Death Jr.: Root of Evil

The continuing adventures of the underachieving son of the Grim Reaper and his assorted monster-y buddies. Death Jr.: Root of Evil is the enhanced Wii port of the PSP's Death Jr. II, with added infra-red and waggle support.

Unused Text#

All of the game's text is conveniently stored as plaintext in /text/str_en.txt (English) and indexed in the nearby str_ind.txt.

Demo Strings#

Several sections are leftover from pre-release demonstration versions of the game, perhaps intended for one or more trade shows.

Lines 147—150
`DJW_465 DJW_466a DJW_466b DJW_467`
Lines 324—339
`DJW_Adlib_001 DJW_Adlib_002 DJW_Adlib_003 DJW_Adlib_004 DJW_Adlib_005 DJW_Adlib_006 DJW_Adlib_007 DJW_Adlib_008 DJW_Adlib_009 DJW_Adlib_010 DJW_Adlib_011 DJW_Adlib_012 DJW_Adlib_013 DJW_Adlib_014 DJW_Adlib_015 DJW_Adlib_016`
DJ is the protagonist, Death Jr.'s nickname.
Lines 996—997
`PDW_321 PDW_322`
Lines 1082—1096
`PDW_Adlib_001 PDW_Adlib_002 PDW_Adlib_003 PDW_Adlib_004 PDW_Adlib_005 PDW_Adlib_006 PDW_Adlib_007 PDW_Adlib_008 PDW_Adlib_009 PDW_Adlib_010 PDW_Adlib_011 PDW_Adlib_012 PDW_Adlib_013 PDW_Adlib_014 PDW_Adlib_015`
Looks like the game's main cast going trick-or-treating. Note the typo in the first line of dialogue: "Why are so nervous ..."
Lines 1359—1379
`SmithW_685 SmithW_686 SmithW_688 SmithW_690 SmithW_692 SmithW_694 SmithW_696 SmithW_698 SmithW_700 SmithW_702 SmithW_704 SmithW_706 SmithW_708 SmithW_711a SmithW_711b SmithW_711c SmithW_711d SmithW_713 SmithW_715 SmithW_716 SmithW_719`
Half of a conversation between the conjoined twin brothers, Smith and Weston. These are Smith's lines (see below for Weston's).
Lines 2396—2412
`WestonW_687 WestonW_689 WestonW_691 WestonW_693 WestonW_695 WestonW_697 WestonW_699 WestonW_701 WestonW_703 WestonW_705 WestonW_707 WestonW_709 WestonW_710 WestonW_712 WestonW_714 WestonW_717 WestonW_718`
The other half of the conversation between Smith and Weston. These are Weston's lines; they form a whole conversation when combined with Smith's lines in numerical order. It's not entirely clear whether "Spit-Screen" is a typo or a joke, given the game's style. "Wii Zapper ready!" is interesting, as the game is a poor candidate for Zapper play due to its use of the Wii Remote's face buttons; the game ultimately wasn't marketed as having Zapper support. It is possible that the Wii port was in development before the Zapper's form was decided upon—its final design was revealed to the public about nine months after the PSP release and ten months before the Wii version.

PSP Leftovers#

A number of features specific to the PSP version still have their strings in the game's text file.

Lines 714—721
`NetOpt_ConnectionLost NetOpt_QuitGame NetOpt_Retry NetOpt_SaveGame NetOpt_UIFatal NetOpt_UIReturnToMain NetOpt_WLAN_Off NetWaitSync`
These strings are leftovers from the ad-hoc wifi mode included in the PSP game; the Wii version has split-screen multiplayer instead. There are a massive number of related strings, e.g. for hosting and joining games, which aren't listed here.
Lines 847 & 852
`OPTIONS_ShoulderButtons OPTIONS_Swapped`
This setting on the options screen for swapping the camera controls on the PSP triggers is obviously not used in the Wii game. There's no equivalent feature on Wii, which uses + and - for the camera.
Lines 1851—1854
`Upgrade_Screen_Build Upgrade_Screen_Cant_Afford Upgrade_Screen_Cant_Afford_Ammo Upgrade_Screen_Cant_Afford_Combo`
In the PSP version, all weapons, attacks and ammo had to be purchased using collectible "energy" orbs. The Wii version still includes energy but it's kept as a running tally with moves unlocking as the required amount is reached. Weapons are automatically built once their parts are collected, and ammo is simply found in crates. There are many related strings which aren't listed here.

Early Remnants#

Some strings remain from very early in development, apparently before even the PSP release.

Lines 1527—1530
`UI_Difficulty0 UI_Difficulty1 UI_Difficulty2 UI_Difficulty3`
These early difficulty names are not used in either the PSP or Wii versions; instead, the difficulties are "Lively", "Healthy", "Sickly" and "Deathly".