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Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door/Unused Graphics
This is a sub-page of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.
Miscellaneous stuff that somehow escaped the other categories.
Contents
- 1 Test Graphics
- 2 Bonetail
- 3 Dummy Texture
- 4 Green Boots
- 5 No Hit
- 6 Mario Running
- 7 Posters
- 8 Star Rod
- 9 Teaser Screen
- 10 Tubba Blubba's Heart
- 11 8-Bit Peach
- 12 Rogueport Houses
- 13 Pianta Parlor Backgrounds
- 14 Twilight Trail Background
- 15 Poshley Heights Hotel Sign
- 16 X-Naut Fortress Toiletries
- 17 Hooktail Leg Test
- 18 Audience
Test Graphics
Dated October 7, 2003, these files were among the first graphics to be put into the game.
File Name: kadono_test2
Crude images of two stars and one Mario.
File Name: nakayama_test
This file contains two 32×32 Kanji. 表 translates to "surface", and 裏 to "interior".
File Name: nakayama_test3
Only one 16×16 texture is in this file. This says "omote", or "surface".
Bonetail
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
 |
 |
File Name: c_gonbaba_z
An eye texture is present in Bonetail's file. This was not used in the final game, leaving Bonetail eyeless.
Dummy Texture
File Name: stg_03_0
This placeholder graphic translates to, appropriately enough, "dummy".
Green Boots
File Name: icon
Either this is an alternate boot color that went unused, or there was planned to be a third boot upgrade for Mario. It's possible this was the original color for the Super Boots, as those were green in Paper Mario. Its filename suggests that it is a placeholder.
No Hit
File Names: EFF_nohit, EFF_nohit_us
Text that translates to "No Hit". This was used in the original game when missing the action command with All or Nothing, but in this game nothing is shown in this scenario. The files are identical, as EFF_nohit_us was never translated.
Mario Running
File Name: menuwin.tpl
Frames for Mario running away from battle create this nifty little animation. It was made earlier in development, when they were still using the first game's style.
Posters
File Name: stg_06_3
Two unused posters can be found in Riverside Station's outdoor stage background. These two seem to be scaled-down versions of existing pictures featuring real people. Additionally, two of the used posters feature Japanese writing that is far too small to be legible in-game.
Translation:
Mario Story
The Popular Game Now On Sale
Super-Soakin' Mario's Livin' Large!!
Translation:
Happy New Year
Star Rod
File Name: c_koopa
Strangely, the Star Rod from Paper Mario is present in Bowser's texture file. It even has an updated design!
File Name: OFF_d_four_meku_5sec
A teaser screen that should be used for demo versions of the game, but it's not used there either. Odd, that. An earlier version of the title screen can (barely) be seen behind the old game logo.
Tubba Blubba's Heart
One of the images inside effect_n64.tpl is a single sprite of Tubba Blubba's Heart from Paper Mario. The graphic is shrunken down to a 32×32 size.
8-Bit Peach
File Name: d_mario-
It seems Peach was supposed to be able to use the dressing room in the X-Naut Fortress that transforms Mario and his partners into 8-bit versions. Strangely, these are the first two textures in the texture archive, before Mario.
Rogueport Houses
Hidden within the textures grouped with Rogueport are these houses, which don't appear anywhere in Rogueport itself, although differently-colored versions of the green house do appear. The white house seems to be completely unused, as it doesn't match the style of the other Rogueport houses and has an unfamiliar chimney design.
Pianta Parlor Backgrounds
yuu_02
yuu_03
File Name: yuu_02 / yuu_03
The Tube Game and Paper Game rooms (yuu_02 and yuu_03) have files for unique backgrounds. The Tube Game room, like most of the Pianta Parlor game rooms, has a modeled wall that completely hides any background. The Paper Game room has no such back wall, but the camera is lined up with the top edge of the model. By standing on the highest platform, the camera will move up a little bit and show only the very top of the background, which is just a solid color. The Paper Game background just has some simple gradients, but the Tube Game background features buildings similar to the ones seen on the interior walls of the Pianta Parlor. Compared to the Parlor's wall buildings, the buildings here have fewer, larger, colorful windows and more exaggerated angles.
Twilight Trail Background
File Name: gra_05
The last room of Twilight Trail, just before Creepy Steeple, has a unique background that is hidden behind the room's sky mesh. It features the same sky gradient as the background used in other Twilight Trail rooms, but with an added tree layer. The brown trees are notably lighter than the all-black trees that are part of the room geometry. It is possible that this was the original background used for the other rooms and the developers simply overlooked the last one due to it being hidden. The trees were likely removed to prevent the moon from overlapping them due to the moon also being part of the room geometry.
Poshley Heights Hotel Sign
File Name: pik_04
The hotel sign texture for Poshley Heights has unused lettering indicating that the sign was meant to read "Hotel Pik", fitting the area's Japanese name, Pikari Hills. However, the sign simply reads "Hotel" in all versions.
X-Naut Fortress Toiletries
File Name: aji_15
This texture is used for the pink toilet paper roll and unused geometry in the shower room. Besides the toothbrush, mug, soap bottle, and towels seen in the unused geometry, there is also a placeholder for Peach's dress.
Hooktail Leg Test
File Name: test_gon2
A rough 3D approximation of one of Hooktail's legs. The gon in the name refers to Hooktail's Japanese name, Gonbaba. The model is only a bit bigger than Mario, nowhere near Hooktail's final size.
Audience
The audience in battles has a surprising amount of unused graphics. Audience graphics are stored in battle\audience; audience_normal.tpl and audience_luigi.tpl contain the whole cast's graphics.
Generic
Generic audience graphics that have equivalents when compared to other members.
| Hold | Throw |
|---|---|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Item hold and throwing graphics for Crazee Dayzees, Bulky Bob-ombs, and Piranha Plants. These go unused because these audience members never have items to throw. Because the Piranha Plant graphics seem to be based on the Ptooie enemy, it seems likely that a harmful spike ball would have been thrown instead of something helpful. The hold Piranha Plant frame is also missing lines drawn on the leaves.
The whole cast has asleep graphics while facing the screen. While the audience will occasionally turn to face the screen, they never do this when asleep.
The whole cast also has unused graphics depicting them all dizzy, complete with front and back graphics.
Unique
Audience graphics specifically made for certain members that others do not have.
Boos have front and back graphics that seem to be for the shy behavior when looked at in the standard Super Mario platformers.
Shy Guys have a frame that seems to be for a running jump, and another frame of landing from the jump. These graphics seem perfect for when they run and jump onto the stage to cause mischief, but only the run animation is used for that event.
Bulky Bob-ombs have frames for when their fuse is lit while facing the screen. They never face the screen with a lit fuse, so this goes unused.
Luigi has two frames of running away from the screen equipped with... the Poltergust 3000!? Luigi also has a third frame where he is facing the screen with a strange expression.
Early Audience Graphics
Stored in battle\audience\audience_stg1.tpl are three sets of early audience graphics for red, blue, and green Toads. Blue and green Toads never appear in the audience at all. The stg1 in the filename implies this was for chapter 1. These early graphics are missing two graphics for cheering with one raised hand, the sleeping graphics, and the dizzy graphics.
Comparing the early red Toad graphics with the final Toad graphics gives some insight on how the audience may have changed through development.
| Back | Front | |
|---|---|---|
| Early | ||
| Final | 
|
|
The early Toad graphics have a three frame idle animation for facing both towards and away from the screen. Visible here and in other upcoming comparisons are a spot on the back of Toad's head being smaller, as well as slightly different colors across the graphics. The idle frames were likely cut due to a combination of these details being hard to see in the audience, deciding to have more than just Toads in the audience, and clever use of bobbing and leaning animations in-game to animate the audience.
| Early | |
|---|---|
| Final | 
|
The early Toad graphics also have a three frame jumping cheer animation with no frames for facing the screen. The final graphics have a single forward facing jumping cheer frame.
| Early | |
|---|---|
| Final | 
|
Both the early and final graphics have item hold and throw frames that only differ in colors and shading.
| Early | |
|---|---|
| Final | 
|
Like the above graphics, the running animation only differs in colors in shading.
| Early | |
|---|---|
| Final |  |
Finally, there is the attacked graphic. The final graphic is a single frame, while the early graphics seemed to instead be a two frame animation with front and back frames. The early graphics also have an oddly stretched fifth frame. Maybe the early graphics were trying to be like the "Too Bad!" defeated pose Mario uses in the standard Super Mario platformers?
| Early (Unused) |
||
|---|---|---|
| Hooktail (Used) |
|
|
Strangely, higher-resolution versions of the early throw and attacked graphics get used in the Hooktail battle when the Toads get eaten. These higher-resolution graphics are stored in the a\c_gonbaba4- archive.
