Kirby: Triple Deluxe

Kirby: Triple Deluxe is the first Kirby game on the Nintendo 3DS, and the spiritual sequel to Kirby's Return to Dream Land. One of the main gameplay features is hopping from the foreground to the background and vice versa, a feature seen in various other non-Kirby games. There's also an obscene collection of keychains.

Sub-Pages#

Prerelease Info

Resources#

Unused AnimationsA Frankenstein of assets from multiple games! Unused TextA few unused strings, a whole early localization.

Data#

Unused Copy Ability MovesSome of these make you want to Return to Dream Land. Unused Enemy PropertiesKirby's biggest foe is... Himself?

Sub-Game Specific#

Kirby FightersThis sub-game hosts its own unused things separate from the rest of the game.

Version Differences#

Regional DifferencesNow with roasted sweet potatoes. Kiosk DemoA post-final Kiosk Demo with small differences.

Unused Models#

Shadow Kirby#

Shadow Kirby has two unused meshes that are otherwise used by regular Kirby. They're found in RomFS\gfx\STD\Step\Hero\Kirby\Base\Shadow.bch.cmp.

The first one is called KirbyBodyBigM, used by regular Kirby when having something in his mouth.

The second one is KirbyBodyBlowM, used by regular Kirby when using attacks that involve breathing something out, like Fire's Fire Breath, Ice's Ice Breath, or Normal Kirby's Water Gun..

Hypernova#

Similarly, Hypernova Kirby has the KirbyBodyBlowM mesh unused as well. Since Hypernova only sucks up things and eats them and there's no stage where it's allowed to be underwater, it's becomes clear why this went unused.

Test Room Parts#

For some reason, an entire tileset for the rooms made for testing during the game's development can be found in RomFS/gfx/STD/Step/Decoration/Boss5/Land.bch.cmp. "Boss5" is the folder corresponding to Pyribbit's stage, the boss that resides within Endless Explosions. No other Boss stage folder has these parts. It's likely these parts were included in this folder as a placeholder for the real tileset that was to be used in Pyribbit's room, but the arena for Pyribbit instead includes its ground in the background instead of using a tileset.

Untextured "Toy" Tileset Parts#

Inside RomFS/Parufe America/gfx/STD/Step/Decoration/Toy/Land.bhc.cmp, there are various untextured slope tiles. Notably, stages with the toy tileset do not use slopes at all, so these are likely leftovers from earlier in development before it was decided to cut them.

Another Dimension Platforms#

Inside RomFS/gfx/STD/Fight/Decoration/LastStage/Land.bch.cmp is the model for Another Dimension's foreground. Floating above what is normally seen in game are a pair of unused platforms. Only one is finished, as the one on the right doesn't have its surface modeled. This may suggest that the battle stage Another Dimension was planned to host platforms similarly to Flower Land.

Dedede's Drum Dash Diving Board#

The Diving Board in Dedede's Drum Dash, located in RomFS\gfx\STD\Den\Gimmick\DenDivingBoard01.bch.cmp, has an unused version of its standard model in that very same file. It's called Top2L, and its main and most notable different is that the star in the base of it is blue instead of yellow. The base itself is also thinner.

Used	Unused

Unused Graphics#

Hypernova Kirby#

Hypernova Kirby's model file, found in RomFS\gfx\STD\Step\Hero\Kirby\Base\Bigbang.bch.cmp, contains an unused texture called KirbyFace.10. This depicts Kirby with a surprised or shocked expression. Normal Kirby does use his own version of this texture in the cutscene prior to Sectonia Vine's boss battle, in which, of course, Hypernova Kirby is not present.

Below is a model render of Hypernova Kirby with the texture applied.

Item Box#

Found in RomFS/gfx/STD/Fight/Item/ItemBox.bch.cmp is an unused texture for the Blue Item Box that appears in Kirby Fighters, named itembox.00. The main difference is that the used version, just named itembox uses a lighter shade of blue. Judging by the damaged texture for it, which is named itembox.01, along with the unused material animations, it seems that the developers intended for the unused texture to be the one used in Kirby Fighters, but instead went unused likely due to the result of an oversight.

Unused	itembox.01	Used

Shadow Dedede#

Shadow Dedede's model file, located in RomFS/gfx/STD/Step/Enemy/Maskeddedede/ModelEx.bch.cmp contains an unused texture depicting regular Dedede's appearance in grayscale. This was most likely an earlier and more simple take on his design that more closely resembled Shadow Kirby and Dark Meta Knight. The final model uses a more sinister black-and-red color scheme with solid white eyes.

Unused	Used

Here's Shadow Dedede's model with the texture applied.

Front	Back

Toughness Waddle Dee#

The Toughness Waddle Dee enemy that only appears in the Ability Testing Room has one unused texture that depicts them with their eyes closed. Their model file, which contains the unused texture, is located in RomFS\gfx\STD\Step\Enemy\ToughnessWaddledee.bch.cmp.

This Waddle Dee only uses three animations: one for idling, and two more for damage. None of these animations make use of the closed eyes texture. Below is the model with the texture applied.

Dark Meta Knight#

Like Meta Knight in Kirby's Return to Dream Land, Dark Meta Knight, as his model in this game was based on Meta Knight's from the aforementioned game, has unused texture areas for a cloak. As Dark Meta Knight is never shown with a cloak in this game at all, this is likely just a leftover from Meta Knight's model in Kirby's Return to Dream Land. These unused texture areas are located in Dark Meta Knight's model file, RomFS\gfx\STD\Step\Enemy\Darkmetaknight.bch.cmp.

Texture	Texture Mask

Unused Sound Effects#

This game's sound archive is based on the one found in Kirby's Return to Dream Land. If not based on it, then it's actually completely lifted from that game, as evidenced from the huge amount of unused sound effects inside that game's Wave Archives are still here, including the leftover sounds from the cancelled Kirby for Nintendo GameCube. This is also the case for most future Kirby games. As such, only new unused sound effects will be shown below.

Unused Abilities#

Mirror#

Mirror Kirby, originating from Kirby Super Star, has a single scene file listed in the FDG archive of the game, which would've preloaded its assets into the game's world map.

Unfortunately, the scene file does not contain any listed assets or dependencies from earlier in development. The ability's Mint, sounds, models, graphics, and animations are not present in the final game at all, so this scene file is all that remains. The ability technically does make an appearance as one of the many keychains the player can collect, and it was notably the only appearance of the ability in any Kirby game outside of Kirby Super Star and Kirby Super Star Ultra, though the file above is unrelated to the keychain.

The ability would later make a playable appearance in the 3DS via Kirby: Planet Robobot, the sister game to Triple Deluxe. In the end, the only ability returning from previous games that wasn't in Kirby's Return to Dream Land was Wheel Kirby from Kirby's Adventure.

Unused Attack Types#

Each attack in the game, whether it be from playable characters or enemies, has its own unique type with determined attributes, such as elements, damage, knockback, and sounds. Some of these types are not assigned to any action in the game. The main Mint file, Step.bin, contains the full list of attack types with hex IDs under Scn.Step.OColl.AttackType.

DebugEnemyKiller (0x2E1)#

DebugEnemyKiller, ID 2E1, is a debugging element not assigned to anything currently known inside the game. It would've presumably eliminated enemies made for debugging purposes (like the ones present in Kirby Star Allies). It deals massive damage, almost rivaling Crash Kirby's "Supernova" move. It deals a lot of knockback, albeit with the normal effect instead of heavy knockback. It can only hit enemies, as hitting tiles with it will have no effect. Below is a video of the type assigned to Sword Kirby's "Sword Spin" move.

Unused Control Types#

The Step.bin.cmp archive also has a few alternate, unused control types that would've changed the way the player needed to press the 3DS' buttons in order to control Kirby or King Dedede. These are fully functional with the game, and can be called in the game by changing the code inside the Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataInit.Exec(Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataSet) function. All the control types are found in Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataInit, and are named with letters in an alphabetical order. For reference, the used control type is at Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataInit.ExecTypeG(Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataSet).

It's likely that HAL Laboratory considered including multiple control schemes similarly to Kirby Star Allies, but ultimately decided against it. It's probably for the best, since these controls are somewhat... Unorthodox for the Kirby series, and they even more closely resemble the controls of the Mario series in some instances.

TypeA#

Control Type A, located at Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataInit.ExecTypeA(Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataSet), consists of the following controls.

TypeB#

Control Type B, located at Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataInit.ExecTypeB(Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataSet), consists of the following controls.

TypeC#

Control Type C, located at Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataInit.ExecTypeC(Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataSet), consists of the following controls.

TypeD#

Control Type D, located at Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataInit.ExecTypeD(Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataSet), consists of the following controls.

TypeE#

Control Type E, located at Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataInit.ExecTypeE(Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataSet), consists of the following controls.

TypeF#

Control Type F, located at Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataInit.ExecTypeF(Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataSet), consists of the following controls.

Debug#

There's an extra control type, simply referred to as "Debug", located in Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataInit.ExecDebug(Scn.Step.Hero.HIDConvDataSet). It makes use of some non-existent debugging buttons, so this control type will result in no valid inputs when loaded in-game. The only buttons that will respond are Start and Select to pause the game.

The names and values of the buttons are still found inside the mint file under Scn.Step.Hero.ButtonMask:

• DebugSelect (0x10000)
• DebugA (0x20000)
• DebugB (0x40000)
• DebugX (0x80000)
• DebugY (0x100000)
• DebugL (0x200000)
• DebugR (0x400000)

Unused Debugging Features#

setupDebugShort#

Flowered Sectonia's mint file, StepLCharaSectniaflower.bin.cmp, has a very well hidden debug feature for her fight designed specifically for her flower-like minions, known as setupDebugShort. The script Scn.Step.LChara.Sectniaflower.BudCtrl.setupDebugShort() is not defined in Scn.Step.LChara.Sectniaflower.AnimScriptAppearDemo.Exec(Scn.Step.LChara.Obj) or Scn.Step.LChara.Sectniaflower.AnimScriptAppearDemo.ExecShort(Scn.Step.LChara.Obj), which makes it imposible for it to appear in regular gameplay. If it's added back, it makes it so the fight progresses with all 4 of her minions present at all times up until the fourth phase, where they will behave as normal.

While in phases where they're not present in a regular fight, they will not move at all. The only action they'll perform is follow Kirby around with their eye, and join the other 2 minions in a downwards laser attack if they are able to perform.

Print Messages#

During the game's development, a debugging console was used by the developers for printing messages within the game's various Mint files as a way to communicate errors or notices. Some of these print messages survived in a couple of Mint scripts, but cannot be triggered in vanilla Triple Deluxe.

Archive.bin.cmp#

This section documents messages within Archive.bin.cmp, one of the game's main Mint files.

Step.bin.cmp#

This section documents messages within Step.bin.cmp, the game's main Mint file for gameplay.

StepLCharaDarkmetaknight.bin.cmp#

This section documents messages within StepLCharaDarkmetaknight.bin.cmp, the file with all the code related to Dark Meta Knight.

StepLCharaMaskeddedede.bin.cmp#

This section documents messages within StepLCharaMaskeddedede.bin.cmp, the file with all the code related to Masked Dedede (and Taranza).

StepLCharaPaincia.bin.cmp#

This section documents messages within StepLCharaPaincia.bin.cmp, the file with all the code related to Paintra.

StepLCharaSectniasoulcore.bin.cmp#

This section documents messages within StepLCharaSectniasoulcore.bin.cmp, the file with all the code related to Soul of Sectonia.

StepLCharaSectniavine.bin.cmp#

This section documents messages within StepLCharaSectniavine.bin.cmp, the file with all the code related to Sectonia Vine.

StepLCharaVolgerom.bin.cmp#

This section documents messages within StepLCharaVolgerom.bin.cmp, the file with all the code related to Pyribbit.

StepLCharaWhispyflowers.bin.cmp#

This section documents messages within StepLCharaWhispyflowers.bin.cmp, the file with all the code related to Flowery Woods.

Unused Sample Code#

Inside the "Etc.bin.cmp" Mint archive, located in RomFS/mint, there's some sample code under Scn.Nakano.Sample.IntValue(), which was presumably put into the game by Hiroaki Nakano, the main programmer. This is most likely a leftover from the development of Triple Deluxe's version of Mint.

int IntValue()

fenter 2, 0, 2
ldsrc4 r0, 0x1
ldsrc4 r1, 0x2
addi32 r0, r0, r1
ldsrc4 r1, 0x3
addi32 r0, r0, r1
fret   r0

Unused Debug Scripts#

Inside RomFS/mint/Step.bin.cmp under Scn.Step.Debug, there lie three Debug debug scripts that appear to be empty. They're called "CameraFilterMaxSizeCamera", "DamageMonitor" and "GeneralDrawer". The first one returns in Kirby Star Allies, albeit still empty, while the last two also appear to be in Kirby Fighters Deluxe, while still being very empty. One more script is mentioned in Scn.Step, called "DebugStepSettingProxy", but it's... you guessed it, empty.

Unused Scene Data#

The FDG archive, which is located in RomFS/fdg/Archive.bin.cmp, has some asset preload data for non-existent Dedede's Drum Dash test maps. All of them contain the path "gfx/STD/Den/Decoration/Lv1/BG.bch.cmp" in their assets.

Oddities#

• All the DX bosses are internally labeled as "Ex" models, which is a carryover of the EX bosses from Kirby's Return to Dream Land. Shadow Dedede is also considered the EX/DX model of Masked Dedede.
• The file for the Mamatee enemy uses the early name "Briterri", in reference to Blipper.
• The title screen theme, "Sun, Sky, Dreamstalk", is internally labeled as title_wii.dspadpcm.bcstm. Whether or not this suggests that Triple Deluxe was originally a Wii game or that the song was composed for Kirby's Return to Dream Land is unknown.
• "Revenge of the Enemy", the revenge boss theme, is labeled as BGM_LP_KAZAN1.dspadpcm.bcstm internally. This suggests that it originally was a stage theme for Endless Explosions.
• Level 6-7 features an arrangement of "The Adventure Begins" from Return to Dream Land, which is called gck_plants.dspadpcm internally. The original song was called st_plants.brstm. The gck suggests it was a level theme for the scrapped GameCube title that eventually turned into Return to Dream Land. It is also oddly shorter than the track used in that game - perhaps gck_plants.dspadpcm was the original version? This idea is supported by its name on the official Kirby Star Allies soundtrack: "The Adventure Begins / Original Short ver."
• The filenames for Bomber's textures in this game, along with Kirby Fighters Deluxe and Kirby: Planet Robobot, have the Ch prefix despite the fact that Bomber was completely absent in the original version of Kirby's Return to Dream Land, combined with the fact that the textures also aren't compatible with the Super Smash Bros. Brawl model, where the prefix is primarily used.

Internal Project Name#

The project's internal name is "Parufe", according to the game's sound archive. Parufe (parfait) is a type of dessert. Additionally, the game sports a second name, that being "Kirby3DS", found in ExHeader.bin.