDF
    34A799A3 50E71DDA

Access debug menu 6 during a race:
    7C821FD2 DDBD8045
    FA073965 8A256A62
    F7E6E2F0 EBF7FBDF
    CB9FC6C0 33625F70

Access debug menu 7 during a race:
    7C821FD2 DDBD8045
    FA073965 8A256A62
    F7E6E2F0 EBF7FBDF
    C48FE3BF 282F6A23

Disable debug menu during a race (not needed by some emulators):
    7C821FD2 DDBD8045
    BD78D864 18B19C55
    F7E6E2F0 EBF7FBDF
    07613020 1FCD7097

Regional Differences

Several vehicle and location names are different in the English version, from the Japanese and Chinese versions.

Vehicles

Japan/China	US/EU
Crazy Horse	Wind Walker
Dirty Joker	Sly Joker

Locations

Japan/China	US/EU
East Ten Side	Tenth Zone East
Laputan Colony	Empyrean Colony
Clouds Carpet	Cloud Carpet
Ancient Mare	Ancient Mesa

Endings

After the credits, you get a portrait of the character you picked. In the Japanese version, part of the head of the character sometimes cuts off at the top of the screen. Also, there's a line of pixels that prevent the artwork from touching the bottom screen. In the western version, the portrait is a bit smaller so it fits better, and it touches the bottom of the screen correctly.

The outfits for J.B. Crystal and Fighting Comet were modified for the western version to be less revealing:

Japan	US