List of Fighting Royale 2 pre-release and unused content

This is a list of pre-release and unused content for the game Fighting Royale 2.

Early ideas

 * Early documents indicate that Fighting Royale 2 was originally going to drift away from its Smash Bros.-esque gameplay and play more like a more traditional fighting game. It was decided against by Geo G. since, unlike Super Smash Bros., traditional fighting games like Street Fighter require knowledge about the moves and how to implement them.

Discovered in the discs files
It's no surprise that many characters would be cut from the roster, considering how many are included in the final version. Unfortunately, the only hint that these characters might have been considered to be in the game are their effects files and internal references.


 * "ligo"
 * "hiro"
 * "peri"
 * "mcone"
 * "jet"
 * "woody"
 * "melody"

There are also blanked out images where these characters would have had their name tags. The order for these name tags is the same as in the slot list.


 * "ligo" refers to Ligo, the son of Eris and a major character from the Niz Chicoloco series. According to Geo G., Ligo was meant to be playable as a small clone of Eris; the idea, however, was cut after he ran into technical issues with implementation of the idea.
 * "hiro" can be reasonably assumed to be Hiro Hamada, who appeared in the then-cancelled Universal Studios animated film Big Hero 6. The reason he was scrapped was mostly likely the film getting cancelled.
 * "peri" can be reasonably assumed to be Peri Dazz, who appeared in Universal's Computeropolis. "peri" has the most unused data out of the other scrapped characters, all of which are empty: an unused fanfare, and a graphics effect file, Peri was strongly intended for inclusion in Fighting Royale 2, but later did not make the final cut to the roster. Peri later made an appearance in Fighting Royale 3.
 * "mcone" can be reasonably assumed to be Metro Cone. While lacking some data compared to "peri", "mcone" has an unused fanfare, suggesting the character was also strongly intended for inclusion in Fighting Royale 2.
 * "jet" can be reasonably assumed to refer to be Jet Servo who is a character from Chrysocolla. However, compared to files for "mcone" and "peri", "jet" has the least data available, having only one unused character file.
 * "woody" can be most likely be assumed to be Woody Woodpecker. Similar to the first game, he was mostly cut due to time constants.
 * The identity of "melody" represents the Sanrio character My Melody. Geo G., stated My Melody was planned for inclusion for the roster as Northwood acquired the anime series for the US, however, was cut after she ran into technical issues with implementation of the idea as well as licensing issues.

The inclusion of the character files led to the formation of a downloadable content rumor that was later proven false.

Considered

 * Proteus from Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas was reportedly to be a third-party character in Fighting Royale 2, but Geo G. rejected that idea for reasons unknown, leading to him giving the role as an assist character. Proteus later became playable in Fighting Royale 3.


 * Geoff Delmer from TeenV was considered as a character in the planning stages of Fighting Royale 2, but was ultimately dropped, as Geo G. felt such a character "wasn't suited for battle". Geoff Delmer will later be playable in Fighting Royale 3.


 * Miis (for the Wii version) and Avatars (for the Xbox 360 version) were considered as playable characters in Fighting Royale 2, but were ultimately not included because Geo G. felt that "it didn't seem right at the time for Miis and Avatars to be punching and kicking". They were also cut due to online bullying.


 * Boro was considered for inclusion in Fighting Royale 2, as Geo G. knew about the character's popularity, and he also felt that Boro could easily fit the universe of the games. Plans for his inclusion, however, ultimately fell through for reasons unknown, and he was given the role of an assist character.


 * DeMille from Tomato Adventure was planned for an appearance in Fighting Royale 2, Plans for his inclusion were scrapped presumably due to rights issues involving Nintendo.


 * Ama from Ama and the Mysterious Crystal was considered as a playable character, but she was ultimately rejected due to development time concerns, as little of the pre-existing knowledge involving the Gabriel model could be applied to her new, theoretical model. Classic Gabriel was ultimately included over Ama, as his own model could rely more on the Gabriel model.


 * Zoe Tarr from Zoe Tarr: The Drinking Detective was considered as a playable character, but it was ultimately replaced by Sam Reed, as Geo G. felt that Sam Reed could "establish herself as a character better than Zoe," as well as feeling that having a sense "balance" involving the size and stages of would make the character feel deeper, resulting in her Assist role.


 * Kurenai from Red Ninja: End of Honor was considered to be playable as revealed by Geo G. in his GameSpy interview in 2009, Plans for her inclusion, however, were ultimately scrapped as Geo G. felt her game being a Tenchu rip off, She was also removed as a result of the game she appeared in being poorly received. She does appear as a cameo however.


 * Cyber-Boy was planned to be playable as it was seen in some early concept art, but for unknown reasons Cyber-Boy was scrapped.

Stages

 * In the GDC 2006 trailer, A cameo of Sinbad can be seen in the background of the stage when the Splash appears; this does not occur under normal circumstances in the final game.
 * Additionally, Battle Arena had no upper platforms when the Splash appears, showing us a flat version of the same stage.

Gameplay

 * Certain characters (specifically, those equipped with weapons or armour) have unused textures depict physical damage done to them. By examining said textures, it is shown that visible battle damage was at one point planned to be in the game. Chrysocolla Reed has a texture with large gashes over her gun, and Vio has cracked goggles. Other textures suggest that even swords would've been breakable.
 * In an article released shortly after the game, Geo G. stated the cracks and gashes were originally planned to be part of a much larger game mechanic, one that involved the breaking of character equipment. While the mechanic was never implemented, the textures incorporated for them were, as seen in the false characters of the Colliding Dimensions (however, the glow around them makes it barely noticeable). Visual damage would later be incorporated in Fighting Royale 3.
 * E3 2008 had a playable demo of Fighting Royale 2 available. This demo was lacking several starter characters: BJ and Wally, Critter Mockers, Zina and the Vivid Crew, Jenny Zoom, Vio, and Deon Splatt are all starters in the final game, but were unavailable in the demo. The demo did, however, allow Eris to be playable from the start.
 * An unfinished Assist file with Rabbit Ear Mask (under Usamimi kamen) name exists, meaning Rabbit Ear Mask was originally planned to be an Assist; it is likely that this idea was scrapped in favor of Garbage Puyo.
 * There also exists some unused palette swaps for characters on the game's disc. One such unused costume was a Punk Gabriel, under the name FitGabriel06.pac/.pcs. Unusually, this costume has its shadow model integrated into the primary model, rather than having it as a separate model.

Names

 * One minor change was made to the Friend roster before release. In a pre-release version of the game, the friend roster would display friends as "on-line" and "off-line", but in the final release, the hyphen was removed. This meant that the friend roster would instead display friends as "online" and "offline".

GDC 2006 Trailer

 * Iken's running animation displayed at the beginning is completely different to both the running animations used in its predecessor and the final game.
 * Deon Splatt's F-smash has very little ending lag, almost the same as in Gingo Fighting Royale.
 * Voice clips are in a very primitive state: all of the veterans use audio from Gingo Fighting Royale, Sinbad reuses clips from the Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas video game, and both Claire Jones and Moobin are silent save for a few almost inaudible grunts.
 * Fiox's Side-Special works in the air just like it did in the first game. It works completely different in the final.

E3 2007

 * Sound effects are still noticeably primitive, particularly for sword-based attacks. Veteran voice clips are also still in use here.
 * Perhaps the most memorable part of this trailer: BJ and Wally are shown separate in their initial reveal, a feature which was changed later on.

Gamescom 2007 trailer

 * One of Gabriel's "heavy damage" voice clips still exists in his sound bank, but goes unused until the next installment.
 * The Melody Bow from Onegai My Melody (mainly used for My Melody's magic) is clearly used as an item in this trailer, it was later scrapped when she was scrapped.
 * Jenny Zoom's Up-Special does not contain a voice clip.

E3 2008 Demo
A demo build of Fighting Royale 2 was among the many games featured on the show floor at the 2008 E3 convention in Los Angeles, featuring some significant differences to the game's final incarnation.

VS.

 * Eris is selectable by default, but has to be unlocked in the retail game.
 * Camera angles for any characters' victory poses are noticeably zoomed out on the victor.
 * The announcer's "The winner is..." voice clip occurs right as the victors' series symbol appears on-screen in this build. It occurs slightly later in the retail build, shortly after the camera zooms out.
 * The sound for scrolling through post-match stats is completely different, and isn't used at all in the retail build of the game, which instead reuses the "menu select" sound.

Colliding Dimensions

 * There is no transition between cutscenes at this point, whereas the retail build adds a brief black screen between them.
 * The character select intermissions have a "P" icon next to the characters' names. This was likely removed for redundancy, as a clearly colored player arrow already exists above the fighters.
 * HUD positions in Colliding Dimensions were altered slightly to appear less cluttered.

Hidden Developer message
A significantly hidden message can be seen in the file message.txt, noting a profanely worded message!

This weird collection of code brought to you by The Hero:

Justin Berti: "You mean my house burned down last month and I never noticed?" Luck -=Gabe=- "OH MY GOD!" Jonah: "He's all yours andrew" Dave: "Strictly corect" Platt Steve: "Angel of death" "Nesbitl" Nesbitt Stephen: "Not Stephan" Landrum George: "Why?" Chris: "Whaddya mean you took it out?" McFall Joesph: "Don't mess with my deck" Shell Comedy Central Hasbro Phil: "Wow!" Stan: "I thought you were done" Shepard Peter: "I can't believe it!"

And all those who were not in the building at 2am when the cops showed up

Call of Duty Leftovers
resident.png, gm_resident.png, and gm_resident2.png have graphics from Call of Duty, a game previously developed by Activision. It is sort of the weirdest part of the game.

metal.png
A texture for a Metal character, It was likely that there was meant to be an item where you become metal.

strap.tpl
There's an unused screen for the strap warning on the Wii version. The game uses a different, newer version of the strap screen.

Scrapped character Remnants
As stated above, My Melody was going to be in the game, but was cut due to licensing issues and a supposed technical difficulties. Her name tag can be found the character select screen's files, however, a texture file for her can be found but however, her texture file was a leftover from Hello Kitty: Roller Rescue.

Unused Cutscenes
2 unused Colliding Dimensions cutscenes can be found in the ISO, but they're just heavily corrupted duplicates of the "The Great Get Away of Sinbad" and the "Sam Reed Finds Sinbad" cutscenes in that order. They occur immediately after those respective cutscenes in memory, and have the filenames "13-00_end" and "33-01_end". (the non-corrupted cutscenes have the same filenames, only without "_end" in the titles).

Interestingly, the corrupted variant of "Sam Reed Finds Sinbad" features flash animation used than traditional animation used in-game. It was likely that the cutscenes were originally planned to be flash animated.

Early Colliding Dimensions Plans
A few cutscenes were planned for the game's Adventure mode, but never materialized. These were only uncovered once the game's director, Geo G., revealed these plans on the official website in an expository article, which also explored the motives behind each character's actions. These cutscenes were presumably scrapped very early on in development, since given the narrative presented in-game, there is nowhere these cinematics could conceivably fit within outside of flashbacks.
 * The first of these cutscenes would involve the Colliding Army launching an all-out offensive against Chrysocolla Reed to claim her famed arena as their own.

Other Miscellaneous Information

 * A screenshot shown on the official website shows the "Vio's Fortress (Gabriel Garza 2)" theme originally played on Klemos, though it plays on the Vio's Fortress stage in the final release. This change is understandable, since the theme itself is rather dark and is a stark contrast to the colorful surroundings of the former level.
 * Another screenshot shows that Chocolate Dreamland was originally going to be a track on the Sinking Spring stage. However, not only does it not appear in the game at all, it doesn't even have any internal references indicating it was ever planned to be included, quite contrary to many of the game's other cut tracks.