Skullgirls

Prototype Info Prerelease Info Unused AudioTUBATUBATUBA... Unused GraphicsUnused Story Mode images and character assets. Oh my! Unused TextMore to the story. Season Pass Characters"Know your place?" Get a new line! Content Updates & Revisions (June 26th, 2023 patch)A patch with lots of art edits.

Internal Names#

• Peacock's George Bombs are referred to internally as "LittleBoy", and her Lonesome Lenny Blockbuster is referred to as "FatMan". These were the original names of the George Bomb and Lonesome Lenny, respectively, and were likely changed to avoid insensitivity regarding the atomic bombings of Japan during World War II.
• Ms. Fortune's Fiber Uppercut is referred to internally as "Nyantiair", and her Cat Scratch Fever Blockbuster is referred to as "JustClaws".
• Filia's Gregor Samson Blockbuster is referred to as "RoachRush".
• Maplecrest has the internal name of "Maple_Crest", indicating an earlier spelling.
• Final Atrium is called "Falling_Wreckage".
• Meridian Area Rapid Transit is called "Training".
• The shaders for the KO death portraits are internally referred to as "JojosDeathPortrait", a reference to Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, which featured similar death portraits.

Unused Levels#

Two test levels, referred to as "test1" and "test2" respectively, can be found within the game's levels.gfs. The stage has no music or graphics defined and has lighting that gives a slightly reddish tint.

Revisional Differences#

Red Cross Palette Swap#

On May 13, 2014, an update was released which changes the color of any red crosses on white backgrounds to a different color after Marvelous AQL feared legal action from the Red Cross. This change most notably affected Valentine. On her default palette, the colouring was changed from red to pink. The developers said they're disappointed with the result. On May 23, 2022, Hidden Variable confirmed that Valentine (and related arts, characters that have the crosses, etc.) is getting a minor redesign, removing all crosses and changing them to pink shurikens. These changes are planned to be implemented at the end of Season Pass 1.

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Removed Audio#

Transcript: (Parasoul) Take the shot, Juju.
A removed sound clip with a very storied past...

In mid-2011, a fan named Cee McNeil posted a character request on the game's Facebook wall asking Reverge Labs to make a "chinese assassin female named juju". Amused at the concept, the artists of Reverge Labs soon began to draw her on their whiteboards and tangentially spin her into the game's lore. When Skullgirls was released the following year, it was found that Parasoul would very rarely call out for Juju when using her Silent Scope super.

Later in 2013, McNeil sought compensation from Lab Zero Games, sparking a months-long exchange of legal documents. In mid-May of that year, a compromise was made through a non-disclosure agreement: Juju could continue to be used by Lab Zero, so long as Cee did not publicly speak of their legal arrangement (and therefore break their NDA).

After McNeil proceeded to do just that the very next day, Lab Zero issued a statement a few days later that Juju was effectively permanently retconned. The above sound clip was removed from the game in the midst of these legal issues, and is unlikely to ever return. Curiously, Juju was given a slight cameo in the description for the Sheltered variant of Parasoul in Skullgirls Mobile, where it said "Take the shot, Juju." However, this appeared to be a mistake by the developers, as a later update patched this quote to remove any reference to Juju.

Transcript: (Fukua) Sorry, Samson...
A patch update released on June 7, 2014 removed one of Fukua's loss voice clips, as Mike Z had forgotten to remove it prior.

Altered Sprites#

On April 23rd, 2015, an update was released that altered some frames of animation with the intent of removing or heavily obscuring some panty shots. The only characters affected were Filia/Fukua and Cerebella. According to some of the developers, they were always intending on changing them, even before the game was released, as they were deemed as unnecessary fanservice.

Cerebella#

A total of 19 frames were altered between five different animations; cerecopter, hit_air_knockup, hit_down_front, hit_knee_fall, and hit_wakeup_front.

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Filia/Fukua#

A total of 21 frames were altered between five different animations; hit_air_knockup, hit_down_front, hit_fall_front, hit_knee_fall, and hit_wakeup_front. Two unused animations, a taunt and a loss animation, were also removed from the Digital Art Compendium.

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Parasoul#

At some point between the original 2012 XBLA/PSN release and the 2013 PC release, Parasoul's forward wakeup animation was altered. The original animation contained partial nudity as the character's buttocks and underwear were briefly exposed as she stood up from a forward facing prone position. The animation was altered to lengthen her dress and removes the partial nudity. Mike Zaimont explained the changes as follows: "Her skirt was actually the wrong length in the original version, it was fixed because it was off-model."

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Altered Portraits#

Squigly#

An update released on October 12, 2014 corrected an error in one of Squigly's Story Mode portraits where one of her hands wasn't skeletal.

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Adam#

From the PC release onwards, Adam's eye color was changed to blue in all of his portraits.

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NMO Arena Banners#

An update released on February 24th, 2021 has changed NMO Arena banners of Fukua, Robo-Fortune, an unused joke banner for Annie created long years ago (that was updated a bit days before the character release on March 8, 2021 update), and another one for Marie, that remains unused because the radical Playable Marie concept rework, replacing all mock banners for the proper character arts. In the case of Umbrella, she had a joke banner in her alpha, that's eventually before the beta phase was changed to the final one. Curiously, in Skullgirls Mobile, the night version of the stage still uses the original joke Fukua and Robo-Fortune Banners.

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Anti-Piracy#

To do: Figure out how to trigger this message without actually pirating the game, and if there are any other effects.

If the game detects it is a pirated copy, it will show this nonsensical message on the title screen sometimes on the versus menu or after completing story mode. This was famously used to out a pirate who asked the Skullgirls team about it on Twitter.

References#