Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is the first and only Sonic RPG made by BioWare. It's also notable for both having a...troubled development, to say the least, and massive controversy regarding the characters that debuted in this game (mainly Shade, Ix, and their tribe, the Nocturnus). The final product should say lots.

Prerelease Info

Unused Graphics#

To do: Alternative link for the Sonic X style guide, since the Twitter account linked is private..

Knuckles Dialogue#

An unused dialogue image of Knuckles; this was ripped directly from the Sonic X style guide (currently, the raw artwork from the CD remains undumped), which were used heavily in earlier builds of the game until the final artwork could be created.

Placeholder Graphics#

Dialogue Graphics#

Unused placeholder dialogue graphics.

Item Graphic#

An unused placeholder item graphic.

Unused Models#

ECM#

An unused ECM model, possibly a scrapped boss or a scrapped playable character.

Factory Foreman Echidna#

An unused Factory Foreman Knuckles model.

Uncalled Instruments#

Perhaps because of how horribly rushed the game was, most, if not all of the .SSEQ (the sequenced music format used by the official Nintendo sound driver) files call instruments that do not get heard because the sound banks do not contain the respective file for those instruments. Some unheard instruments, like in Nocturne's theme, sound incomplete, likely coming from an earlier point in development.

Unused Text#

To do: Incorporate file names for dialogue chains, find ways to load in and possibly record those unused, and piece together the remaining unused strings.

Ha ha ha ha ha!
Holy Crap! I'm a disembodied voice!

Possibly a developer in-joke?

Tea Test

A test for tea? Maybe it's another test level?

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page.

Test Level
Test Area

These are the names for two test rooms that might still exist in the final game.

grahamTest

The purpose of this is unknown.

Some lines of text from the end of the game, but with important bits strategically replaced with SPOILER. It's possible that this was used in an early review copy to prevent reviewers from spoiling key story elements.

CAPTION: Metropolis, headquarters of the evil Eggman
CAPTION: "Suddenly, at the height of their arrogance, the Nocturnus Clan mysteriously vanished."
CAPTION: Some time ago....
[Fade in on the team in Tails' Workshop.]
[Fade in to a very wide shot of the countryside near Metropolis, at nighttime, looking somewhat peaceful—the calm before the storm. 
We slowly pan right, in a long enough pan to show a caption.]
[The ship falls into Metropolis and explodes. When the ship hits the city, smaller explosions begin to spread through the city.]
[Knuckles gives a stoic and silent nod to Sonic.]
[Back to Eggman.]
[Fade out. Fade in on a rain forest-looking area.]
[At the last minute, our heroes escape, thanks to Tails' Tornado. Fade out.]
[As each character speaks, show a caption that tells us that character's name.]
[See Team Combat Tutorial]
[Fade the captions out.]
[The plane then turns and swoops off. When the place flies away, we reveal a flaming Egg Carrier in the distance over the city. 
GUN airships and fighters are pelting the carrier with gunfire.]
[Skip Instructions]
[CUTSCENE: A boat pulls up to shore on Tutorial Island. As it lands, a door opens, and Sonic and the captain walk out onto the island.]
CAPTION: "The dark sky opened and swallowed them whole. Gone were their cities, their people, their entire existence."
[Keep panning as the caption fades. A second or two later, a fighter jet flies in front of the camera, holding long enough and close enough to
show the letters "GUN" on its hull.]
[Cut to inside the carrier. A big battle is going on between Eggman and Sonic-and-friends. Eggman has more or less lost already, 
but he won't go down without a fight.]

Lots of text describing cutscenes. Some of it refers to cut content such as Tutorial Island, which might also exist in the final version.

This is a placeholder string for the inventory tutorial text.  This should be replaced with a block of text that describes what the inventory screen is used for.
Filler text filler text filler text filler text.

Obvious placeholder text.

Hi!
Hurry up, I don't have all day.
What part?
What part?
Pick a part already!
Oh, come on.
What part?
I hate you so much.
Skip to Chapter 2
Skip to Chapter 3
Skip to Chapter 4
More options
Skip to Chapter 5
Start
Part 2
Part 3
More options
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Even more options
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Changed my mind, go back.
Skip to Chapter 6
Skip to Chapter 7
More options
Skip to Chapter 8 (Scylla)
Skip to Chapter 8 (Charyb)
Skip to Chapter 10
Start
Nocturne start
Part 7
Never mind, go back.
Never mind.

Associated with the file _debug.dlg. Seem to be part of a debug menu used for skipping to certain chapters. The file _debug.dlg suggests that the menu takes the form of a conversation with Eggman.

Where to, mac?
I bent my wookie.
Wha...?
Kron Colony
Kron Colony ** NOT AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME
N'rrgal Colony
N'rrgal Colony ** NOT AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME
Zoah Colony
Zoah Colony ** NOT AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME
More options...
Voxai Alpha Colony
Voxai Alpha Colony ** NOT AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME
Voxai Beta Colony
Voxai Beta Colony ** NOT AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME
Hutterite Colony
Never mind, I like it here.

Associated with the file _typhoonnavigator.dlg. Probably used earlier in development for travelling to different colonies in the Cyclone using a conversation system rather than the map used in the final game. 'I bent my wookie' and 'Hutterite Colony' are references to Star Wars, with 'I bent my wookie' doubling as a Simpsons reference. (The Simpsons: Season six, episode two, if you're interested.) Note the name of the .dlg file; although the spaceship in this game is called the Cyclone, Blue Typhoon is the name of Tails' spaceship in Sonic X.

Regional Differences#

General Changes#

Several differences can be observed in the game's startup. Whereas the International version starts with the Bioware logo followed by the 2006-era Sega logo animation, the Japanese version starts with a static "Presented by SEGA" splashscreen with the logo being the light-blue Sega of Japan variant of the logo, then followed by the Bioware logo animation. Lastly, the "Licensed by Nintendo" text is removed from the Japanese version.

International	Japan

All instances of the game's English logo is replaced with the Japanese logo. Furthermore in the title screen the text "Tap to Start" is in Japanese and using a different font and colour scheme than the English version.

International	Japan

The chapter names are in Japanese and using a different font from that of the English version.

Viral Chao Distribution#

There were a series of five events planned for the game that one could attend to unlock one of five exclusive "Viral Chao", one for each event. Events two through five were cancelled due to lack of attendance at the first, so only one of the five Chao (Stugs) was made available to Western gamers; the other four, Pooki, Farfinkle, Fimbley, and Baki, were rendered inaccessible without hacking devices. The Japanese release of the game adds in button codes to unlock these Chao:

Farfinkle is the only Chao that cannot be unlocked via button codes due to a severe glitch: it is programmed to give an enemy a random status effect when the character it is bonded to attacks, which can be "KO". If this happens, the affected enemy will try and fail to use a POW move, forcing a reset of the console.

References#