Rhythm Tengoku (Game Boy Advance)

Rhythm Tengoku is what happens when popular Japanese music producer/singer Tsunku♂ partners up with the team behind WarioWare - a weird but awesome rhythm game filled with all sorts of wacky characters (and lots of monkeys), which further resulted in the Rhythm Heaven series.

While exclusive to Japan, it actually requires little to no knowledge of Japanese to pick up and play, making it a good (and later a popular) import title, though fan translations are available. It's also the last first-party GBA game, coming two years after the Nintendo DS' launch.

Note: all offsets listed here are pertinent to the revision 0 (Rev. 0) ROM unless specified otherwise. If you are playing a revision 1 (Rev. 1) copy, offsets mentioned may not be accurate.

Prototype Info Prerelease Info Data Unused GraphicsTake a gander! Unused SequencesHope you like the drums!

Debug Menu#

In February 2017, a fully intact debug menu was found within Rhythm Tengoku. Most facets of the game are present and accessible, organized into 14 pages (1-E), each containing a maximum of 8 entries.

To access the debug menu, make the following changes to the corresponding ROM in a hex editor:

Once finished, the menu should load in place of the title screen.

Listing#

Red-colored rows indicate unused entries.

Unused Gameplay History Menu#

Accessible via the aforementioned Debug Menu is an unused menu that shows the play history for each available item in the Game Select menu. With it, the player can view:

• The average amount of points scored across all plays (out of 1000).
• The total amount of times the game was played.
• The numbered playthrough they achieved their first OK on.
• The numbered playthrough they achieved their first Superb on.

The games in this menu, for the most part, are listed in the internal order stored in ROM, rather than in unlock order, similar to how they are listed in the Debug Menu. Notably, the menu implies the existence of Power Calligraphy 2, as an entry for it can be found after Power Calligraphy. A gameplay history menu would later be incorporated into Rhythm Heaven Megamix.

Text used in the menu:

If a game has been played, but an OK or Superb isn't yet achieved:

Rhythm Shiryo Shitsu Notification#

Listed as Ｒ−ＩＱ　（にゅうか） in the Debug Menu is an unused notification screen for Rhythm Shiryo Shitsu (リズム資料室). The player is told that they've received a new letter, and can choose to either read it now, or return to the previous menu. Which letter in particular the player receives is randomized each time the screen is accessed.

Text used in the notification screen:

Unused Code/Parameters#

Karate Man#

Unused Version Setting#

Loading the engine for Karate Man with a version setting of 0x01 introduces unique properties to the game that aren't used elsewhere. One such property is that, each time an item is hit, one of two unused backgrounds depicting different characters making a facial expression is overlaid over Karate Man's regular background, depending on how well the input was timed.

Aside from that, this setting also alters the sound effects for hitting an item, defaulting to the high-flow variants regardless of actual flow level.

BG Face Reset#

Related to the unused version setting is an unused function that resets BG Layer 0 (the layer the unused backgrounds are written to) to a third unused background that's initially loaded with the engine, though never displayed and eventually overwritten with one of the aforementioned backgrounds.

Spaceball#

Unused Cue Settings#

There are two unused settings for the cue command that spawn balls with different input timings. 0x00 spawns a ball that’s hit in 0.5 beats, and 0x03 spawns a high ball that’s hit in 1.5 beats. While 0x00 appears to play no sound effects when the ball is pitched or hit, the code internally defines a dummy sound, s_f_dummy_vol0, as the sound to play for those actions, suggesting that the cue was to get its own sound effects.

Unused Ball Type#

The command that changes the sprite used for the ball has an unused setting (being 0x02) that swaps it for the unused star graphic. This can be seen in the unused Spaceball sequences.

The Clappy Trio#

Unused Version Setting#

Loading the engine for The Clappy Trio with a version setting of 0x05 will load its sequel variant with four lions instead of three. The quartet is only ever seen with the graphics from its base variant, leaving this version unused.

Sneaky Spirits#

Located at 0x00A7A20C is an unused subroutine that simply rests for 8 beats.

Iai Giri#

Like Sneaky Spirits, there's an unused subroutine that does nothing for 8 beats, located at 0x00A053F0.

Sick Beats#

To do: Are these really worth documenting here? It seems like both of these observations are the consequences of a function accepting an arbitrary value as an input, rather than something that was explicitly planned to be used.

The graphics function that controls the virus palettes has some unused values that change the viruses into other visible palettes.

There also exists unused hit counters, most of which turn the viruses invincible, but one makes the virus require 4 hits to be cleared.

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Showtime#

Unused Cue Settings#

The cue command for this game has two unused settings that spawn a version of the white penguin requiring an input to be made in 1 beat, as opposed to the standard 2. Of these settings, 0x02 curiously spawns a non-swing variant, unfitting with the song used in-game. 0x03 meanwhile spawns what you’d expect.

Power Calligraphy#

To do: Unused cue settings for the third stroke in 力 and fourth stroke in 心.

Ink Particle Effect#

A function for this game exists that, when re-added, causes particles of ink to expand from and quickly contract into the brush. The function has a single parameter which controls how long the effect lasts, and likely would've coincided with the charge-up before a cue.

Energy Dissipate Effect#

Code exists for clamping an animation of energy dissipating to the coordinates of the hand and playing it when the hand finishes charging. It goes unused due to the animation not being made visible when it actually happens.

Swing Subroutines#

Subroutines for preparing the pages and drawing the 寸 symbol, 、symbol, and the face that appears at the end of the game have variants in swing rhythm made for Remix 4 that ultimately go unused. Their locations are as follows: 0x00A81478 (Prep 寸), 0x00A814FC (寸), 0x00A823B4 (Prep 、), 0x00A82414 (、), 0x00A82690 (Prep face), and 0x00A82714 (face).

Toss Boys#

Unused Cues#

There exists unused cue settings for the trio (0x04 for Aka-chan, 0x05 for Ao-kun, and 0x06 for Kii-yan) that causes them to catch the ball, utilizing animations that otherwise go unused. After the ball is caught, inputs for whoever caught the ball no longer affect that character.

Additionally, there exists voicelines for each character to perform what would normally be their exclusive special move. In the final game, Kii-yan breaks the ball, Ao-kun performs a blur toss, and Aka-chan repeatedly bounces the ball between her and Ao-kun.

Tap Trial#

Unused Version Setting#

Loading the engine for Tap Trial with a version setting of 0x06 causes the game to randomize its appearance on both initial load and each subsequent engine call, meaning that it may appear as Tap Trial 2 initially, and then appear as the Remix 5 variant when the game gets loaded again. An unused sequence for Tap Trial is the only game that uses this feature.

Unused Audio#

To do: Some sound effects were missed, specifically: s_kuma_satana s_block_hit s_yuri_naki s_keytoy_count1 s_keytoy_count2

As audio heavy as Rhythm Tengoku is, it's no surprise that some sounds would find their way here. The filenames for these entries originate from the kiosk demo.

Unused Samples#

To do: There could be more.

The following pieces of audio have no MIDI file associated with them.

Revision Differences#

Somewhere along the line, the ROM for Rhythm Tengoku was updated, introducing few minor changes.

Iai Giri#

Rev. 00	Rev. 01

Three stray pixels were removed from the sliced あ in the prologue for Iai Giri.

Remix 5#

Rev. 00	Rev. 01

The very last frame of Aka-chan's Remix 5 crouching toss animation was fixed, with the "A" on her shirt being lowercase to match how it appears on the rest of her animations. She never crouch-tosses in the actual remix, however, so why this change was made is unknown.