List of Paper Mario: The Origami King pre-release and unused content

This is a list of pre-release and unused content for the game Paper Mario: The Origami King.

Concept art
As with the art gallery at the Prisma Museum in Paper Mario: Color Splash, there is an art gallery in the Musée Champignon dedicated to concept art showing various original designs for characters and locations.

The Red Streamer section shows early ideas such as:

Unused graphics
Before entering Peach's Castle for the first time, the player was originally going to have a 360-degree view of the castle as well as some models of Princess Peach, which appear unused in the game's files with different hair and jewels on her crown.

This game's models and sprites are heavily based on Paper Mario: Color Splash. Many animations from the former game are re-used, while the sprites have been redrawn. For example, paper NPCs that were enemies in Paper Mario: Color Splash retain their attacking animations and sprites, despite not appearing in battle in this game.

P_MAR_E.Default.bntx.zst and subclasses of P_KNP_E.bfres.zst, which were both used in Paper Mario: Color Splash, have all their corresponding animations in this game. This includes 2D sprites with Mario's hammer, which is 3D in Paper Mario: The Origami King.

There is a single file for a character called "KNPF": P_KNPF_Kusya.bfres.zst. It has no corresponding textures or a non-Kusya file, so there are no graphics remaining.

Sea Captain Toad's Kusya graphics (P_KNPCAP_Kusya.Default.bntx.zst) also contain two sprites of a regular Toad, one front and one back.

Every origami Toad, with the exception of the monkey, has palette swaps that are not seen in-game. These include red, yellow, blue, green, and purple, along with a "default" one that varies between models.

Origami Shy Guys (O_HEI.bfres.zst) have six color palettes: red, blue, yellow, green, pink, and black. Red and black appear as regular enemies, and Olly disguises himself as a yellow Shy Guy during the prologue. However, the blue, green, and pink variants do not appear at any point in the game.

Unused data
Among the partner IDs in the save file, there is data for a Sombrero Guy partner for Mario. This partner does not appear in battle or have any special abilities, but was presumably meant to be the one from the Canned-Food Par-tay Trio whom the player is meant to rescue along with the others.

There is also an EXP variable, which indicated the game had experience points during development. This can be found in save files as battle_win_exP.

\data\map\maplink.elf.zst contains nodes linking to unused Bossotronic rematches against all three Big Sho' Theater Paper Macho battles, the second wave of Paper Macho Shy Guys with buckets in the Fire Vellumental Cave, and the Paper Macho Mummy Goombas in the Temple of Shrooms. These can be activated by replacing event values in other Bossotronic entries, though the bosses do not appear as the links are unfinished:

Five dummy scripts are present in the game's data:
 * \script\wld\btl\enemy\btl_enemy_OnMapDummy.bin.zst
 * \script\wld\btl\enemy\boss\btl_enemy_boss_Dummy.bin.zst</tt>
 * \script\wld\fld\map\Fld_DummyScript.bin.zst</tt>
 * \script\wld\fld\mobj\mobj_dummy.bin.zst</tt>
 * \script\wld\fld\npc\npc_dummy.bin.zst</tt>

\script\wld\btl\player\btl_player_Mario.bin.zst</tt> contains a list of Mario's attacks. This includes an entry for an item known as the ElectricHammer</tt>, placed between the Ice Hammer and Mushroom. The Electric Hammer has no corresponding text or graphics beyond a particle effect for when it is used in battle.

\data\data_item.elf.zst</tt> contains unused sell prices for each item in the game, equal to the buy price divided by 5. Additionally, the Gold Boots have a price of 800 coins and the Gold Hammer has a price of 920 coins, despite these items not being sold in shops.

There is data for the small box that Bob-omb owns as a Useful Item. It has no description. Its icon is defined as Kicon_X_SMALLBOX</tt>, although this does not exist in ItemIcon.bntx.zst</tt>.

Unused text
The glossary.msbt</tt> file contains multiple item names that cannot be seen in-game: 1-Coin</tt>, 10-Coin</tt>, 100-Coin</tt>, 1000-Coin</tt>, Healing Heart</tt>, Shiny Healing Heart</tt>, <tt>Flashy Healing Heart</tt>, <tt>Star</tt>, <tt>small confetti bag</tt>, <tt>medium confetti bag</tt>, and <tt>large confetti bag</tt>. Additionally, an item called the <tt>Dirty Coin</tt> is listed between the Soul Seed and Shriveled Mushroom, suggesting it was another item that has to be thrown into the spring in Whispering Woods. This file contains battle-related text not used in the game: <tt>Arrow Panel</tt>, <tt>Hint Envelope</tt>, <tt>Treasure Chest</tt>, <tt>Magic Circle Switch</tt>, <tt>Magic Circle Panel</tt>, <tt>Action Panel</tt>, <tt>×2 Striking Power</tt>, <tt>Extra Action Panel</tt>, <tt>×1.5 Striking Power</tt>, <tt>Angry Enemy</tt>, and <tt>Damaged Weapon</tt>. Various characters' names, including Slurp Guy, Bony Beetle, Parabones, Poison Blooper, Dino Rhino, are listed despite not being visible in-game. The text string <tt>OVERLOOK</tt> is also present among the "other" section of the glossary.

Unused music
There are two music tracks that go completely unreferenced in the data files: <tt>BGM_EVT_DJ_A_W5_opus.opus</tt> and <tt>BGM_EVT_DJ_B_W5_opus.opus</tt>. They are soundalikes of "" by. The files' naming structure matches the tracks used for the Sudden Death round in Shy Guys Finish Last, with the "A" track being the lyrics and "B" being the instrumental. The "DJ" in the title seems to refer to DJ Toad, who goes by this name in <tt>\data\map\W3C4_DiscoHall\data_npc.elf.zst</tt> and <tt>\script\wld\fld\map\W3C4\W3C4_DiscoHall.bin.zst</tt>. This hints that DJ Toad might have had a song sequence with lyrics, which was cut later in development.

The track "Paper Macho Soccer" is mistakenly duplicated: the version used in-game is <tt>BGM_EVT_Samba_W1G3_opus.opus</tt>, while the unused version is <tt>BGM_EVT_W1G3_Samba_opus.opus</tt>. This is more in-line with the rest of The Origami King's sound files, which have the title first and then the level code. There are no differences between the two versions.

There is a labeling error for the track "Paper Macho Gooper Blooper". Its filename is <tt>BGM_EVT_Hariko_W1C4_opus.opus</tt>. "W1C4" is the level code for Overlook Tower, while the code for the Princess Peach is "W4C1".