The Mystery Sprites
Everyone knows that there are certain things that never make it into a game. The Triforce in Zelda for instance. We won't get a debate started about that one, I know how those can turn out, but most remember that endless arguement. There was a video of Link obtaining the three triangles together, and many automatically assumed that (even though this was a VERY early build of the game) the Triforce existed and was obtainable. Now, this can and will happen with almost any game. But, some things are put into games and never even taken out. This may be due to programmer laziness, or due to the fact that the programmers thought the game would never be hacked enough to find their leftovers. Well, this is the case with Earthbound. Several unused sprites have been found, some with explanations, some without. Here, I'll show and analyze the ones that still remain a mystery to us.
First of all, the King climbing picture. Now, this one isn't much of a mystery, but it hasn't been explained either. This is King, Ness's somewhat faithful dog. He appears to be climbing, or something to that extent, as you can see by sprite #1100 above from Tomato's ripped sprite archive. Now, there's no real way I can explain this or analyze it, he is simply climbing in a very, very weird way. Look at the below picture.
That's another sprite from the archive, of King climbing. My theory is that the artists or whoever does the sprites during the making of the game put the unused one in, trying to show King's face as he climbs. They obviously chose against this, and placed the other one in the game. Well, there's my theory. For one reason or another, they left the other one on the cartridge. While it's a shame we don't really know what in the world this sprite was for, we can still look at it and laugh.
Secondly, we've got arguably the most infamous of them all. Everdred's ghost. I have no idea what in the world this would be used for. But I have my theories, as does anybody. I think that Everdred was intented to join your party, possibly after you fight him in Twoson. (IF you were meant to fight him in Twoson) When he died, this would be his ghost. I say this because all the other characters in your party have ghosts, why not Everdred, if he joined your party? But what's really strange is the fact that Pokey and Picky don't have ghosts, and they are a part of your party at the very beginning. Now, either Everdred joined your party permanently, he joined your party temporarily but was obviously important enough to have a ghost, or something completely different. You decide.
Finally, the jumping sprites. You can see Paula's above. Now, I believe there was a part where Jeff is forced to jump a fence, so I think that his jumping sprite is explained. But what about the rest? Well, you can see them on the character naming screen before you start. Speculation has run rampant about these, but I believe that they are just the sprites from the beginning of the game. There ya go.
In conclusion, I'd like to encourage readers to send me any unused sprites I may have missed. There were others like Ness's mom sitting that I found while looking at the sprite guide, but they probably just programmed all the characters with sprites like this ahead of time, just in case they ever needed to use them. But, I may do an analysis in my next article. If you know of any I have missed, then get sending! This is EB 4 GBA, signing off.
-EB 4 GBA
P.S. I'd like to Tomato for using the Earthbound Sprite Editor to get all the sprites into a file. This article obviously wouldn't be possible without this program. I'd also like to thank Squirty for his VERY helpful sprite guide. And finally, a big thanks to PappyCat, who has posted all my articles, and will hopefully put up with all the pictures in this article. Thanks PappyCat, you rule! :)
Everyone knows that there are certain things that never make it into a game. The Triforce in Zelda for instance. We won't get a debate started about that one, I know how those can turn out, but most remember that endless arguement. There was a video of Link obtaining the three triangles together, and many automatically assumed that (even though this was a VERY early build of the game) the Triforce existed and was obtainable. Now, this can and will happen with almost any game. But, some things are put into games and never even taken out. This may be due to programmer laziness, or due to the fact that the programmers thought the game would never be hacked enough to find their leftovers. Well, this is the case with Earthbound. Several unused sprites have been found, some with explanations, some without. Here, I'll show and analyze the ones that still remain a mystery to us.
First of all, the King climbing picture. Now, this one isn't much of a mystery, but it hasn't been explained either. This is King, Ness's somewhat faithful dog. He appears to be climbing, or something to that extent, as you can see by sprite #1100 above from Tomato's ripped sprite archive. Now, there's no real way I can explain this or analyze it, he is simply climbing in a very, very weird way. Look at the below picture.
That's another sprite from the archive, of King climbing. My theory is that the artists or whoever does the sprites during the making of the game put the unused one in, trying to show King's face as he climbs. They obviously chose against this, and placed the other one in the game. Well, there's my theory. For one reason or another, they left the other one on the cartridge. While it's a shame we don't really know what in the world this sprite was for, we can still look at it and laugh.
Secondly, we've got arguably the most infamous of them all. Everdred's ghost. I have no idea what in the world this would be used for. But I have my theories, as does anybody. I think that Everdred was intented to join your party, possibly after you fight him in Twoson. (IF you were meant to fight him in Twoson) When he died, this would be his ghost. I say this because all the other characters in your party have ghosts, why not Everdred, if he joined your party? But what's really strange is the fact that Pokey and Picky don't have ghosts, and they are a part of your party at the very beginning. Now, either Everdred joined your party permanently, he joined your party temporarily but was obviously important enough to have a ghost, or something completely different. You decide.
Finally, the jumping sprites. You can see Paula's above. Now, I believe there was a part where Jeff is forced to jump a fence, so I think that his jumping sprite is explained. But what about the rest? Well, you can see them on the character naming screen before you start. Speculation has run rampant about these, but I believe that they are just the sprites from the beginning of the game. There ya go.
In conclusion, I'd like to encourage readers to send me any unused sprites I may have missed. There were others like Ness's mom sitting that I found while looking at the sprite guide, but they probably just programmed all the characters with sprites like this ahead of time, just in case they ever needed to use them. But, I may do an analysis in my next article. If you know of any I have missed, then get sending! This is EB 4 GBA, signing off.
-EB 4 GBA
P.S. I'd like to Tomato for using the Earthbound Sprite Editor to get all the sprites into a file. This article obviously wouldn't be possible without this program. I'd also like to thank Squirty for his VERY helpful sprite guide. And finally, a big thanks to PappyCat, who has posted all my articles, and will hopefully put up with all the pictures in this article. Thanks PappyCat, you rule! :)
