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New Super Mario Bros./Unused Actors And Features

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This is a sub-page of New Super Mario Bros..

Unused Actors

Enemies and objects that don't appear in the game at all.

View-Enter Flag Controller

Activates a flag (a Boolean value that other actors can be configured to act upon) when Mario enters a view. This actor's equivalent was used in all the games that succeeded this one in the series.

"And" Flag Controller

Activates a flag when two other flags are activated. This game doesn't do much with flags, but future games in this series will.

"Random" Flag Controller

Activates a random flag from a list. This one never ended up being used in the series, ever.

Rotating Log Platform

NSMB-Unused Spinning log.PNG

A glitchy, rotating log. Has two variations, one twice as long as the other.

Giant Venus Fire Trap

NSMB-GiantFirePiranhaplant.PNG

A big variation of the fire-spitting Piranha Plants. Works perfectly, which is rare for bigger versions of used enemies.

Invisible Lava Bubble

Shares most of its code with regular Lava Bubbles, but moves horizontally instead of vertically. The Pointing Ghost Hands point at it. If Mario happens to get hit by it, it briefly appears on-screen.

Jelly Bricks

New Super Mario Bros Jelly Bricks Texture.png

A set of bricks that depress when landed on, act as a very powerful springboard or just lie still. These use the same brick texture seen in the earliest videos and screenshots of this game. Very glitchy; doesn't work at all with Mini Mushrooms, for instance.

The texture this actor uses is named "sampletex2", implying that it may have just been a placeholder.

Defunct Actor 229

This actor sets a few values in memory when spawned, but seems to have no effect on the game whatsoever. It's present in the same code overlay as the above Jelly Bricks actor.

JungleKusa

NSMB JungleKusa.png

Present in pre-release screenshots, this is a simple foreground decoration piece for jungle levels. Curiously, this is implemented as a subclass of the water class, and thus retains all its functionality; you can swim in it, and it can rise or lower itself when a flag is activated.

Cloud Foregrounds

NSMB Evf tcloud1.png

Various cloud foreground effects, occupying many actor slots. Variations of these are used, but most of them are not. These appear above all models, but not 2D sprites (like Goombas) as per Nintendo DS hardware limitations, which may explain why most of them went unused.

Brick Block with ! Switch

Much like the used variations that contain P-Switches and ?-Switches.

Coin Spawner

Actor ID: 0x5C
Stage Object ID: 0xC0

Has two modes:

  1. Spawns a set number of coins at a set speed, when a flag is triggered.
  2. Spawns a coin every time a special audio sequence "event" is triggered. The event it looks for is only used in the unused sequence BGM_SAMPLE.

Maybe the game was intended to have playable coin-themed credits sequence like in the later NSMB games? NSMB2's one is the most similar to this. In that, coins spawn at fixed times in a level, so they are essentially timed to the music.


(Ed_IT: "Music mode" discovery)

Unused Actor Settings

  • Cheep Cheeps have two unused modes; one lets them skip across the surface of water, the other makes them swim around walls like an underwater Spike Top.
  • The shark enemies, Sushis, have two unused settings as well; one lets them swim back and forth, while the other shrinks them by about half.
  • Dorries always go to the right in the original game, but the actor has settings that allow it to go left. In addition, it can be made to face the background and foreground, but the collision gets really glitchy. Only two sizes are present in the actual game, but it actually has 4 presets.
  • Swoopers have an option to become giant, but the collision, once again, gets rather glitchy.
  • Wigglers also have an option to become giant, but one of the segments doesn't quite follow the rest of the body correctly. This gets fixed, however, in their angry state.
  • Trampolines can be made giant, and launch you way higher. They're a bit glitchy, however: if the player is holding run and doesn't press the jump button while jumping off of it, Mario ends up grabbing the Trampoline from under himself.
  • The tilting platform from World 7-2 has an option to go left and right, as well as descend.
  • Balloon Boos have a setting that allows them to act like regular Boos. The collision is misplaced, however.
  • Blockhoppers have an option to have their head be a brick, instead of a ? block.
  • Spinies and Boos have unused fast variations.
  • Spinning rectangle, square and triangle platforms (as seen in World 2-Tower), as well as mushroom platforms, can follow lines.
  • Expandable blocks have an option to turn used after the fourth hit.
  • Chain Chomp logs have a setting that allows them to appear Chain-Chomp-less or feature more than one Chain Chomp. However, the game by default is set to OS_Panic (run a function that intentionally crashes the game) if more than one Chain Chomp head is spawned. Additionally, more than one head makes the game crash when they're released from their pole. With a USA ROM, setting RAM address 0x02172A78 to 0xE1A00000 after entering a level re-enables the support for multiple Chomps.
  • A few actors have an option to appear when a flag is turned on, which is never used. These include Dorrie, Spin Block (spinning springboard launcher) and many others.
  • Rotating bobbing mushrooms have a unused mode; it uses the unused green 'shroom texture(l_kinoko_ashiba2.nsbtx)NSMB L kinoko ashiba2.png instead of the red 'shroom texture(l_kinoko_ashiba.nsbtx). NSMB L kinoko ashiba.png

Toadsworth

Elementary, my dear Cactus.
This needs some investigation.
Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page.
Specifically: Add more info on the Snailicorn pit despawn functionality

Toadsworth (i.e. the minigame controller actor) has an unused mode that causes the level to exit when the total number of the following enemies in-level reaches zero. In this mode, the Toadsworth model is not displayed.

Actor ID Description
44 Hammer Bro
88 Fire Bro
59 Boomerang Bro
59 Sledge Bro
46 Snailicorn

It seems likely that this is a leftover of some sort of enemy battle level type, like in Super Mario Bros. 3 (and later in New Super Mario Bros. Wii).

The Snailicorn seems to be the only enemy in the game that despawns when it falls into a pit. It's likely that the Snailicorn was programmed with this functionality so that it could be counted as "defeated" for this scrapped enemy battle mode, without the player having to use items. But as this mode goes unused, this code is redundant.

(Source: Overblade)
(Source: Original TCRF research)

Unused Actor Code

Some actors have features that can't be seen due to where they are placed or how they are programmed.

  • Trampolines can't be high jumped on by Mega Mario.
  • Skeeters can be knocked off-screen by sliding into them (200 points).
  • Unagis
    • can be knocked off-screen by sliding into them or with a shell (200 points).
    • can be "popped" by ground-pounding them (200 points).
  • Mega Unagis
    • can be knocked off-screen by sliding into them or with a shell (200 points). They can actually be KO'd again after they have already been KO'd using this method.
    • can be "popped" by ground-pounding them, but with no visible particles (200 points).
  • The round bouncy obstacles that can be found in World 1-A and other levels can be "popped" by ground-pounding them (200 points).
  • Most actors can be killed by being touched by Invincible or Mega Mario or getting the block they are standing on hit from below, even if the powerups are not usable in the level or the enemy doesn't appear on top of a block. The only boss this counts for is Bowser Jr., who can be knocked out of the level via a block or bumpable platform. The battle will not end if this is done, though.
  • Pokeys, Piranha Plants, Spinies and Spike Tops can be defeated by performing a drill spin on them by using a tornado or spin block. The only levels that actually contain both a tornado and either a Pokey or a Piranha Plant are Unused Levels 4 and 5.
  • Enemies standing on a tightrope are bounced in the opposite direction when the rope is stood on by the player.
  • Boos seems to have a broken "dance" for when the "wah" sound plays in the music. When the "wah" sound plays, the value at memory address 0x021B63E4 changes from 0 to 1 and Boos stop moving.
  • Splunkins change their scale when stomped, but they just change it to the scale that Splunkins are always at, so no resizing actually occurs.
  • Goombas reset their rotation to 0 every frame, except while they turn around after encountering a wall. Similar sprites such as Koopas do not do this.
  • If Kab-ombs are ignited while Mario is far away from them, they will run back and forth like they do if an object is in their way.
(Source: Skawo, MeroMero, Hiccup)

StageFX

The StageFX actor gets spawned with the VsTimesUp type by the Player if vsMode != 0 (DLP or dual cart) and if time is up. The actor starts by showing the TimesUp text (not visible in the video due to the fact that the OAM graphics aren't loaded), then it changes its type to Clear/Lose based on which player lost the most lives during the match. Before changing type, the actor also sets a flag that enables the rendering of some UI showing how many lives mario and luigi lost.

(Source: ItzTacos)

Unused Stage Object Slots

These actors aren't really unused, as they're all spawned in the game by other actors. They're assigned to the Stage Object table, though, which would allow them to be placed in levels independently, even though no levels use them that way.

  • Sushi.
  • Lakitu (except for in Unused VS Levels 4 and 5)
  • Pole-less Chain Chomp.
  • Flame Chomp.
  • Mario/Luigi himself is duplicated across 9 slots.

Duplicate Actors

Hmmm...
To do:
Confirm to what degree these are the same. Byte-for-byte identical code or what?

Each of these actors acts and functions exactly as the regular one seen in-game, but occupies a different slot on the actor list.

  • Fire Snake.
  • Horizontally Moving Platform.
  • Spin Block (rotating springboard launcher), with a whopping 3 duplicates.
  • Rotating spiked ? blocks, also with 3 duplicates.
  • One of the cloud foreground effects listed above.