the cutting room mirror

Megpoid the Music♯

Megpoid the Music♯ is GUMI's first solo rhythm game, after her previous debut as a Future Star...but it has several problems of its own and is overall a mediocre experience.

The only highlight is the (sadly shortened) soundtrack selection, such as Ten-Faced.

Unused Graphics#

OBJECTS#

There is an unused stage in the game, though there's no way to view it yet like the test model, but this enigmatic texture is present with its other textures. It shows a much higher quality model of GUMI (particularly Saboten's MMD model) on a stage that isn't present in the final game. Whether the game was planned for a release on another console, or just made as a test mockup is purely unknown.

SPRITE#

Test graphics probably used for testing purposes. There's another graphic like this that is used, but has different graphics.

A test shadow.

A blue window and some other sprites. This is only used for the debug menu.

The same graphic as above, but larger and better quality.

UI#

This graphic called "WHEEL" is seen in several directories in the UI directory. "Select" is also misspelled, as it fully says "Menu Serect".

A placeholder Game Data Install graphic.

A placeholder New Game graphic.

A placeholder Load Game graphic.

A placeholder "Music" graphic. Probably used for the song preview graphics.

An early title screen that uses a fanmade illustration of GUMI V3 Power created by Nou, instead of the plain orange background in the final.

Crudely drawn text that says "Gameplay". This is seen in several directories in UI directory.

Another crudely drawn text that says "Style Music Select". Also seen in several directories.

An image of a screenshot of the profile cards in development in Photoshop(?), taken by one of the developers.

An image of the game in debug mode. It uses the placeholder "Music" graphic. It seems to be a debug menu of the song select, or also an early song select.

Unused Models#

Early Model#

Full body view Front face view

In DATA/OBJECTS/OBJ_MIGU_A00, there's a test model named "OBJ_MIG.BMD" (not to be confused with GameCube's bmd format), which corresponds to the GUMI seen in the debug menu screenshot since the appearance matches to the model seen on there.

The face is different entirely and the outfit is modeled using less vertices than the in-game counterpart. The models share the same textures and even texture names, with the exception of the game model having extra files for other parts of the body and face; the UV is notoriously broken in many places.

Test Stage#

In DATA/OBJECTS/OBJ_STG_A00, there's a test stage named "OBJBG_STG.BMD", which corresponds to the stage seen in the screenshot taken with the other GUMI model. The screen here uses the unused screenshot of the Saboten GUMI, and possibly indicates it was meant to be a live camera like the one in Mozaik Role.

Test Model#

model left in game

Saboten GUMI model

In DATA/OBJECTS/OBJ_MIGU_A00, there's a test model named "TEST.BMD", it seems to be the same Gumi from the beta screenshot. It is the Saboten GUMI model and everything left over in the TEST.BMD comes from this model, the only differences are there are shape keys added to support parts of MtM#'s eye shape keys (though these are named differently and will need to be renamed if you want them to work with MtM# motions) and that the body rig has all the bones unparented.

Debug Menu#

There is a fully functional debug menu for feature testing left-over in the game (it even has a nice music!)
This video shows how to access this menu and how it looks like.

Unused PV#

S000#

Watch on YouTube

Using the debug mode, you can access 'Promo Video', if you go through the PVs you can have S000 actually play in-game. It uses Forever Like This's motion and music, while using an early cut of the song's final camera. The physics are incorrect, as it loads OP_P2, rather then the correct S001 physics. The song's name will show as "song title display" and contains (nearly) every effect the game has. The only thing is, this is the ONLY video that actually uses these effects at all. It has both hand items enabled, the fan (used in VERSUS) and the microphone (model is used in Holography, but GUMI holds it in her other hand in this PV). Though the fan calls an animation that doesn't work on it's armature. If fixed, it just shows the fan going in an oval-like path over and over.

All the effects this PV has to offer that is never used anywhere else are as follows,

  • A ghosting effect
  • A bloom flash effect
  • 2D lighting effects on top of the video
  • 2D sprites scaling, moving, and rotating on top of the video
  • The stage being replaced with a tiling 2D sprite
  • Cherry blossom petals falling and flowing down in the sky
  • A frame being flashed and slowly fading out
  • Star particle effects periodically bursting out from GUMI's hands
  • Star/Dust particles flowing from below and up into the sky

Unused Sounds#

SE034.VAG#

While this sound may be used somewhere, it's basically empty.

TST001.VAG#

Gumi saying "お早う" (Good Morning).

TST002.VAG#

Gumi saying "どうしたの?" (What's wrong?).

TST003.VAG#

Gumi saying "大好き!" (I really like it!).

TST004.VAG#

Gumi saying a lot "うーーーん" (Uuuun). It sounds like it was used for losing a song, or something for Gumi Room.

TST005.VAG#

Gumi saying a short "うん" (un).

TST006.VAG#

Gumi saying "いってらっしゃい" (See you later). The creators seem to like using Gumi a lot for tests.

Oddities#

Directory Name#

In DATA/MOTIONS, the directory for facial animations is spelled incorrectly, adding an extra "I", making it "FAICIAL". It could have just been misspelled during development.

Modifying the Game#

For some reason, if DATA.ZIP or STATIC.ZIP is modified in any way, except renaming directories, the game will crash at the ParaPhray logo.