Part 121: Interim 1: Unused and Cutscene-only maps

First up, we've got some NPC chatter that I've missed.



And now, to make the update have some actual substance, some stuff about unused maps.

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Welcome back!

Let's start with the only "properly" unused map: The Spiral Staircase map in the Twin Towers.



Thankfully, all of its data was left intact on the disc, so it's easy to get to and see, assuming you have Debug Mode enabled. Party Group 06 corresponds to Justin and Leen.



It's also pretty obvious that this would have come after the Hall of Murals, as Justin and Leen are on the same elevator they used to exit that map.

Also, if you look closely at the back wall, you'll see a single cell, and then a tadpole-like creature. Three guesses what's going to be happening as we ascend the shaft.



Yup, more evolution, up to fish....



Fuck yeah, dinosaurs!

And is that some sort of bipedal lion-monster?



And apparently the giant space baby from the end of 2001 is the pinnacle of human evolution. And we also evolved from dinosaurs.

Anyway, after this, the screen fades out and we warp to the Room of Illusion, where the scene with Liete procedes as normal.

Next up, we'll be investigating some rooms that are only ever used for cutscenes.





Map $4C04 here is the entrance to the Garlyle Base. Normally, you only get a brief glimpse of this map, as the three sergeants herd you through the front gate. Without the plot flag set, though, the cutscene isn't active, so we can explore.



The first thing to note is that the collison here... more or less matches up with the geometry. The tanks are intangible, there's an invisible wall preventing you from going behind them, and the inside of the base is.... unfinished... but, for the most part, if you can see something, you can't walk through it, and vice-versa.



The gate reacts to your presence.



And the terrain just... ends not too far from the entrance. It's still solid (like these tanks), and there's some objects out in the void you can interact with, there's just no floor texture out there.



There's also an invisible square object here.



Going around it brings you to the tank assembly line. You can interact with the consoles to make the crane move around. This one, in particular, will set the turret down in midair, right about where it would be if there were a tank underneath it.



In true Grandia fashion, you can interact with this drum here and it'll wobble around.



Ahahahaha, you thought the fact that there's no possible way to trigger this text normally would keep me from showing it off?





Although it does give you a decent sense of the scale of the base. Granted, I'm sure it would be more impressive if the map had been finished, but eh.

Speaking of the base....



Yes, there is a warp from the entryway to the main exterior of the barracks. Again, normally that map is only seen while the sergeants are escorting you to jail, and the nighttime one that's used during the escape is a different map entirely.



Well, not entirely. The layout and treasures are all the same, just the nighttime map has the boss fight with Mio, the save point, and a lot of boxes added.

This map does let you go back to the entrance, though.



And to the train station, but we'll cover that later.



These three are just standing here, right where you'd normally be warped in during the cutscenes. They're solid, but can't be interacted with.



Also, the steam object does what it's supposed to.

Now, for the train station.



There is, in fact, an upstairs room! You can see this normally, if you turn around and head back up the stairs during the escape. The door back to the main base will warp you to the proper map based on your plot progression (i.e. if you cheated your way here, it'll send you back to the cutscene map, without triggering the cutscene)

Without the event to activate the escape, though, the train itself does nothing. So, let's examine some differences between $4C08, the "cutscene" or "daytime" version of the base, and $4C0A, the one that you are normally allowed to run around on.



For starters, the text for hitting the steam is different. Not sure if it was just touched up by an editor, or if the fact that it's still broken was supposed to be a joke.





I do wonder what would happen if you clipped through this fence here.

Anyway, the next map is the normal barracks.



Interestingly, there's text for being unable to open the doors, even though the doors aren't locked.

Well, some of 'em aren't. Any of the ones that can be accessed via the vents are.

And giving yourself the master key does nothing; it's the events that give you the keys that unlock the doors, not the items themselves.



Interestingly enough, the door to the locker room is unlocked.



... Rather, the door that leads to the stairway to the locker room. This particular door is locked, despite the fact that you would never have access to it without the master key.

In short, there's a hell of a lot of evidence left on the disc that the Garlyle Base section was originally going to be much different than it wound up being.

Before we go, there's one more map I'd like to show you.



It's in the $4CXX block, so it's part of the Garlyle Base still.





I'm not just gratuitously linking that music, by the way. The room is set to play that as its theme.

Now, despite the fancy decorations, most of this room is just for show. There's no door, no warps, the camera doesn't rotate....



... And there's a picture of a blonde humanoid woman up on the only patch of wall in the room.

Yes, we get a clearer picture of Mullen's mom than we do of Justin's dad.

Oh, also, the globe. Looks fairly normal, right? There's the polar ice cap, and the visible continent is clearly Messina.



If you walk next to the globe and touch it, it'll rotate. Here, we can see the continent to the west of Parm. We'll be getting quite familiar with this continent on Disc 2. To the west of that?



Why, that looks an awful lot like Elencia. Interestingly enough, according to the globe, Gumbo is right about at the equator.

Spinning the globe west from Elencia, we come back to Messina.

Meaning that, by telling us to go East, Liete had us go the long way around the entire freaking planet!

See you next time, when I'll be delving into the map files themselves for hidden gems.