Go! Go! Hypergrind

Go! Go! Hypergrind
Developer: Poponchi Publisher: Atlus Platform: GameCube Released in US: November 18, 2003 This game has unused graphics. This game has unused music. This game has unused sounds.

Auditions are being held in the Toon World to find a star for Spümcø's new cartoon Go! Go! Hypergrind. This attracts a handful of goofy characters who all put their skateboarding and decapitation skills to the test in hopes of becoming the next big toon actor.

No cartoon by the name of Go! Go! Hypergrind exists in the real world.

Unused Audio

pieBgm

A rather goofy-sounding track named pieBgm exists within sound/bgm/, but is never used. The naming suggests it's used during the pie-flinging minigame in the credits sequence, but Ninjya (a performance of Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik") is used instead. Interestingly, this is the only situation Ninjya is used, with the Ninja Village act using the song titled "trick" instead.

Internally, "trick" is called WESTERN, and isn't used in the Western Film act. The Western Film act instead shares "Jam Jam Hype?!" with the Toon City act.

Demo Audio

Inside sound/voice/common.spd exists three audio clips very clearly meant to be used during a demo. They're located between four menu sounds and the "Go! Go! Hypergrind!" clip used for the title screen. This audio also goes unused in the demo found in Interactive Multi Game Demo Disc v13, the only demo of this game. Additionally, in that demo, only one mode is available.

File Name	Audio	Transcript
common#5		Okay, thanks for joining us today.
common#6		If you got the time, try another character or another mode.
common#7		And remember, this game hits the stores in November 2003.

Removed Characters

There are two empty folders within the game's character directory named f_teach and chief.

f_teach

m_teach, which does have data, is used for Kevin when he appears in the game's tutorial, and isn't meant to be controlled by the player. f_teach could've been a female alternative for Kevin.

chief

Given the naming conventions used for the characters' internal names, (Gigi is mummy, Vert is wolf, etc.) chief would have probably been a Native American-themed character.

There is more evidence to support the existence of a planned chief character. First, a palette-swapped version of Kevin's Command List image can be found inside cmlchr12.tpl, which goes unused as there is no 12th character. Additionally, Atlus's page for the game back in 2003 specifically stated "Skate as one of 12 crazy, cool competitors". However, if you include Kevin, that only makes 11 playable characters.

Kevin

While technically not unused, there's evidence to support he was originally going to be playable in all modes, and with his own slot in the character select screen. First, the way to play as him is to highlight the last character (Vert), then hold L and R when selecting them, which will trigger Kevin's character select line, even though it uses all of Vert's graphics, indicating this was a very late addition.

While Kevin does have an image for the Change menu in Free Ride Mode, he also has an unused one for Versus Mode, located inside select/CHRSEL01.tpl. This goes unused as the L + R button combination is used there too.

Additionally, if hacked into Story Mode, he can partake in Tutorial and even rank in events without issues. However, the game will crash if either a character-specific FMV plays or Offstage loads, as he lacks unique versions of those two things unlike every other character.

Error Messages

The system error messages in boot.dol are in various languages, which is odd since the rest of the game is only in English.

Oddities

Third Figures

By completing the game's Story Mode as any character, you unlock various rewards, some of which are toys the game calls "Figures" which can be viewed in the Collection menu. Ranking 1st in Round 12 will unlock the current character's first figure. Ranking 1st in Round 27 will unlock the current character's second figure. However, all characters have a third figure which is solid gold. Strangely, they appear to be impossible to unlock, as even after 100% completing the game on all difficulties as all characters, the third figure for each character will not unlock. The only known way to view them is by entering the Unlock Everything cheat code, "PANDORASBOX".

The only exception to this is Kevin, who - despite never being playable in Story Mode - has a set of three figures which can be unlocked by performing well in the Credits minigame discussed earlier. This is another piece of evidence to support Kevin originally planned as a Story Mode character, as his third figure says "Go! Go! Hypergrind Champion" on it despite not earning it by competing.

Something to note is that an unlock message exists in memory which reads "SPECIAL BONUS Earned!" which has never been legitimately triggered ingame.