Prerelease and unused content in Animal Crossing

For prerelease and unused content in Doubutsu no Mori, see Prerelease and unused content in Doubutsu no Mori.

The following is a list of prerelease and unused content in Animal Crossing.

Early builds

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E3 2002

In the prerelease build of the international version of Animal Crossing shown at E3 2002, a Fireworks Festival is shown taking place on a Saturday in August like in the Japanese version, rather than on July 4 like in the final international release.^[1]

Unused content

Items

Super Mario Bros and Legend of Zelda

Super Mario Bros and Legend of Zelda

Super Mario Bros and Legend of Zelda are fully functional NES games that are unobtainable in Animal Crossing. Super Mario Bros was obtainable in Doubutsu no Mori+ via a Nintendo GameCube Memory Card that was sent to winners of a sweepstakes run by Famitsu. It is unobtainable in Animal Crossing and Legend of Zelda is unobtainable in both. Both items are lucky, have an HRA score of 1983, and sell for 10,000 Bells. Like all NES game items, Super Mario Bros and Legend of Zelda have different designs in Doubutsu no Mori+ and Animal Crossing; Legend of Zelda also contains the Disk System version of the game in Doubutsu no Mori+. Both items were completely removed in Doubutsu no Mori e+.

The fact that in Animal Crossing, Super Mario Bros and Legend of Zelda cannot be obtained via a secret code, an attribute only shared by e-Reader card items Ice Climber and Mario Bros, suggests they may have been planned to be obtained via e-Reader cards that were never released.

Another item also named "Legend of Zelda" (filename: hayakawa_famicom)^{[nb 1]} appears identical to the NES item and crashes the game when interacted with in Animal Crossing. In Doubutsu no Mori+, it is fully functional and contains the cartridge version of the game; however, it is still modeled after a Famicom Disk System.

Clothing

Eight clothing items—plum kimono, somber robe, red sweatsuit, blue sweatsuit, red puffy vest, blue puffy vest, summer robe, and bamboo robe—are worn by villagers during various events and can be obtained and worn by the player only through the use of memory editing. The plum kimono appears in the houses of Monique and Chrissy, despite being normally unobtainable as item.

Fossil bases

All eight fossil bases placed in a room

The bases for the fossils when placed as furniture appear as unobtainable furniture items. The items include tricera D, T-rex D, bronto D, ptera D, HUTABAD,^{[nb 2]} mammoth D, stego D, and stego D2, with "D" standing for display.

Unused chair

The unused chair in Doubutsu no Mori+

The unused chair (filename: sum_gst_chair01) is a fully functional ghost-themed chair in Doubutsu no Mori+. In Animal Crossing, the chair is replaced with a DUMMY model and is nonfunctional.

DUMMY items

The DUMMY model

DUMMY is an furniture item that, due to an oversight, can be obtained from igloo campers. It is a white triangle with the Japanese text "ダミー" ("dummy") on it. The model for this item is also used by several other unobtainable items, including the zabuton, chest, rack, unused dresser, unused monkey, modern den chair, golf trophy, tennis trophy, and kart trophy.^{[nb 3]} In addition to these items, many DUMMY items share names with items only present in Doubutsu no Mori+ and are likely leftovers from that version.^{[nb 4]}

Sickle

The sickle as it appears when dropped outside

The sickle is an tool that can be equipped but has no model or functionality. It appears as a net in the player's pockets and uses an otherwise unused sprite of a toolbox when dropped on the ground.^{[nb 5]}

MBG

The yellow cube moving left and right

The yellow cube as it initially appears (left) and when it becomes bright (right)

Move BG (Mbg) is a test actor which can be placed outside. Initially, it is invisible, but once the player enters a building and returns, the item becomes a dark yellow cube that moves left and right on a sine curve while rotating counter-clockwise. The block has collision and will push the player if they are in its way. Occasionally, the cube's color fades to a bright yellow, before returning to dark yellow. It was used to test background (BG) actor collision during development.

In Animal Crossing, the Mbg has a corrupted icon, and in Doubutsu no Mori e+, it uses the same icon as the mosquito.

Airplane

The icon for the mbg and airplane items

Several paper airplanes on the ground

The airplane is an unnamed item with the same inventory icon as the mbg that can also be placed outside. Like the mbg, it is initially invisible. When the player enters a building and returns, the item becomes a paper airplane. If the player presses A while standing on the paper airplane, it will disappear, indicating that the player has picked it up. After doing so, if Z is held and the Control Stick is flicked, the airplane will fly from the player as if being thrown; the trajectory and distance it is thrown depends on how the Control Stick was flicked. Once the paper airplane lands, the player is unable to move, softlocking the game.

Each time the player enters a building and returns, the number of paper airplanes doubles. This repeats indefinitely, until the game crashes due to the number of objects rendered.

Like the mbg, the airplane has a corrupted icon in Animal Crossing and uses the mosquito's icon in Doubutsu no Mori e+.

Corrupted or unusable items

There are several items normally unobtainable that have corrupted or missing names, or that have no function. Some are indeed used in game, but never appear in the player's pockets.

The unique icon for "Unknown"

"Unknown" is an item with a unique icon in the player's pockets that cannot be interacted with within their pockets.
The following items reuse existing icons and have corrupted English names:

§ÿ³„Ñ à – uses the icon of an unopened letter; Japanese name is クエストてがみ (quest letter)
§ÿ³„ÕØ – uses the icon of an item of clothing; Japanese name is クエストぬの (quest clothes)
§ÿ³„ÁÂÖ – uses the icon of 1,000 Bells; Japanese name is クエストおかね (quest money)
money1000Bell – uses the icon of 1,000 Bells; Japanese name is おかね1000ベル (1,000 Bells of money) — this is the item handed to Tom Nook at the start of the game, disguised as "1,000 Bells."
ÁàÅ – uses the icon of a Pitfall; Japanese name is おみくじ (omikuji) — this is the item seen handed to the player by Katrina on New Year's Day, however instead of going to their item inventory they will get the fortune as a letter.
🗙♀☂Þ🐷 – uses the icon of a Present; Japanese name is ムラノまっぷ (town map) — this is the map item Tom Nook hands the player during their part-time job allowing them to access the map, however it never appears in their inventory.

The unnamed "bluefish" item

An unnamed item, colloquially known as the "bluefish", can be dropped outside, where it has a unique sprite of a fish. Once dropped, it cannot be picked up.

Characters

Shaki

Main article: Shaki

Shaki (シャキッ) is a unused squirrel character. Through memory editing, her model can appear in the game in place of another character, though she has no unique dialogue or functionality. She can either have the name "Kù«–•B¡¡" or "Jambette" depending on which memory address she is spawned in, and she will use Kapp'n's dialogue.

Debug Gyroid

The debug Gyroid, as it appears in Animal Crossing

The debug Gyroid is an unused Gyroid Assistant that appears in various test maps. It cycles through multiple corrupted textures and it always shows a blank dialogue bubble when interacted with. Its name is corrupted, and it displays as "ù«–•B¡¡". It has no animations.

In Doubutsu no Mori, the Gyroid is textured normally and its name is not corrupted. It is called "ジョニーB", which translates to "Joni B" or "Johnny B." When spoken to, the Gyroid has multiple dialogue options that are for debugging text commands. Some seem to be nonsensical, such as the Japanese hiragana "あ" repeated 64 times. Notably, in one of the dialogue options that tests inserting strings into dialogue, the Gyroid mentions the PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast, which were competing video game consoles at the time. Much like its appearance in Animal Crossing, the Gyroid has no animations and sits completely still. A transcript and English translation of all of the debug Gyroid's dialogue can be found here.

Text

Two messages that mention E3 exist within the game's data but remain unused:

"I'm terribly sorry, but since E3 is being held today, We're not accepting any letters. I apologize for the inconvenience."
"Listen, E3 is being held today. We don't save letters during E3. (We're just too busy!)"

Given the content of the messages, it is likely they were planned for an E3 demo and were meant to be spoken by Pelly or Phyllis if the player were to attempt to send or save letters.