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Ratatouille (GameCube, Wii, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Windows)

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Title Screen

Ratatouille

Developers: Asobo Studio, Heavy Iron Studios
Publisher: THQ
Platforms: GameCube, Wii, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Windows
Released in JP: August 2, 2007 (PS2/Wii)
Released in US: June 26, 2007
Released in EU: September 28, 2007 (PS2/Wii/Windows)
Released in FR: September 28, 2007 (PS2/GC/Wii/Windows)
Released in KR: August 10, 2007 (PS2)


AreasIcon.png This game has unused areas.
CharacterIcon.png This game has unused playable characters.
MovieIcon.png This game has unused cinematics.
TextIcon.png This game has unused text.
DebugIcon.png This game has debugging material.
LevelSelectIcon.png This game has a hidden level select.


ProtoIcon.png This game has a prototype article

Even though it sounds like "Rat" and "Patootie", which does not sound delicious, Ratatouille is a decent game based on the Pixar film Ratatouille, which is based on the French dish ratatouille.

Sub-Pages

Read about prototype versions of this game that have been released or dumped.
Prototype Info
Ratatouille gc character23.png
Unused Characters
Anyone can cook. Even a fishing rod.
Ratatouille gc unused19.png
Unused and Unseen Features
Places that no kitchen rat has ever gone before.
TextIcon.png
Unused Text
Enough text here to fill a restaurant menu.
DebugIcon.png
Debugging Features
A lot of debugging stuff still left in the game.

Removed Levels

Test Stages

In Levels.tsc in the GameCube version, there are strings referencing test stages. The files for these levels don't exist in the retail GameCube version, but can be found in the PC version.

Offset String
0x10BE Test_Mar
0x10E3 Test_Connex
0x110B Test_Nico
0x1131 Test_Julien
Hmmm...
To do:
  • Document these four test stages from the PC version.

Peeling Potatoes 2

In the finished game, there's a minigame in "Little Chef - Big Kitchen" called Peeling Potatoes, which involves the player rapidly spinning the left stick and pressing A to peel and slice potatoes, respectively. The minigame is known internally as "MG_POTA", for "minigame potato". However, there exists one instance of "MG_POTA2" within Levels.tsc in the GameCube version, and instead of being found with Peeling Potatoes, it's located with the minigames for The Deserted Kitchen instead. Although not included in the final version, source files for this minigame can be found in Asobo's leaked prototype of the game, and appears to confirm the theory that a second potatoes minigame was intended for the dinner rush at the end of the game.

Offset String
0x7CFF MG_POTA2

Dream 09 & Dream 12

Located in the WORLD folder in the root of all versions are all of the stages in the game. All 10 dream worlds are present (as "DREAM01", "DREAM02", etc.), but the list skips "DREAM09", which has no files present on the disc and almost no references to it in the code, with the counting ending at "DREAM11" to make up for it. The file Menu.tsc also has a reference to a "DREAM12" and an ordering of all dream worlds in the game indicating that Dream 9 and 12 were planned to be in included in "The City Market" and "The Desserted Kitchen" respectively. Both of these stages are accessible and somewhat playable in Asobo's prototype, and are indeed found in their suggested locations. Why they were cut is currently unknown.

Offset String
0x2BC CTDream02 DREAM02
0x2E6 CTDream03 DREAM03
0x310 CTDream05 DREAM05
0x33A KDDream01 DREAM01
0x364 KDDream04 DREAM04
0x38E KDDream06 DREAM06
0x3B8 MKDream07 DREAM07
0x3E2 MKDream08 DREAM08
0x40C MKDream09 DREAM09
0x436 KNDream10 DREAM10
0x460 KNDream11 DREAM11
0x48A KNDream12 DREAM12

Internal File Name Oddities

MB_CHASE

In all instances of Destiny River within the game's files, it is referred to either as "MB_RIVER" or just "RIVER". There is only one exception to this pattern, however, being the stage's music- which is inexplicably called "MB_CHASE". All of the chase/slide songs in the game have "chase" appended onto them, but Mabel never chases you in this game (she does in the HD version) and the world she is found in, Somewhere in France, doesn't have a chase stage or a slide. Whether or not this naming oddity is a mistake, a leftover, or entirely deliberate is unknown.

MG_FEN

Twitch has two wire connection minigames corresponding to heists. One in The City of Lights with the filename of "MG_ALARM", and the second in The City Market named "MG_FEN". While "alarm" makes sense for the version in the city, since Twitch has to set off the courtyard alarm outside of Gusteau's, "fen" doesn't appear to immediately have any connection with the second minigame, which sees Twitch starting up a forklift in order to steal Mabel's bag. It turns out that "fen" is meant to be shorthand for "Fenwick", which is a type of French forklift and what Asobo called it internally before the game released. This can be found in Asobo's prototype of the game, which has an NPC call the forklift in the stage "the Fenwick", and reveals the intent behind the "MG_FEN" labeling.

Demo Movie/Cutscene/Image Leftovers

Demo Movie Leftovers

As is often the case with games from this era, the demo reel that plays when you wait on the title screen is often recorded a decent bit in advance before the master build of a game is complete. This usually has the side effect of early and unfinished elements creeping into the final game through these cinematics. Ratatouille is no exception, and has a couple of interesting things to note.

Ratatouille gc leftover.png

In this scene, we see Remy running low on health as he tightropes across the rooftops in The City of Lights. Firstly, it is impossible to have only three health wedges by this point in the game, as the fourth one is awarded upon completing the tutorial. This is likely an indicator of active debugging, or possibly a subtle adjustment in the health system before the game's release.

Secondly, normally when Remy has only two hit points left, the two remaining health wedges will display as a rich yellow. Here, the first wedge is deep orange, and the last one is red. The change was likely made to help players more easily discern how much health they had left.

Ratatouille gc leftover2.png

Once again, by this point in the game, Remy usually has four hit points and not just three. In fact, after completing Leaky Pipes as seen here, he's awarded the fifth one.

In this next scene, there is a bright green soap bottle down on the countertop below where Remy is gliding from. In the actual game, the soap bottle is a simple reddish brown color. This change was likely made due to the fact that Dirty Dish Fright and Kitchen Chaos already use green soap bottles as a noticeable landmarks, so all of the other bottles were changed to not confuse players on what was a dream world and what wasn't.

Early Final
Ratatouille gc leftover3.png Ratatouille gc kitchenD29.png

Cutscene Leftovers

Just like the demo movie, the cutscenes appear to have been "finished" for the final game well in advance, so many more inconsistencies can be found here as well.

The window leading out to Kitchen Pipe appears to have switched hinge sides during development. In this cutscene after beating Soupy Assistance, the window is inexplicably opening from the opposite side. This could be interpreted as an animation miscommunication, but when factoring in the unseen geometry outside the window in the main game that could only reasonably be seen if the window opened from this angle, the idea that it was a deliberate decision seems more likely.

Cutscene Main Game
Ratatouille gc leftover4.png Ratatouille gc kitchenN62.png

In this back corner of the courtyard in The City of Lights, a open vent (not at all unlike the one from Kitchen Pipe) can be seen in the wall in the world's two cutscenes. This is interesting as even though in the final game there's nothing in this corner, Asobo's leaked prototype of the game reveals that this corner was once home to the old entrance to Leaky Pipes, being a large sewer drain. Whether or not the vent seen in the cutscenes is a remnant of this is currently unknown.

Cutscene Main Game
Ratatouille gc leftover7.png Ratatouille gc courtyard13.png

In the ending cutscene to Little Chef - Big Kitchen, Remy can be seen running into the closet door and slamming it from the right-hand side. If one looks closely, they can see that in reality, Remy has miraculously ripped the entire door off of its hinges and latches it back on, as the doorknob can be spotted on the door's left-hand side as it should be, even while Remy has the door open. This is a significant animation mistake as a result of changes in gameplay, as the early version of this cutscene from Asobo's prototype reveals the doorknob was once on the door's right-hand side, which would help this scene make more logical sense.

Cutscene Main Game
Ratatouille gc leftover8.png Ratatouille gc kitchenD65.png

In this cutscene from The City Market, the food case Skinner is standing next to has three parallel metal bars running across it. This is another holdover from the early builds of the game, and the final game removed them entirely.

Cutscene Main Game
Ratatouille gc leftover9.png Ratatouille gc market40.png

The Desserted Kitchen appears quite unfinished in all of its cutscenes, and showcases many inconsistencies with the in-game version and Asobo's prototype. Firstly, all of the stacks of glass bottles at the left are normally seen in Little Chef - Big Kitchen, but not here. Instead, they were switched out for kitchen wares and stacks of shipment crates.

Cutscene Main Game
Ratatouille gc leftover10.png Ratatouille gc kitchenN29.png

The closet door once had a rat hole in it for unknown reasons. It shows up in the prototype as well.

Cutscene Main Game
Ratatouille gc leftover11.png Ratatouille gc kitchenN71.png

In the main game, there isn't a broom leaning against the cake table. It was probably taken out to make reaching Emile and starting the heist slightly more difficult. Also, the rat hole in the wall by the dining room doors doesn't actually lead into the dining room itself, as is suggested in this cutscene. Rather, it goes inside the wall and leads into Gusteau's old office. The inconsistency here is likely a result of needing the whole dining room modeled for when Remy and Skinner charge into it, so the animators and modelers simply removed the wall passage to avoid conflict with the scene.

Cutscene Main Game
Ratatouille gc leftover12.png Ratatouille gc kitchenN11.png

Here, the rat hole can be seen from the dining room side of the wall.

Ratatouille gc leftover13.png

Image Leftovers

Like clockwork, a few of the game's pre-captured images hide development secrets too.

This opening splash for the dream worlds can only be seen upon your first visit to one, meaning that in order to get this image to show up, Dirty Dish Fright has to be the first dream world you visit. In this image, we can see an old spawn point for Remy, being atop the green sponge behind where he normally starts. It turns out that this spawn point is also used in the prototype, meaning that changing where Remy starts was likely a last minute change, seeing how long it was in use. Also, the barbecue forks jammed into the cutting board are solid knives in the preview image, something also reflected in the prototype.

Preview Image Main Game
Ratatouille gc leftover14.png Ratatouille gc leftover15.png

In Pasta Persuasion, we can see in the dream preview that the first star was moved from on top of the lasagna to the tightrope spaghetti ahead. It's possible more stars were moved around during that part of development as well.

Preview Image Main Game
Ratatouille gc leftover16.png Ratatouille gc leftover17.png

The mission briefing in Kitchen Pipe is different depending on whether or not you've actually entered the pipe yet. if you're still outside, then instead of showing the pipe itself, it'll show a very early version of the vent leading into it.

Preview Image Main Game
Ratatouille gc leftover18.png Ratatouille gc unused9.png

Unused Videos

  • Present in ’VIDEOS/NTSC/demo‘ in the Xbox version are leftovers from a demo.
  • Present in ’VIDEOS/NTSC‘ in the GameCube version is a Japanese version of the system's boot up warning screen, even though this version was never released in Japan.

Version Differences

  • In terms of graphics, the Xbox, Wii and PC versions are the best with the highest quality textures and lighting; PlayStation 2 is the middle ground with good textures but slightly worse lighting, though it really doesn't look much different in most cases; and GameCube is the worst with the most compressed textures and weakest lighting at some points.
  • The GameCube version is locked at 30fps while all the other console versions are locked at 60fps ...and then the PC version is locked at 500fps possibly due to the devs not expecting most at the time of release to have good enough specs to reach that high and thus not bothering to set it lower (foresight is for the weak).
  • Due to the game being mostly programmed with 60fps in mind, running the PC version above it causes slight physics differences.
  • All console versions have a draw distance system where far away objects and textures gradually fade in and out as you get near or farther from them; the PC version removed it resulting in objects instantly appearing and disappearing instead.
  • Most console versions have a 16:9 aspect ratio option in the main menu; the Wii and PC versions removed it and instead the aspect ratio on the former is based on the overall system settings and on the latter is based on the resolution selected on the separate GameSetup executable. However, the text for the option is still in their code thus making them unused.
  • The Disney Interactive Studios logo in the PS2 and Xbox versions has a dark blue color, a watery effect and it shows the full name; the Wii, GC and PC versions have the logo with a mostly white color and it's just written "Disney".
  • The music tracks in the Xbox version are stored in WAV files while all other versions use their own proprietary formats.
  • The audio for the FMV cutscenes in all languages in the console versions are encoded at 44100 Hz stereo; the english FMVs specifically in the PC version, for some reason, are at 22000 Hz mono while all other languages are the same as on consoles.
  • The audio for the demo FMV in the Wii version is encoded at 44100 Hz while all other versions have it at an astonishing low 11000 Hz.
  • The FMV cutscenes in the Wii and GC versions have a slightly higher resolution of 640x320 compared to all the others' 512x256.
  • The PS2 version has a stock image of Remy that's the first thing that appears every time the game boots up, the PC version also has the image stored at its root but it goes unused.
  • The Wii and GC versions have an unused copy of the Asobo Studio logo video named "00LOGO" whose only difference is its audio is encoded at 44100 Hz while the used one is at 48000 Hz.
  • As mentioned above, the Xbox version has leftover videos from a demo and the GC version has an unused japanese variant of its boot up warning screen.
  • The GC version has an empty text file named "rat.ini".
  • The Wii version has an unused copy of the GC version's normal boot up warning screen.
  • The Wii version has an unused copy of the demo FMV named "introsanslogo_wii".
  • The Wii version has additional minigames whose controls make heavy usage of the Wii remote. The files for them are also all present in the GC version but are unused and their size are smaller, whether that's just due to compression or there's stuff missing in them is unknown.