Unused Graphics

This is a sub-page of Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance.

Early Map Icons#

Traverse Town: Third District Map#

Early	Final

63-nd_04_00.ctt contains an early map of the third district in Traverse Town. The map is darker, there's only one entrance and exit to the second district, the brown roofs at the edges of the map are non-existent, the rails aren't blue, the map was rotated, and there's three blue fences next to the electricity panel. Closer inspection reveals that is this is an actual leftover map from the build seen in the January 2011 Trailer. Lastly, this map is in a folder specifically for La Cité des Cloches ("nd" being the aberration for the world), meaning that it was used as a placeholder while the world was in development or La Cité des Cloches was the very first world made for the game and Traverse Town was temporarily sharing the same world ID, given both were made and shown-off rather early in marketing before the game even reached 60-70% completion¹.

Traverse Town: Fourth District Map#

Early	Final

162-nd_04_01.ctt contains a slightly early map of the fourth district in Traverse Town. The map is darker, lamps are given a light hue surrounding them, and the white void entrance to the Flick Rush minigame is there instead of being gone in the final map. Like with the third district, this map is in a folder for La Cité des Cloches despite never appearing in that world.

Traverse Town: Fifth District Map#

Early	Final

398-nd_04_02.ctt contains an early map of the fifth district in Traverse Town, which went through a large overhaul. The main building is colored with green instead of pink, lamps were placed in the water to illuminate it, the boxes are colored cream, the glass interior was changed slightly, there's no lights from the buildings and the most significant change is that there is a second entrance to the garden on the right, unlike the final game, which has only one entrance and exit to the garden. Also like with the third and fourth district, this map is in a folder for La Cité des Cloches.

La Cité des Cloches: Square Map#

Early	Final

767-nd_01_00.ctt contains a slightly early map for the square in La Cité des Cloches. The roof is a part of the map instead of being in its own separate map, various buildings appear around the edges of the map, objects are in different spots, and shadowing was slightly changed. Just like with the third district in Traverse Town, this is a leftover map from the January 2011 trailer, where Sora can be seen jumping off the roof to land in the square.

La Cité des Cloches: Town Map#

Early	Final

351-nd_10_00.ctt contains a map for the town in La Cité des Cloches that's outright unrecognizable from the final map. It looks like the original idea was for the area to be much bigger, having multiple paths to enter the outskirts. Various buildings are also haphazardly placed out of bounds, which is in line with the overall unfinished feel of the map.

La Cité des Cloches: Court of Miracles Map#

Early	Final

455-nd_09_00.ctt contains an early map of the Court of Miracles in La Cité des Cloches. The umbrellas are pink instead of orange, the room is brighter, there are thirteen green carts (Organization XIII, anyone?) instead of four, the map is rotated, and six black holes are placed in random spots.

Country of the Musketeers: Dungeon Map#

Early	Final

326-tm_07_01.ctt contains an early map of the Dungeon in Country of the Musketeers. The map is mostly finalized, but it is brighter, the right exit doesn't fade to black, and a board covering the shallow stream is missing.

The World That Never Was: Unknown Map and "nv" World#

484-nv_map.ctt contains a map graphic that, strangely, only appears in "EH15", which is the cutscene where Sora see multiple versions of himself in the first district of Traverse Town. The map strongly resembles the Solar Sailer's map from The Grid. The file name has the abbreviation "nv", which is not used by any of the other worlds. It's possible this file was for a world that was scrapped during development.

Miscellaneous#

La Cité des Cloches Cutscene Placeholder#

Early	Final

114-gra_s_02.ctt contains a placeholder graphic for the cutscene viewer, with the only difference being the number two drawn very crudly on top of it.

January 2011 & 2010 E3 KH3D Demo Sora Falling Placeholder#

409-ohanashi_gra_2.ctt features an unused graphic that's outright taken from the January 2011 trailer and the KH3D Demo from E3 2010, where dozens of Soras are falling from the sky in the second district of Traverse Town. A poorly drawn number two can also be seen here.

Sora in the Fourth District Placeholder#

590-ohanashi_gra_1.ctt holds a placeholder graphic of Sora in the fourth district of Traverse Town. Nothing really stands out besides the command menu lacking the X button prompt.

Whirligig & Fireworks#

288-it0801.ctt and 195-it0802.ctt has graphics for the unused Dream Eater toys Whirligig and Fireworks. One is themed after Country of the Musketeers and the other is themed after the Symphony of Sorcery. These were likely cut due to time constraints.

Early Prankster's Paradise World Icon#

Early	Final	Early graphic being used in-game

There's an early icon of the world icon for Prankster's Paradise in 631-wi_di.ctt. It may be actual concept art of the world when it was originally planned for 358/2 Days, as Dream Drop Distance uses unique world icons by having them be in orbs instead. The early graphic also only appears in-game if Sora or Riku are in any of the rooms for Destiny Island, showing more evidence that the world was meant to be playable. The kanji placed on the early icon translates to "Provisional".

Kingdom Hearts II Kingdom Key Graphic#

Early	Final

163-itxxxxl.ctt.etc has an early graphic of the Kingdom Key seen in the keyblade equipment menu. It's the Kingdom Key render directly taken from Kingdom Hearts II, but rotated.

Early Menu#

Early	Final

0.ctt has an early design of the main menu.

• Sora is in his Kingdom Hearts attire while having Dream Eaters in his party, which isn't possible in the final game. It's also using an old render of Sora from the Kingdom Hearts Ultimania.

• Woeflower is in a T-pose.
• Droplets did not exist and in its place is a timer, taken straight from Birth by Sleep.
• There's a number count for how many days have passed. This doesn't exist in the final game, although something similar existed in 358/2 Days.

January 2011 trailer HUD#

January 2011 HUD	HUD Used In-Game

The HUD seen in the January 2011 trailer exists within 124-gage_02.ctt.

• The drop gauge uses different colors than what's used in the final version.
• There's no graphic that extends Sora's HP bar.
• A "FOCUS D-LINK" graphic from Birth by Sleep can be seen. It's unknown if this mechanic was meant to return in this game or it's an accidental leftover.
• The "DROP" text was originally placed below the drop gauge than being above it.
• Bonus Time when the drop gauge was nearly empty didn't exist yet.

Early Holy Rope Graphic#

Early	Final

An early graphic for Holy Rope (otherwise known as Faithline) exists in 48-rs_holy.ctt. It's greener and has white rope with sparkles.

Early Slingshot Graphic#

Early	Final

Like with Holy Rope, Slingshot has an early graphic in 924-rs_sling. It's flashier and more colorful than the one used in-game, which makes you wonder why they scrapped this for a duller version of it.

Test Graphic#

A pretty simple and straight to the point test texture that's in a folder named 729-dummy. Nothing but 15 of the same test graphics exist in it.

Spirit Placeholder Icon#

112-de610.ctt contains a placeholder icon for the Spirit menu, specifically for rearranging Dream Eaters currently in the party. It features a white Meow Wow with the text "Provisional" on it.

Demo Leftover#

959-clear.ctt has a leftover graphic from the demo version, which thanks the player, and that the full version is available to purchase.

Another Demo Leftover#

703-title_d also contains leftover graphics from the demo version's title screen.

References#