Whirlo

Whirlo is a prequel to Valkyrie no Bouken: Toki no Kagi Densetsu featuring Valkyrie's sidekick Sandra Whirlo going on a great adventure to save his son from the curse of Zouna Malix.

Unused Maps#

To access those maps quickly, you can poke the RAM address 7E0060 with the value of the map ID, then lose a life.

Test Map#

Map 00 is a test map can be accessed by entering the password shown in the screenshot below. Works in both versions. The text in the beginning of the area means "Test Map," and numbers in the floor show the current screen. The map has the size of 16 screens, numbered from 1 to 8 and 11, 22, 33, ..., 88. Whirlo's sprite from the Japanese title screen appears on screen 2, but cannot be interacted with. It does not appear in the European version, presumably because its graphics were deleted.

The Test Map tileset loads graphics for orange slopes and grey blocks, but they're not used in the actual level layout.

Store#

Entering the password in the screenshot below will take the player to map 27, a different version of Store (きょうかい, "Church"), the interior of the frozen tower in Tree Island. The used version, map 39, is a single screen and only appears in a scene, while this map is large and has several slopes and spikes. This map suggests that the player originally had to go all the way to the bottom to find the clerk/priest.

This area, which wraps horizontally, features a large ball of ice that pursues Whirlo. The ice ball can be easily outrun, causing it to despawn, and sometimes it doesn't appear at all. Some spikes lack collision detection. Due to the exceptional height of the level, Whirlo's death animation due to touching spikes (which leads him to fall until he reaches the bottom of the map) can take a very long time to play out. These quirks, along with some awkward geometry, imply that this area was not finished.

Entering the door in the bottom will take Whirlo to one of the maps from Neverland, usually map 38.

The Tower, Third Trial Unused Variant#

The third trial in the final level "The Tower" (JP: Tower of Trials, まぼろしの とう) is stored in the room ID 32, just after the other two trials. However, the game never actually uses that version. It will instead use a randomly-chosen room out of 16 variants of the same room, stored in the room IDs between 50 and 5F. Each of these rooms has a slightly different level layout with different placements of the invisible platforms, to customize each different playthrough of the player.

It can be challenging to finish this level, considering the events and the orb that illuminates the path aren't fully working if the level is force loaded. It's still playable because the falling stars still give enough hints, and is polished enough it can be played to completion, although doing so would load the map from the next ID as a failsafe measure, which so happens to be an unrelated cutscene map from the first level that proceeds as normal.

Unused Graphics#

Animations from a possible scrapped ending. Whirlo's son succumbs to the plague and turns to ashes in his mother's arms as she sheds a tear. The graphics, palettes and tilesets that call these animations are still functional, and would have been overlaid on an existing cutscene background to display properly, but there's enough subtle differences that hint it was probably meant for an earlier version of the background used in the final game, or a different graphic altogether. They can be observed (albeit in a very glitchy state) by loading the invalid map 88.

For some reason, they're always loaded in memory during the game over password screen. One possible explanation for this is that the game keeps track of how many game overs the player got, and it even has a special message when reaching 255 times ("Too Many Times" in Japanese, "ENOUGH!" in English).

Orbs in large and small sizes loaded as part of the graphical set for the statues and the monsters encountered in the Mysterious Forest (Haunted Forest in English), which is the second sublevel visited in the game. They're distinctively different from the Power Orbs (Light Shards in the Japanese version) graphics which never come in that size, or the bubbles in the Valley of Sizus. While sprite definitions exist for them and get loaded as part of garbage offscreen data in that level, they're never actually shown or used.

The purple version is the best-matching palette loaded in that area; the yellow version is a manually recolored guess to match the palette used for Power Orbs elsewhere in the game.

The Nico Clan guys never face away from the screen, even when meeting the princess, and they never attend any public performances by the NPCs from the side-quests in the later levels, but unused sprites exist for that.

The second test in the Tower of Trials is a test of mercy. Depending on how many good deeds Whirlo does, he gets to avoid yet another bad ending and continue his quest. Among those good deeds is helping stranded ducklings reunite with their mothers or avoid bottomless pits, hitting question blocks to free human maidens or monsters, pushing blocks or destroying fallen blocks to protect ducklings, and finally avoid stepping on roses. Going with the general theme of whether to attack or to sheathe the blade, there's a counterpart for the roses, a thorny bush, that's loaded in the same VRAM block as this level alongside its palette, but it never gets used. Less interestingly, there's actually three types of middle-sized ducklings, each meant to display in a different color, but only the yellow version gets used.

Oddities#

Password System Quirks#

In both versions of the game, the password system keeps track of a bunch of variables that cover the stage (slots 2-5, 2-6, 2-7, 2-8), the story progression (slots 1-4, 1-5), the game over count (slots 1-6, 1-7, 1-8), and some event flags (slots 2-2, 2-3 and 2-4). The game then generates a checksum and includes it in the password's first three slots (slots 1-1, 1-2, 1-3). The default password value fills all slots with a square symbol, assumed to be the default null value.

There's a slot (2-1) that stands out in all passwords given to the player regardless of the game's version. It's always a square symbol in passwords generated by the game, meaning the variable it stands for has a null value. If one tries to generate a modified password with a different value for this slot as long as the slots for the checksum are properly updated, the game will accept this password; however, there won't be any observable effects in game, and further passwords generated by the game in that playthrough will fill that slot with a square symbol as usual.

Essentially, this slot, and the event flag or variable it used to keep track of, is unused and extraneous in the final version.

Besides the checksum, the game's password screen is very lacking in sanity checks. The game can accept passwords that spawn the player in an empty or invalid level (resulting in a black screen), or inside a pit with wrong event variables (resulting in a death loop), or normally cutscene-only levels, or will even cause glitches and game crashes.

The Japanese and European regions will generate different passwords, because the slots tracking the stage/area (2-5 and 2-6) and some event flags (2-4) are generated slightly differently, which will also affect how checksum values are generated. Some valid passwords are identical between regions, but most passwords are different. Since the checksum value is correct, many passwords from the wrong region will be accepted but would spawn the player in invalid maps or exhibit the aforementioned glitches.

Health System#

While everything in this game kills the player in one hit on contact except for i-frames after successful hits during boss battles, the game code actually differentiates internally between the player taking damage from enemies, and damage from elements that would be instant-death in other platformers such as rising lava or bottomless pits. While there are some rare bugs that would have to be taken care of, such as the collision for the crescent lock, and the crescent king battle, the game's code as it is could easily support a traditional health meter system with minimal modifications.

Unused Text#

このさき  「ふしき゛の もり」

Uses the text box type for signposts. Reads: "Mysterious Forest Ahead". Uses the Japanese name for Level 1-2's Mysterious Forest, called "Haunted Forest" in the final English version. The final game uses special graphics for a similar signpost near the end of Level 1-1. These graphics were translated in the European version, and this unused text message was removed, probably because there was no further need for it.

はは の はか   
ト゛ト゛ の はか

Uses the text box type for signposts. Reads: "Mama's Grave, Dodo's Grave".

The final game has a couple of graves with special graphics that have this exact same message. There's a signpost nearby, but it can't be interacted with, nor does it display any messages. It's very likely this signpost was where this message was originally supposed to appear. The European version removed this unused message, but didn't translate the graphics either, leaving them in Japanese.

Regional Differences#

To do: Compare the different passwords between JP and EU. Source

Title Screen#

Japan	Europe

The title screen logo was completely redone. In the Japanese version, Sandra appears moving in the "n" from his name. Those sprites were deleted from the European version.

Player Sprite#

Japan	Europe

The main character has his serious "angry" expression by default in the European version. The neutral expression still exists in the data and is always loaded to VRAM, but instantly overwritten.

Password#

Many of the passwords are different between the versions. The game crashes if an invalid password that is valid in other version is entered. There are also passwords considered valid that crash in both versions. In the examples above, the first password only works in the Japanese version, while the second works in both.

Translation#

• Nico (Nicol in Japan) and his friends were given tea in the English version, and booze in the Japanese version.
• The Church is called a Store in the English version.
• Mentions of death were glossed over.

Multiple characters had their names changed, and in the case of Andie/Andy (the mother of Sabine/Steven in Japan) even their gender.

Depending on the player's choices, Whirlo's search for Nico in the Toxic Fungi Cave (Toadstool Cave in English) will have an alternative conclusion where it turns out he's just fine but on the run from the princess because he's unwilling to marry her. Trying to shake off his persistent pursuer, Nico suggests that Whirlo joins him and discover what a harem is, saying it's a great place with a lot of gorgeous ladies, and making his point with pervy laughs and onomatopoeia about hugging, and arguments that every man must experience this at least once. If Whirlo does take him up on his offer, a bad ending ensues where Whirlo ditches his quest and is surrounded with ladies, impressing the villain in the process who (inevitably) makes him join her as a black knight in the desert. He spends the rest of eternity looking for women there.

The actual ending is still present in the English version. There, Nico is convincing Whirlo to visit "Harlem", who is "a nice guy who knows beautiful people", and that it will be "an adventure", with some references to death changed.

The flags controlling whether dialogs can be quickly advanced with a button press differ between versions.

CONTINUED TO  「 ワルキュ-レの ほ゛うけん 」
おまけた゛よ

A post-credits message further establishing this game is a prequel of Valkyrie no Bouken. There's also a message just after that "This is a bonus" that was removed from the English version's text data as well.

Tutorials#

The English version added three pieces of dialog in the first world that explain the charging jump, the whirlwind jump, and the long jump mechanics. These lines didn't exist in the Japanese version.

One of these scenes was added near the start of the first level, and spoken by petrified Sandros villagers in the English version, who also urge you to go to the Elder. Afterwards, there's a section of the level in small forest, and yet another petrified Sandros villager who has some animations but no text. An invisible wall trigger surrounds the second villager, but it's possible to go over it, causing the villager not to spawn.

In the Japanese version, it was the other way around. The first group of petrified villagers had no dialogue, and the second villager's invisible wall was a trigger for a unique cutscene with different dialogue (also mentioning the Elder) that most players of the English version will never see in normal gameplay.

However, that scene is still present and fully translated in the English version, and can be accessed with a combination of frame-perfect whirlwind jumps to hit a specific position for a cutscene trigger that wasn't fully removed in the English version. One way to consistently view this is by using a moon jump cheat code (Action Replay: 7E087211 for all versions).

Difficulty#

Malix has 128 HP per phase in the Japanese version of the game and 80 HP per phase in the European release (as measured by the values held in RAM addresses 151E, 15DE, and 169E for the three phases). For context, a regular attack deals 2 damage, a downward stab deals 6, and a Whirlowind deals 16.