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Mario Kart Wii/Unused Menu Content

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This is a sub-page of Mario Kart Wii.

Hmmm...
To do:
Add a few "NULL" files scattered all over the game.

Mission Mode Button

MKWiiButtonMR.png
There is a Mission Mode button switched off on the Single Player and Multiplayer Menu. Since it lacks THPs, the movie clips that appear on the button don't fit well inside it. It also lacks text and a description of the mode. The only available evidence that it is related to Mission Mode is that it takes the player to the unused Mission Mode screens and its code name, ButtonMR, stands for Button Mission Run which is the Japanese and Korean name for Mission Mode/Missions. The button is located behind the Battle button, so if you make it appear in game, it will not fit with the other buttons.


MKWiiButtonMRMultiplayer.png
The version on the Multiplayer Menu is also located behind the Battle button. And for some odd reason, it loads the "Controller Registration" screen, despite it being codenamed ButtonMR. It could possibly be the game doesn't have a screen for it to load, so it just acts as the next button in the table, which is usually the back button. That is not the case, however, as unlike the Single Player screen, each button's linked screen is defined by its own unique code. The code for ButtonMR is different than the code for the back button, so changing the screen the button links to will not change the screen the back button is linked to. It couldn't have been initially intended to link there by the developers, because the code name is ButtonMR, and MR is short for Mission Run, so it either was a placeholder, or that's where the Mission Mode screens were initially placed. The Mission Mode screens can't load on the Multiplayer Menu, since its main archive, MenuMulti.szs, is missing necessary files.

multi_top.thp

There is an unused movie clip in /thp/button that seems to have once represented the background of the buttons on the multiplayer menu. The final game just uses the single player menu's movie clip, single_top.thp. Because of the waving flag and the coins + balloons, it is reasonable to suspect that the the back models, the animated models behind the buttons (like the flag, stopwatch, etc.), would have been on the buttons instead of behind them. It also seems to be wide enough to cover the entire buttons, while in the final game, it only covers nearly half of the button with a transparency gradient.

Interestingly, earlier version of the vehicles can be seen in this video. The balloons are also placed a bit higher than what's seen in the final game, and there are also three balloons, instead of only two (although the third one is still present in the final game).

Extra Ghost Races Button

MKWiiButtonGhostBattle.png
Normally this feature is accessible VIA the Mario Kart Channel, but it actually has a button on the Wi-Fi main menu as well. This button's codename is ButtonGhostBattle and it uses the same text ID as the button in the Mario Kart Channel. Unlike the Mission Mode button, this one isn't hiding behind another button, and if we turn it on we can see that it was supposed to be located below the Friends button. Sadly, unlike the Mission Mode one, this button has no properties linked to it, so it does nothing when pushed.

This button is referenced in the layout control file that handles the buttons shown on this menu, which is stored in /Scene/UI/Globe.szs/./button/ctrl/WifiMenuSingleTop.brctr


(Restored button / Screenshot: TheTrueScruffy)

ELO Leaderboard Button

MKWiiButtonELORanking.png
On the Online Time Trial Rankings screen is a button called ButtonELORanking, It has no text or behaviour associated with it, but from its name we can guess that it was supposed to be some sort of leaderboard for the online players with the highest ELO, which was later implemented in other games such as Mario Tennis Aces ("The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in competitor-versus-competitor games." and Nintendo probably just renamed it to VR). This feature was completely scrapped in the final game, probably because the VR system isn't the most in depth thing ever, and it was quite easy to max out your VR.

Default Drift Type Setting Button

MKWiiLicenseDriftModeButton.png
On the License Settings screen is a button called DriftMode, It has no behaviour associated with it, but it uses the same text ID as the drift selection screen. We can guess that it was supposed to be a way to set a default drift option for whenever you boot the game. In the final game, your drift mode is saved as whatever you used last, even after powering off your Wii (However, your character and vehicle choices are always set back to Mario and the Standard Kart M whenever you power on the game)

Drift Fix Buttons

MKWiiFixDriftModeScreen.png
Also on the License Settings screen are two more button layout (.brctr) files; FixDriftModeButton.brctr and FixDriftModeMovie.brctr. Loading them in-game results in this screen. The first two buttons seem to ask for a drift type, and the third button's purpose is unknown, but based on the code name, ButtonUnfix, it seems it would have once disabled the default drift selection. This is believed to be the screen DriftMode would link to.

Extra Character Buttons

MKWiiAllMiiButtons.png
On the Character Select screen, there are 4 button layout files for the three weight classes and one for both Mii outfits. There are also three separate layouts which are chosen depending on how many characters you've unlocked. On the fully unlocked screen, there are a total of 10 unused buttons. Three of the unused buttons are shared evenly across the 3 weight classes, meaning each class has an unused character. The last seven are for the Mii outfits.

It would normally be likely that the 3 unused buttons for the weight classes were just from a programmer who, while entering the number, didn't realize 0 also counted as its own button. But that is most likely not the case as this doesn't happen with any other screen layout. The buttons all merge and stack in the exact same position, which isn't a position that fits with the used buttons around it. They don't have any character IDs assigned to them. They don't have any delay for the animations when the game enters the screen, so they come on screen at the exact same time as the top row of characters, which they aren't close to at all.

The unused Mii buttons are all over the place. Their horizontal positions all appear to fit with the rest of the buttons though, which isn't the case with the other buttons. All but three of them have character IDs attached to them, including the unused Mii Outfit C IDs. Like the unused character buttons, these also have no animation delay for entering the screen, causing them to load way before all the other Mii buttons. The Mii Outfit C buttons just load the Mii Outfit A ID without modifications.

No Ghosts Screen

Hmmm...
To do:
Add picture of the Rankings menu variant of this screen.

MKWii-Noghosts.png
A screen that appears if there are no ghosts for a given course. This screen is never seen, since every course has a staff ghost on it.

Unused Rules

Team Race Rule

MKWiiRadioTeamMode.png
In the rules menu there would have been an option to select whether or not you want to play with teams. This exists for both VS and Battle, and the option didn't exist in any form for the latter in the final game, so battle mode can only be played with teams. In the final game, VS mode had a dedicated screen for selecting this rule.

Endless Race Count

The rules menu has an option to select the race count for a VS race, which maxes out at 32. The options are very restricted and are read from a table. If the value is -1, the game is half coded to have an endless race count. This option sadly only exists on the menu, and was never actually implemented. If it was fully implemented and selected, the race count number should read "Endless", but the text ID it is meant to display, 0xD7B where it is normally 0xD88, is actually blank, and the text "エンドレス" is actually one of the hidden brlyt text entries.

Choose Mii from Wii Remote

MKWiiButtonTabRemote.png
There is layout data for an additional tab to choose a Mii from a Wii Remote on the Mii selection screens (both when choosing a Mii for a license, and selecting a Mii for use in a race), named TabRemote (the existing ones are named TabWii and TabGuest). It is positioned almost in line with the console and guest buttons, though it is slightly misaligned vertically. There does not appear to be any remaining code for actually loading Miis off of a remote.

Early License Positions

Unused Used
Mario Kart Wii LicenseSelect.brctr.png Mario Kart Wii License Select screen Final.png

The file LicenseSelect.brctr in Scene/UI/Title.szs/./button/ctrl contains an early layout for the license selection screen, with the licenses being in a bit different places compared to final.

Early Licence Management Screen

MKWii FileAdminTop.png

FileAdminTop.brctr (found inside /Scene/UI/Title.szs, in /./button/ctrl) contains an early button layout for managing the creation/deletion of licences. It includes three buttons:

Button Codename Message (BMG) ID Message
ButtonCreateFile 0x836 New Licence
ButtonChangeMii 0x898 Change Mii
ButtonDeleteFile 0x837 Erase Licence

None of these buttons have any associated code, so nothing happens when pressed. In the final game, a new licence can only be created by pressing on an empty one, and it is not part of the same menu as the Change Mii and Erase Licence buttons.

Unused Title Screen Text Layout

MKWii RomData.png
RomData.brctr and RomData.brlyt, found inside /Scene/UI/Title.szs (and also in /Scene/UI/Channel.szs), in /./debug/ctrl and /./debug/blyt respectively contain an unused layout that was possibly meant for displaying text in the Title Screen. Restoring these files shows that text would have been printed at the bottom of the screen in yellow, with a smaller height than the "Press the A Button" text.

There is no code associated with these files. The text in the screenshot above is custom, meant to show how the layout looks like when restored in-game.

Early File Selection Screen

MKWii FileSelect early License Button Layout 1.png

An unused button layout exists in FileSelect.brctr, in the directory /Scene/UI/Title.szs/./button/ctrl/. It's an early version of the license selection screen, with each license having a different design, and being positioned one after the other, from top to bottom.

Each button (codenamed "ButtonFile0" to 3) has a highlighted Mii icon (likely a placeholder for the 3D Mii heads) and an empty square.

MKWii FileSelect early License Button Layout 2.png

While no text is assigned to any of these, if you manually add an entry in the aforementioned BRCTR file for rendering a text message, the text will be displayed and positioned properly inside the empty square, hinting that the Mii name is supposed to appear there. In fact, the text inside that square is limited to 10 characters, the limit for a Mii name.

MKWii FileSelect early License Button Layout 3.png

Another button exists in this layout, codenamed "ButtonCreatedFile", which may have been displayed when a new file was created.


(Source: B_squo)

Early Main Menu Button Layouts

TopMenu PlayerNumSelect WifiPlayerNumSelect MultiPlayerConfirmOK
MKWii TopMenu.png
MKWii PlayerNumSelect.png
MKWii WifiPlayerNumSelect.png
MKWii MultiPlayerConfirmOK.png

Various unused button layouts meant for the main menu screen exist in /Scene/UI/Title.szs/./button/ctrl/

  • TopMenu.brctr: Defines 4 buttons for all the game modes.
  • PlayerNumSelect.brctr: This button layout was likely intended to be used for selecting the player number for multiplayer.
  • WifiPlayerNumSelect.brctr: This button layout was likely intended to be used for selecting the player number for online play.
  • MultiPlayerConfirmOK.brctr: This button may have been intended to appear after the player selected the number of players for multiplayer. In the final game, the user transitions directly to the multiplayer menu after selecting the player number.

These layouts suggest that, earlier in development, the player may have transitioned into more menus from the main menu to select the different options. In the final version, the main menu screen contains all options available to be selected.

Early Tagname Layout

Solo Multiplayer Other racers (No Teams) Other racers (Teams)
MKWii Unused Tagname Layout3.png
MKWii Unused Tagname Layout2.png
MKWii Unused Tagname Layout4.png
MKWii Unused Tagname Layout1.png
Download.png Download chara_name_only.brlyt (Game crash fix)
File: MKWii early tagname layout patch.zip (730 B) (info)


Inside /Scene/UI/Race.szs, in /./game_image/blyt there is an unused layout file, named chara_name_only.brlyt (the used counterpart is named chara_name.brlyt), that represents an early version of the layout used to draw taglines and the other icons that are drawn with it. This file normally crashes in-game, as it is missing an entry named "handle_text" which is used for drawing the Wii Wheel icon next to the name (as it is loaded from a font file instead of an icon texture). Adding that entry back (and setting its position to 0 and scale to 1) by using a tool (such as Benzin) will make the file work. A modded version of the file can be downloaded above.

The most notable difference is how this layout loads one of the early tagname images, as well as one of the early Wii Wheel icon graphics (shown to the left of the player's icon instead of its right). The player's icon also looks smaller than in the final version.

Another difference is how this layout only prints the first four characters of the player's name, leaving a big empty space. This limit, however, makes a bit more sense when loading the layout in the Japanese and Korean versions, as four Japanese/Korean characters is the total amount of space that fits from the start of the tagname until the Wii Wheel icon.

Multiplayer (2 players) Multiplayer (4 players)
MKWii Unused Tagname Layout6.png
MKWii Unused Tagname Layout5.png

This layout is referenced by another unused file: balloon_cpu.brctr in /./game_image/ctrl inside the same file (the used version is named balloon.brctr). This file crashes when loaded in multiplayer mode, seemingly because the entry that draws the characters' icons (character_64x64_common) is missing.

Other than this, the only apparent difference seems to be the position of the tagname lines in multiplayer, as they're located in the borders of the screen in-game. This is possibly a side-effect of how the final game determines the position of these, however. In the final version, all of the multiplayer tagnames are positioned in the center in the files, and then the game seems to apply an offset to those values in order to determine the actual position. In this unused file, however, the positions are stored in the files as they should appear in the screen (in-game), and when the games applies the corresponding offsets, the resultant tagnames will appear near the borders.
If this is not taken into account, the positions seem to be the exact same as the ones in the final version.

balloon_cpu.brctr also references a few unused layout animation files in /./game_image/anim (inside the same file):

  • chara_name_only_alpha_0.brlan
  • chara_name_only_alpha_255.brlan
  • chara_name_only_fade_in_out.brlan
  • chara_name_only_text_color_blue.brlan
  • chara_name_only_text_color_red.brlan
  • chara_name_only_text_color_white.brlan

The used versions are named the same, except without the "_only". While these files are technically different from their used counterparts, no apparent differences can be found.

Test Menus

The menus from ID 0x6-F don't load properly because of missing code. These menus attempt to load the file "/Scene/UI/Test.szs" and then load the screen 0x00 by ID. Test.szs and screen ID 0x00 don't exist anymore, so it is unknown what purposes these menus had. These menus also exist in the Mario Kart Channel.