Arkista's Ring

Arkista's Ring
Developer: NMK Publisher: American Sammy Platform: NES Released in US: June 1990 This game has unused enemies. This game has unused graphics.

Arkista's Ring is an overhead action game by Sammy's American division which never saw the light of day overseas. In it you play a bow-wielding green-haired Elf named Christine on a quest to stop invading barbarians from the east and reclaim the titular artifact.

Unused Sprites

The game has many unused sprites, few of which are complete enough to have appeared in the game. The way the sprites are allocated is quite neatly segregated between the different tilesets, allowing us to pinpoint where each sprite might have been intended for use. None of the palettes seen are correct.

To do: Replace images with native resolution animations Look for proper palettes Add the unused treasure chest graphic and others

Enemies

Crab

Appears in: Grassland tileset. Given its lack of turn sprites this may have been a non-mobile projectile-firing enemy, though it's just as likely the sprites were just deleted.

Unicorn

Appears in: Grassland, Labyrinth, Graveyard. Probably unused because it looks stupid.

Mud-Man

Appears in: Grassland. The spots in the tileset where his other sprites would have gone were taken by the Flamer. Considering the lack of side sprites and behavior pattern of the Flamer that appears in-game, this creature could have possibly been the original Flamer.

Phoenix

Appears in: Grassland. This guy is right next to the flying wizard in the game's graphics and would have probably behaved similarly.

Pixie

Appears in: Grassland, Graveyard, Castle. There were plenty of pixie-type enemies in the game already, so this one is no loss.

Dinosaur

Appears in: Labyrinth. Some kind of dragon/dinosaur thing, missing half of its side movement sprites. Perhaps meant to be a boss.

Pegasus

Appears in: Labyrinth. Pegasus is just a guess as to what this winged creature could possibly be. It's missing all but 1 1/2 of its up sprites and its palette is set up differently than every other sprite in the game.

Flamer

Appears in: Graveyard. Only one of four side sprites is still present in the game's data. This enemy does make a single appearance in a single stage near the beginning of the game, but is not capable of moving left or right. Changing its behavior (0x041E) to one of an enemy which can move sideways (01, 02, 05, 06, 0E, 10, 11) gives you garbage sprites.

Wizard

Appears in: Graveyard. Could have also been an NPC.

Ghost

Appears in: Graveyard. A generic sheet over head ghost. Most of his sprites were overwritten by those of the vampire enemy. He could have been the original boss of the graveyard section.

Grand Master Fang

To do: Is there code for this?

Looks like the vampire boss was originally going to be a little more interesting than just walking up and down and shooting at you if you cross his y-axis. Sideways movement sprites as well as an animation to turn into a bat were created but never used.

NPCs

Yes, NPCs, things which don't exist at all in the actual game... of course, they could have also been just really nonthreatening enemies. The game's misused JRPG-style superficial assets and wealth of unused graphics suggest something more ambitious was planned than what we received.

Woman #1

Appears in: Grassland. Her side sprite appears in the castle tileset and is the last enemy sprite in the game's data.

Woman #2

Appears in: Grassland. Single frame of a woman.

Old Man

Appears in: Labyrinth. Looks like he might have had something important to say.

Young Man

Appears in: Labyrinth.

Map Tiles

Grave Marker

Appears in: Grassland. This thing looks like it was used, but really wasn't. One might think it's because of Nintendo's anti-religion policy, but the game is otherwise full of them.

Unused Map Tile

Appears in: Graveyard. The fence the sign appears on is used in a few places, but never this single tile with a sign on it. They likely had no use for it without a message system in place.

Ruined Door

Appears in: Castle. An alternate version of a door which does appear in the game, covered in either cracks or vegetation.

Others

Christine Kneeling

This frame of the main character's animation was deleted in every tileset except the labyrinth. This would have probably been used when recovering health at one of the crosses.

Sword

Appears in: Labyrinth. No swords appear at all in the actual game.

???

Appears in: Graveyard. It's...something. Looks like it might be part of a logo or just a scribble.

Unused Health Meter Behavior

Address $03d5 counts the number of armor pieces (max health extensions) the player has collected. This number is always initialized to one, giving you five hearts to start. Setting it to zero gives a maximum of four hearts. Interestingly, the game's manual (incorrectly) claims that you start the game with four hearts...