List of Mario Party 9 pre-release and unused content
It has been requested that this article be rewritten and expanded to include more information. Reason: June 24, 2015
This is a list of pre-release and unused content for the game Mario Party 9.
Stages
Toad Road had a much simpler design. One will notice that there are no Green Spaces or Mini Star/Mini Ztar Spaces, but there are instead Blue Spaces. Mini Stars and Mini Ztars were only seen to be in one number, rather than three, five and ten. The unbroken bridge seen in the image is broken in the final game, yet there are still spaces underneath the bridge; it is likely that the spaces on the bridge were event spaces that would cause the bridge to collapse if landed on. The vine is placed near the upper-left corner of the mountain instead of the spiral hill in front of the fort. A Lakitu is seen above the fort, possibly to symbolize the mid-boss of the fort is Lakitu. Additionally, on the final board, there are two rock formations on the tops of the mountains that form the letters "MP"; no such rock formations are seen on the original board.
The center of the stage has a circular island that was later moved to the forest part of the stage in the final game, and was replaced with an island in the shape of a "9". It is unknown how to get there, although a Warp Cannon can be seen near a Lucky Space, indicating that the island (including the rocky mountain with a water slide) can be reached through the cannon. The Bowser Gate is not at the end of stage. There is also no Green Toad near the end of the stage, indicating that the early game did not have an "Almost There!" event.
Also, an earlier design of Toad Road featured three mountains and a different route the players would take. It had different textures and at the end where the boss was fought it had an image of Wiggler whose artwork looked identical to its Super Mario World artwork. Also, Unlucky Spaces were more common in the early version.
Unlucky Space Routes
Princess Peach takes a route that is not seen in the final game. Green Spaces are only seen here.
Minigames
A minigame involving two players attempting to capture Bowser Jr. in a mountain-like maze is not in the final game. This minigame was most likely replaced by Zoom Room, which has a similar objective.
In Goomba Bowling, the players' tally increased when they hit a Goomba. In the final version, the tally only increases when the turn ends.
In Growing Up, the bar that displays the round numbers appeared different from the one that's in the final version.
In boss minigames, the health of the boss doesn't appear.
Spaces
Some spaces were left in the game's file but were never used. This includes a file that seems to be from early in the game's life cycle. These spaces include a Blue Space, a red Back Space, a Lucky Space, a Dry Bones space, a Dice Block space, a Happening Space, a swirling space, a blue arrow space, a VS Space, a Bowser Space, a Shuffle Space, a space with two hands coming together, a Star Space, a Ztar Space, and an orange space. The game stores all of these spaces in one big texture image.
The early Bowser Space seen here can still be seen in the newest image of Toad Road.
There is another file that includes newer spaces that resemble the game's final spaces. The game stores a file for spaces that are big. Oddly, these spaces are very small. These spaces include a Red Space, a +3 Jackpot Space, a +5 Magma Space, a Stop Space (its filename is "stop"), a space with plenty of Mini Ztars. The +10 Mini Stars Space and +10 Mini Ztars Space do have bigger variations, but were scaled down to fit in a single image.
Other
The HUD only displayed how many Mini Stars a player had, instead of a Dice Block. The characters' faces are also facing right, while in the final version they are facing forward. Spaces were also brighter in color in the pre-release version. The Dice Block was designed a bit differently; it lacked the aesthetic effects of the final Dice Block. Also in the up right corner of the screen appears how many spaces left for a group of mini stars. The tallies, space warnings and the Dice Blocks used the Super Mario Galaxy tallies typeface, but was changed in the final version.
Characters
Bowser Jr. could have possibly been playable or simply a rival in Solo Mode as there is unused vehicle animations in his motion file found in the game. It's possible that it was also for usage during testing.
Gallery
An earlier version of the North American box art. Notice Luigi is not on the cover
Original logo shown at E3 2011
The spinning dice tells players how much moving they got when they hit the box
The characters in the car are moving an amount of moves they received
Characters in the car
Moving forward after rolling the dice block
The original version of Growing Up
An early version of Bumper Sparks. Notice that Bowser Jr.'s icon looks different from that of the final version on the screenshot
