Several signs in the game contain Easter Eggs that reference different names and other things from the original series or Generation 1 themed Transformers lore and media. A few examples are:
•"Maccadam's Vintage Oil" - A reference to a place on Planet Cybertron, equivalent to an Earth Bar, where Transformers can consume recuperating oil and that was also known as a non-conflict-zone during the Cybertronian war.
•"Bahoudin's" - An homage to the "Pearl of Bahoudin", a powerful MacGuffin from a storyline in the first Transformers animated series.
•"S. Witwicky" - A callout to Spike Witwicky, the young human protagonist from the same show, and his father Sparkplug.
•"Lander's Beverages" - a rather deep cut to one of the lead characters in the "Super God Masterforce" anime, a TV show that acted as somewhat of a sequel to the G1 cartoon that was only aired in Japan and featured "Pretenders" (such as Lander), which are Transformers that can take human form, among other things.
In Chapter 14 (The Consequences DLC), before entering the final boss fight, if the player shoots Ruvik's brain, it will trigger a fake ending with a photo of Sebastian, Joseph & Kidman congratulating the player (similar to Resident Evil (2002)'s easter egg photo of Chris & Jill congratulating the player for completing the Invisible Enemy mode. Both games are directed by Shinji Mikami.), earning a trophy/achievement called "Stick to the Script". After the credits end, it will cut back to the game where a startled Kidman will shout an expletive.
In the end credits of the Japanese release, three additional images with captions underneath them are shown during the montage of official artwork. These images appear to be drawings and fan mail sent by young Japanese fans to Capcom that influenced the game's development:
• The first image shown in the credits, submitted by 14-year-old Masahiro Onuma from Osaka, reads:
"Kobun Mole It comes out of the land on the ground, and comes out of anywhere in the cave. You can hit the body with a drill and crush the scattered soil and stones!"
This drawing appears to be the first design for the Servbot Borer that was later simplified for the final game and later modified again in Mega Man Legends 2.
• The second image, submitted by 11-year-old Takumi Miyayoshi from the Ishikawa Prefecture, reads:
"Kobun's Bomb Dummy dolls are passing one after another from right to left. (It's a bomb)"
This drawing may be the first design for the Servbot training minigame in the Gym, where a Servbot has to dodge and catch bombs volleyed at it by two other Servbots and then throw them back at targets behind them.
• The third image, submitted by 10-year-old Masashi Kaga from Tokyo, reads:
"Bonne Rocket Bazooka There is a roller under the trigger, so you can move while doing something!!"
This drawing appears to be the first design for the Bonne Bazooka, a weapon used by the Gustaff that can be developed by Servbot #31 after he obtains his skill and the Pipe from the Nakkai Ruins.
The text featured on the fan drawings themselves have been left untranslated in this submission as the pictures were scaled down to fit in the credits and thus appear smaller, grainier and more difficult to read.
When Sora holds a battering Item or certain other items (such as a Mr. Saturn) he assumes the same idle stance that he did whenever he turned into Valor Form, one of the drive forms in Kingdom Hearts II that allows him to dual-wield two Keyblades, which in turn is also the basis for one of his alternate costumes in this game.
In early pre-release screenshots and in the first playable demo of the game, Link could ride a canoe in Ordon Village's river, although this feature was removed from this area in the final game. These screenshots also suggest that the river was planned to be bigger and potentially a Fishing Hole before being sized down, although Hena's pond in the final game bears some resemblance to this area.
Interestingly, an unused yet fully implemented feature for canoes allows dogs to hop on and ride with Link on the bow, and then hop off when returning to land. However, dogs and canoes do not appear together in any location in the final game unless they are modded in. Seeing as Ordon Village has two dogs inside different houses and was originally meant to have canoes, it's possible this place would have done more with this feature before it was scrapped.
When Kirby absorbs Sora and then uses his Magic, it is immediately clear that Kirby does not get a Keyblade of his own. Instead, Kirby uses an ethereal glowing weapon that resembles a keyblade but is entirely made out of light and sparkles that changes color depending on the spell. While this can be interpreted as being a restriction by Disney over the Keyblade's imagery, Masahiro Sakurai on Twitter chalked it up to being done for lore reasons as he said "...only Keyblade Wielders can use Keyblades..." implying that Kirby isn't "chosen" as barer of one and thus has to use the three spells differently.
In one room of Spoiler:the mansion basement in Chapter 2, the player has a rare chance of seeing a grinning face appear out of bounds at the far left before quickly fading away. The face's pink and yellow eyes match those of Spamton, who by this point Spoiler:has instructed Kris to retrieve the EmptyDisk from the basement.
Disney heavily restricted the use of Mickey Mouse in the game especially as the central character like Square initially wanted. This was because Disney was nervous about the success of the game and did not want its possible failure leaving a black mark on the company and its mascot. Tetsuya Nomura stated that these contractual restrictions went so far as to have Disney allow Mickey to only make a minor cameo appearance (such as "in the background of a crowd" as Nomura put it). Spoiler:Nomura and his team got around this by having Mickey have an extremely important but brief role at the end of the game in the form of Mickey helping Sora close the Door to Darkness so no more Darkness gets out of it, separating the two. King Mickey even appears mostly in silhouette in this scene. When the first Kingdom Hearts became a humongous success for both Disney and Square, the former allowed the game developers to feature their mascot in a much more prominent role in the franchise from then onward.
There is a fifth, unused icon for the Coloring Book that resembles a small toy bear. It is unknown what this icon would have done, but as the game's graphics are uncompressed and thus take up a significant portion of the ROM, the developers likely ran out of memory and were forced to scrap it.
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A datamined text file in the PlayStation 2 version reads "CAN I SEE YOU BOOBS?" Additionally, an unused graphic exists that appears to be for said pair of boobs. It is unknown why these are in the game's files, but two possibilities suggest that it could be leftover data from the game Hunter: The Reckoning Chicago, or considering the graphic was found among computer mouse cursor icons, the boobs could actually be two different sprites of a CD meant for a loading screen.
A game with the same title was originally planned to release on the DS. In 2005, IGN got hold of an official internal Nintendo software list that revealed a number of key DS games set to be announced in the future. All of the games on the list were eventually announced and released except for one project simply titled "Metroid Dread". However, the title quickly disappeared from Nintendo's title plan lists and in magazine articles before that year's E3.
Prior to the game's console release, SNK celebrated the series' 15-year anniversary by updating the official King of Fighters website to feature images of K' and Mai Shiranui in the game's art style. This led to speculation that the two characters would be playable on the console versions of the game. This ended up being false, with both K' and Mai becoming absent from the final roster, with Elisabeth and Mature substituting as console-exclusive characters.
In the Nintendo 64 release of the game, there is a list of 2,170 names that when entered to save your high score will cause all menu text to be replaced with a string of gibberish unique to each name. Attempting to complete a Competition after doing this will likely cause the game to crash. The most popular example of this glitch is entering the name "TYR" which causes the menu text to instead display "RXJP Y HMB". The last two characters of names entered (including blank characters) that trigger this glitch act as a checksum of the preceding characters, suggesting that this glitch is a remnant of an early password system that was scrapped in favor of Controller Pak saves.
In the game's opening cutscene after Dr. Yoshiyama digitizes himself, several blocks of what seems to be gibberish appear on-screen before the computer corrupts. This gibberish is actually a secret message written in Japanese romaji and then coded through a cipher where all vowels are omitted from the text, except for when a word starts with a vowel. Decoding the message reveals what seems to be the last conversation Yoshiyama had with the C-Life woman featured in the cutscene, the mother of Pulseman, suggesting that he gave up his human life ("Do you realize what you've done? You'll never be human again now.") out of love for his creation and resulting in the conception of Pulseman. A cosmetic detail hinting at the nature of the undeciphered message being a conversation are differences in the speed at which each text box appears typed out on-screen (i.e. a slight slowdown during "I'm just a heartless program"). However, not only does this affair reveal the origin of the game's hero, it also has implications about the origin of the game's villain.
Dr. Yoshiyama's whereabouts during the events of Pulseman are never stated, but through information provided in the game's manual, it is suggested that he was corrupted during his time in cyberspace and transformed into the game's antagonist Dr. Waruyama. This theory is supported by the manual listing Yoshiyama's entry into cyberspace during the cutscene and Waruyama's birthdate, December 31, 1999, as occurring in the same year. However, Waruyama appears to be a full-grown adult by 2015 when the main events of the game take place despite technically being 16 years old and less than two years older than Pulseman.
This age discrepancy suggests that Waruyama would have to be at least a half C-Life or full C-Life himself in order for him to originally have been "born" as an adult (given that C-Lifes are computer-generated life-forms), and in this case, for him to originally have been the adult Yoshiyama. Since Yoshiyama was implied to have transformed into at least a half C-Life following the deciphered conversation, this suggests that Waruyama's "birthdate" actually refers to the exact date when Yoshiyama was transformed into Waruyama in the first place.
Additionally, there are similarities between the two names, with "Waruyama" being similar to "Bad mountain" ("悪い山" or "Warui yama"), and "Yoshiyama" appearing similar to "Pleasant mountain" ("楽しい山" or "Tanoshī yama").
The English description for the game's 2009 re-release on the Wii Virtual Console states outright that Yoshiyama did transform into Waruyama, although there are no known Japanese sources that also confirm this.
In the Rank 3 fight with Sonic Juice, the RPG Travis talks about hating is most likely Final Fantasy VII.
•The song before the fight is very similar Final Fantasy's "Prologue" theme, while the battle music seems to be a parody of Final Fantasy's battle music. •The game is mentioned as being beloved by "everyone and their mom." •Travis mentions he wouldn't play it even if they remade it. •The style and layouts the menus match Final Fantasy. •Ifrit, Bahamut, and Knights of the Round are all referenced in the Summons.
Chin's character is heavily inspired by Yuen Siu-tien's portrayal of the Qing Dynasty drunken boxer Beggar So (Sam Seed) from the Drunken Master film series.
There are many similarities between Psycho Soldier Team's design and characters from the Drunken Master film series. Kensou's character is possibly influenced by Jackie Chan's portrayal of Wong Fei-hung from the first Drunken Master film. Kensou's love of Steamed Buns is may also be a reference to a scene from the film where Chan's character attempts to steal food from a restaurant. Likewise, Athena's final design in the game is likely inspired by the lead female character from Story of the Drunken Master. Both characters were students of the Begger So in the films.
In a prototype version of the game, the Underground theme was originally meant to be an updated version of the Underground theme from Super Mario Bros. with added kick percussion, but this was scrapped in the final release. A similar-sounding Underground theme to that of Super Mario Bros. 2's prototype would end up being used in Super Mario Bros. 3.
Cammy's character, fighting style, and animations are believed by some fans to be heavily inspired by Gally, the protagonist of the 1990 manga Battle Angel Alita.
In Chapter 2, during the cutscene just before Kumatora joins the party as a permanent member, she fires PK Freeze α at Duster and Wess when they walk into the stairwell she was in, not immediately recognizing who they were. PK Freeze α costs 5 PP to use. After the cutscene ends, if you check Kumatora's status, she will have 68 PP out of 73 PP remaining.
This detail could imply one of two things: •She had her Magic Pendant equipped increasing her Maximum PP by 5 but not increasing the Total PP she already had and that the cutscene's use of PK Freeze α did nothing. OR •She did start with 73 PP without the Magic Pendant being equipped and her use of PK Freeze α during the cutscene actually did drain her Total PP by 5.
Regardless of which option was intended, both still imply that for whatever reason, the developers had the foresight to have Kumatora join the party without having a full PP meter.
In the only instance of a character having a move exclusive to VS Mode, when Yoshi is wearing Wario's Cap, he can perform an additional move called the "Swing and Fling" by picking up a stunned Yoshi, spinning around in a circle and throwing him. This move is only mentioned in the game's manual. Wario's animations when using this move share similarities to the "Wild Swing-Ding" move featured in Wario World, although the Swing and Fling does not take over spinning automatically.
Several signs in the game contain Easter Eggs that reference different names and other things from the original series or Generation 1 themed Transformers lore and media. A few examples are:
In Chapter 14 (The Consequences DLC), before entering the final boss fight, if the player shoots Ruvik's brain, it will trigger a fake ending with a photo of Sebastian, Joseph & Kidman congratulating the player (similar to Resident Evil (2002)'s easter egg photo of Chris & Jill congratulating the player for completing the Invisible Enemy mode. Both games are directed by Shinji Mikami.), earning a trophy/achievement called "Stick to the Script". After the credits end, it will cut back to the game where a startled Kidman will shout an expletive.
In the end credits of the Japanese release, three additional images with captions underneath them are shown during the montage of official artwork. These images appear to be drawings and fan mail sent by young Japanese fans to Capcom that influenced the game's development:
In early pre-release screenshots and in the first playable demo of the game, Link could ride a canoe in Ordon Village's river, although this feature was removed from this area in the final game. These screenshots also suggest that the river was planned to be bigger and potentially a Fishing Hole before being sized down, although Hena's pond in the final game bears some resemblance to this area.
When Kirby absorbs Sora and then uses his Magic, it is immediately clear that Kirby does not get a Keyblade of his own. Instead, Kirby uses an ethereal glowing weapon that resembles a keyblade but is entirely made out of light and sparkles that changes color depending on the spell. While this can be interpreted as being a restriction by Disney over the Keyblade's imagery, Masahiro Sakurai on Twitter chalked it up to being done for lore reasons as he said "...only Keyblade Wielders can use Keyblades..." implying that Kirby isn't "chosen" as barer of one and thus has to use the three spells differently.
In one room of Spoiler:the mansion basement in Chapter 2, the player has a rare chance of seeing a grinning face appear out of bounds at the far left before quickly fading away. The face's pink and yellow eyes match those of Spamton, who by this point Spoiler:has instructed Kris to retrieve the EmptyDisk from the basement.
There is a fifth, unused icon for the Coloring Book that resembles a small toy bear. It is unknown what this icon would have done, but as the game's graphics are uncompressed and thus take up a significant portion of the ROM, the developers likely ran out of memory and were forced to scrap it.
In the game's opening cutscene after Dr. Yoshiyama digitizes himself, several blocks of what seems to be gibberish appear on-screen before the computer corrupts. This gibberish is actually a secret message written in Japanese romaji and then coded through a cipher where all vowels are omitted from the text, except for when a word starts with a vowel. Decoding the message reveals what seems to be the last conversation Yoshiyama had with the C-Life woman featured in the cutscene, the mother of Pulseman, suggesting that he gave up his human life ("Do you realize what you've done? You'll never be human again now.") out of love for his creation and resulting in the conception of Pulseman. A cosmetic detail hinting at the nature of the undeciphered message being a conversation are differences in the speed at which each text box appears typed out on-screen (i.e. a slight slowdown during "I'm just a heartless program"). However, not only does this affair reveal the origin of the game's hero, it also has implications about the origin of the game's villain.
In the Rank 3 fight with Sonic Juice, the RPG Travis talks about hating is most likely Final Fantasy VII.
In the only instance of a character having a move exclusive to VS Mode, when Yoshi is wearing Wario's Cap, he can perform an additional move called the "Swing and Fling" by picking up a stunned Yoshi, spinning around in a circle and throwing him. This move is only mentioned in the game's manual. Wario's animations when using this move share similarities to the "Wild Swing-Ding" move featured in Wario World, although the Swing and Fling does not take over spinning automatically.