There are eight profanity-laden unused quit messages defined in the game's source code. One of these messages refers to a person named "Ron", who designer John Romero later identified in a 1998 interview as Ron Chaimowitz, CEO of GT Interactive. The first seven messages are under a comment saying "FinalDOOM?", but this was added by Bernd Kreimeier when he was cleaning the source for release to the public. These messages were never intended for the game Final Doom; they were "development mode only" messages written by John Romero.
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Present in the game's ROM is a song written by designer Hiroshi Minami called "MIYAZAKI", about the Japanese serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki, whose crimes that took the lives and exploited the bodies of four children were the subject of widespread media attention around the time the game was released.
The Sega Saturn version of the game contains hidden files that can only be accessed when loading the game disc on a PC. 15 pieces of character artwork and a text document containing messages from 13 of the Saturn version's developers including graphic artists, members of the sound team, and programmers can be found. The messages contain insights about their duties, goals and struggles in porting the game from the PlayStation to the inferior Saturn, with several members of the staff having just entered the video game industry and joined Konami prior to work starting on the port. Collectively, they had mixed to positive feelings about the final result, with most being happy with their work, while others feeling they had failed to live up to the PlayStation version. Regardless, much of the staff thanked players for playing the game and encouraged them to mail feedback to them at Konami.
Two notable details from these messages include:
•A story/rant shared by programmer Hideto Imai in the last and longest message about his experience in violating Japan's Motor Vehicle Storage Act by parking his car curbside while staying at his in-laws during development.
•A scrapped character idea shared by graphic designer Yoshinori Suzuki:
"There's actually another version of Maria with a full set of graphics different from the one the player meets in the actual game. It ended up going unused. It might've been neat if she had been used, though. Because she was a dark version of Maria, the opposite to the light version of Maria, her attacks and such would have been entirely different. Go ahead and imagine for yourselves what she might have been like. (Perhaps, if she'd appeared in the game, she'd have been called Black Maria?)"
There is an unused character with unfinished dialogue in the game's files that likely would have been a potential marriage candidate: Princess Vanilla from the mythical Prune Kingdom. Her general storyline prior to the unused event "Princess Vanilla and the Turtle" features her getting kidnapped by a mole, being cursed to take the form of a turtle, and was going to be forced to marry a frog in this form. The player finds the princess after she had been talking to the Harvest Sprites. She explains in the event that she has not been seen in a long time by humans, but all the bachelorettes seem to have the ability to see her. If he chooses to pick her up, despite her warnings that her curse is transferable by touch, he will become a turtle as well. After this, the player learns from her that the only person that can reverse the curse is a friend, and he proceeds to wander around and talk to the villagers so they can react to him. Eventually, upon interacting with the bachelorette the player has the highest affection with, he returns to normal, and proceeds to turn the princess back into a human as well. From then on, Princess Vanilla stays in Flowerbud as a regular character and seems to have the same amount of events that the other marriage candidates have as your relationship progresses, including special scenes with all five bachelorettes and a line about having a child with the player.
A pair of unused text files featuring an abstract of the game's plot and a short list of developer credits can be found in the game's data:
•abstract.txt:
THE APPRENTICE This is the story of a week in the life of the wizards apprentice, Marvin. You must successfully complete the tasks set for you by Gandorph S. Wandburner. This will take you to many different places and you will have to solve various puzzles and defeat numerous enemies to accomplish your tasks.
•bibliographic.txt:
The Apprentice Programming by Tim Moss Graphics by Luke Verhulst Game design by Luke Verhulst and Tim Moss Music by Joost Egmond
A 1994 Vision Factory production in cooperation with Philips Interative Media inc.
The internal name for the Alaska level on the game disc is "05_GREENLAND". this suggests that the level was originally going to be themed around and take place in the Dutch-owned island of Greenland instead of the U.S. state of Alaska.
Also, internal file names for the Pacific Island level ("07_EASTERISLAND") reveal that it was possibly supposed to be Easter Island (Rapa Nui).
There is an unused Game Modes tab on the disc that comes with data suggesting that there were other game modes planned like "Boss Mode" and "Explore Mode", however no further data exists on these modes.
There are a total of 21 unused Mini-Cons in the game's data, some of which appear as text strings while the rest appear to resemble JSON files. However, two were extensively worked on before being scrapped. The first one was called "Endgame" and would have summoned large "holes in the fabric of space" that would have sucked enemies and objects into them. The second dropped Mini-Con is called "Bug-Out" and would have called upon "Emergency Warp Gates". Although Endgame was scrapped, his model was reused for in-game Mini-Cons Discord, Twister, and Overwatch.
There are cut Transmission logs in the game's data that took the form of Autobots frantically and intensely contacting Optimus and the crew from Iacon on Cybertron about the planet Junkion, a key planet from Transformers lore that contains a robotic race of technologically-adept robots. These logs would have featured Autobot characters not in the final game at all, including Scavenger, Jetfire, Smokescreen, Sideswipe, and Blurr. Another thing about the logs is that they also would have revealed the origin of the Decepticlones: Megatron took advantage of the Junkion's inventive prowess and their "Hyper Power" cloning technology to make his near unstoppable army. Spoiler:The off-world Autobots would have also warned Optimus and the Earth team about Unicron's arrival to Cybertron when the Earth team arrived at Pacific Island.
The game went through a number of early titles throughout development including "Transformers Armada" (which was the name shipped with review copies of the game), "Transformers Armada: The Battle for Energon" and "Transformers Armada: Prelude to Energon", all of which bear the name of the show and toy line that it's based upon. However, when the game was launched at retail, the name was changed to just "Transformers" for unknown reasons.
Spamton has unused dialogue for Spoiler:if the player doesn't have enough Dark Dollars to buy the ThornRing from him on the Weird Route in Chapter 2, responding to their predicament with "[Money] NO". In normal gameplay, Spoiler:the player is always guaranteed to have at least $1997 at this point, making this text impossible to see without hacking.
The game was originally going to have a much more dramatic, serious, and cinematic story than the simple one it has in the final game which would have also featured much more characters from the Transformers: Armada TV Show and toyline. Even show-exclusive human characters Rad, Carlos, and Alexis were going to appear in the storyline as well more Transformers on either side, different locations and wildly different scenarios among other things. This can all be seen hidden in a lengthy script in the game's data by a programmer who kept it in "for memory's sake".
Prior to Version 1.08, Chapter 2 contained unused data for Susie gaining a plushie of herself in her room should Kris give her Queen's gift during the party's reunion at the Cyber City carnival. Adding the Susie plushie back in and interacting with it results in unique dialogue between Susie and Ralsei commenting on it.
In a tweet posted off the heels of Chapter 2's release, graphic designer Temmie Chang showcased not only the sprite for the Susie plushie, but also sprites for a Ralsei plushie and a Noelle plushie, indicating that Queen's gift was originally planned to morph into the likeness of whoever the player decides to give it to. In normal gameplay, the only selectable character who opens the gift is Berdly, who finds a plushie of himself with nipples.
Version 1.08 fixed a glitch that prevented the Susie plushie from appearing in her room (the acid tunnel sequence resetting Flag 307 to Flag 1). However, the dialogue associated with it still does not appear when the plushie is checked. Save files that were patched after completing the acid tunnel are unaffected, requiring the player to erase the file and start over in order to encounter the plushie on it.
Within the files for Chapter 1 is an usused dialogue chain that simply reads "Blaze it." before opening a prompt where the player must choose between "Blaze" and "Do Not Blaze"; both options do nothing. The dialogue has an ID number of 420, which combined with its contents references the famous stoner catchphrase "420 Blaze It."
Within the files for Chapter 1 is unused battle data, including graphics and text, for a fight against Ralsei. As the unused text includes mentions of the training dummy seen in the final game, this data suggests that the game's combat tutorial would've originally seen Ralsei partner with the dummy instead of with Kris.
In the Alpha build of the game and its E3 2015 demo, it would have originally revealed storyelements in the form of "Epitaphs", small gravestones spread throughout Lothric which upon offering a flame to it will display a text blurb with a lore-related message on each. In the English version of the Alpha build, some Epitaphs have no text due to the feature having been scrapped by that time, however in the Japanese version of the Alpha build, the data for all Epitaph texts and most of their physical placements on the game's map exist, albeit some are out of bounds or clustered together as their locations had not been finalized before being scrapped.
Within the files for Chapter 2 is a fully-written recruit bio for Spoiler:Jevil, the hidden boss of Chapter 1; this cannot normally be accessed even if the player pacifies him in Chapter 1 and imports the resulting save file to Chapter 2.
Curiously, although recruiting enemies requires sparing or pacifying them, Spoiler:Jevil's bio mentions the Devilsknife item earned from defeating him violently, rather than the Jevilstail item earned from pacifying him.
In the Windows version of the game, there is an unused text file with instructions on how to use an in-game level editor. This editor is not present in the final release, presumably having been either a planned feature or an internal tool used to develop the game.
The in-game description for the Ability "Levitate" used since Generation IV states that it makes the Pokemon that knows it completely immune to all Ground-type attacks. However, this is false, because in all games since the Ability's introduction in Generation III, a Pokemon that has Levitate can still get hit and affected by non-damaging Ground-type attacks, such as Sand Attack. This means that the Ability only makes its Pokemon immune to damaging Ground-type attacks, such as Earthquake and Earth Power among others, and not ones that do not affect the Pokemon's HP.
There is an unused character with unfinished dialogue in the game's files that likely would have been a potential marriage candidate: Princess Vanilla from the mythical Prune Kingdom. Her general storyline prior to the unused event "Princess Vanilla and the Turtle" features her getting kidnapped by a mole, being cursed to take the form of a turtle, and was going to be forced to marry a frog in this form. The player finds the princess after she had been talking to the Harvest Sprites. She explains in the event that she has not been seen in a long time by humans, but all the bachelorettes seem to have the ability to see her. If he chooses to pick her up, despite her warnings that her curse is transferable by touch, he will become a turtle as well. After this, the player learns from her that the only person that can reverse the curse is a friend, and he proceeds to wander around and talk to the villagers so they can react to him. Eventually, upon interacting with the bachelorette the player has the highest affection with, he returns to normal, and proceeds to turn the princess back into a human as well. From then on, Princess Vanilla stays in Flowerbud as a regular character and seems to have the same amount of events that the other marriage candidates have as your relationship progresses, including special scenes with all five bachelorettes and a line about having a child with the player.
There is an unused Game Modes tab on the disc that comes with data suggesting that there were other game modes planned like "Boss Mode" and "Explore Mode", however no further data exists on these modes.
Prior to Version 1.08, Chapter 2 contained unused data for Susie gaining a plushie of herself in her room should Kris give her Queen's gift during the party's reunion at the Cyber City carnival. Adding the Susie plushie back in and interacting with it results in unique dialogue between Susie and Ralsei commenting on it.
Within the files for Chapter 1 is unused battle data, including graphics and text, for a fight against Ralsei. As the unused text includes mentions of the training dummy seen in the final game, this data suggests that the game's combat tutorial would've originally seen Ralsei partner with the dummy instead of with Kris.
Within the files for Chapter 2 is a fully-written recruit bio for Spoiler:Jevil, the hidden boss of Chapter 1; this cannot normally be accessed even if the player pacifies him in Chapter 1 and imports the resulting save file to Chapter 2.