Games that have unused music?

[ParanoiaDragon]

I was thinking recently about games I've beaten that have songs that I've never encountered ingame.  Right now, I'm thinking of a song called Torodo in Exile.  I've never encountered the song in the many times I've beaten the game, has anyone here heard this song ingame?

https://youtu.be/WWvSLf98qww?t=886

[Lost Monkey]

There is an unused track on the Gate of Thunder (US) 4 in 1.  I seem to recall that the same track is used on Sim Earth as the title screen music. What happened here?

[Digi.k]

Magical Chase has one.

[Black Tiger]

Thst Magical Chase track was likely for a scrapped tutorial, since that's what it's used for in Magical Chase GB.

Kabukiden has an unused chiptune.

[EmperorIng]

In the Genesis version of Exile, Torodo (or Toro-do?) is one of the locations in Japan that you visit while you are doing the whole sub-quest with Ninkan. I guess for some reason it wasn't used for Exile, which is a shame, since it is a pleasant-sounding track. I wondered that for years until I finally saw a playthrough of the Genesis version of Exile.

[seieienbu]

Ys had a song that went unused for several versions of the game entitled Dreaming.  It is used in the mirror maze in Darm Tower in subsequent versions but isn't found in the Turbo version to the best of my knowledge.

[ccovell]

I don't know too many but:

Neutopia's demo mode song runs for twice as long as the demo itself.

Devil's Crush has a really weird, long song in the sound test that goes unused (thankfully).

[ParanoiaDragon]

There is an unused track on the Gate of Thunder (US) 4 in 1.  I seem to recall that the same track is used on Sim Earth as the title screen music. What happened here?

Yeah, for whatever reason, they didn't use it on the 4 in 1, but then made it the title screen for Sim Earth.

In the Genesis version of Exile, Torodo (or Toro-do?) is one of the locations in Japan that you visit while you are doing the whole sub-quest with Ninkan. I guess for some reason it wasn't used for Exile, which is a shame, since it is a pleasant-sounding track. I wondered that for years until I finally saw a playthrough of the Genesis version of Exile.

Ah, interesting!  I've wondered this forever.  I assume the specific area in Japan is in the Turbo version, but it just doesn't switch to the new track for some reason.

Ys had a song that went unused for several versions of the game entitled Dreaming.  It is used in the mirror maze in Darm Tower in subsequent versions but isn't found in the Turbo version to the best of my knowledge.

Yeah, Dreaming is not used.  It's a great song.  IIRC, my favorite version of it is the Ys Chronicles version, with the drum n bass beat & the violin!  Gives me goosebumps even though there's not much nostalgia involved, at least, not compared to the soundtrack that was in the Turbo version.

Here's another one.  In Exile 2, I have no memory of this song.  However, I've only beaten the game once by chance BITD.  Anyone recall this song ingame?  In this video, it shows it in the Tower of Lost Souls, but, the video is just a montage. 

https://youtu.be/WrzrlDW5C9k?t=1618

[EmperorIng]

That song in Exile 2 (er, 3?) plays in the all of 10 seconds it takes to escape the "collapsing" cave where you fight El Cid/Lawrence. You might not have remembered it because you hear the opening guitar wail and a few bars before you make it out of the cave! 

[gilbert]

For the missing tracks in Ys, it's probably a space issue.
Even though the media was considered incredibly huge back at the day, CDDA ate up a VERY large portion of the disc, and that in the original Red Book specification, a disc could only hold up to 74 minutes of audio, and according to Yellow Book, only up to 60 minutes(or, around 540MB) of data. Also, disc mastering wasn't reliable at the time, when a disc hit the 70-minute line and Ys was already close to the limit. Nowadays CD-R(OM)s could reliably hold 700MB+ of data, but it's not the case at the time.

The development team had worked very hard in calculating space usage, especially in the audio apartment, that each music track should be either CDDA, chip tune, ADPCM(and there were cut-scene tracks), how long each track should be, and some of the tracks had to be outright omitted. Even the boss theme of Ys II had to be dropped, which they regretted, that if they could put 2 more minutes into the disc they wouldn't make this omission.

[esteban]

Original PCE Valis II title music:



Valis II has an alternate version of the opening title screen music that (1) isn’t used anywhere in the game and (2) is so friggin’ awesome that it is a damn shame it was rejected:


Alternatively, we could think of it as an Easter Egg for folks who love the music in Valis II (namely, me).



ALSO: I know some unused chiptunes are noted in .hes docs/playlists... like, Bikkuriman World has (4)? unused tracks (some are different versions of existing songs vs. completely original tunes).

Of course, sometimes an unused chiptune that you stumble across in an .hes file was a temporary file “place holder”/work in progress that was used during development (Deep Blue has some tracks with different arrangements...emphasizing different channels with volume or something like that...)

ALSO ALSO: I have noticed that sometimes channels from two totally different songs are shoved together (“layered on top of one another”... you’ll find a bunch of these in JJ & Jeff and Deep Blue, for example)...Maybe a technical guru can explain if that was an intentional placeholder or a weird newly-created artifact created during the ripping process.

[seieienbu]

For the missing tracks in Ys, it's probably a space issue.
Even though the media was considered incredibly huge back at the day, CDDA ate up a VERY large portion of the disc, and that in the original Red Book specification, a disc could only hold up to 74 minutes of audio, and according to Yellow Book, only up to 60 minutes(or, around 540MB) of data. Also, disc mastering wasn't reliable at the time, when a disc hit the 70-minute line and Ys was already close to the limit. Nowadays CD-R(OM)s could reliably hold 700MB+ of data, but it's not the case at the time.

The development team had worked very hard in calculating space usage, especially in the audio apartment, that each music track should be either CDDA, chip tune, ADPCM(and there were cut-scene tracks), how long each track should be, and some of the tracks had to be outright omitted. Even the boss theme of Ys II had to be dropped, which they regretted, that if they could put 2 more minutes into the disc they wouldn't make this omission.

I don't believe that is the case.  The PC88 version that I linked above is in the game but is never used.  I don't think they intended to use it in the Turbo version but ran out of space if it was completed yet was never used in the original versions of the game.

[Black Tiger]

I thought that the alternate title track for Varis II played after the credits or something.

[esteban]

I thought that the alternate title track for Varis II played after the credits or something.

The ending sequence has a short instrumental (very nice but very short) and then a soft-jazz (j/k) ending credit song.

I always dreamed that a DIFFICULTY HARD mode could be unlocked and that the alternate title music would play  this alternate track to indicate the DIFFICULTY HARD XPERIENCE.



Sadly, this has yet to happen (hidden mode for Valis II).

[EmperorIng]

Speaking of unused/alternate tracks, the RPG Auleria has most of its tracks in Redbook audio... However, it has identical renditions of the entire soundtrack also available as chiptune that goes unused for the entire game.

It makes me wonder what came first. Did Winkysoft/Taito want to use the chiptunes to save space to have more voice acting (thank goodness they didn't; that would have been a waste)? Originally conceived as a HuCard rpg before getting bumped up to a CD project (unlikely)? It's interesting that all the work is there.

Considering that the redbook audio (by Zuntata member Tamayo Kawamoto) is the best, or rather, single good thing about Auleria, I am glad they didn't leave us with just some warbling square waves.