Animal Crossing: City Folk - The Cutting Room Floor (2024)

City Folk is the third game in the Animal Crossing series, and the Wii counterpart to the DS' Wild World. They are more or less the same, with the major difference being that in this game you can go to the city!

It also introduced the infamous mechanic of grass deterioration, causing your well-loved town to slowly devolve into a barren wasteland.

There is content related to this game in the Wii Menu and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Save Data Update Channel.

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Unused Town Acres

The game's data contains many town acres which go unused in the final game's map generation. Most notably, the files contain acres for a third town elevation layer, whereas the final game only generates maps with two layers. It's unknown why this feature wasn't used, but three-layer towns were a rare occurrence in the first Animal Crossing game.

There are also a few unused acres for an ocean to the north and on the second layer which go unused. Northern ocean acres would later be partially implemented in New Horizons.

• Northern Ocean A

• Northern Ocean B

• Layer 1 Gate

• Layer 1 Top

• Layer 1 Top Left

• Layer 1 Top Right

• Layer 1 Waterfall

• Layer 2 Ocean transition

• Layer 2 Ocean

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 West River

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 West Corner River

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 East River

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 East Corner River

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 North West Corner River

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 North East Corner River

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 North River A

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 North River B

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 West A

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 West B

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 West C

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 East A

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 East B

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 East C

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 North A

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 North B

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 North C

• Layer 2 to Layer 3 North D

Additionally, there are a number of strings referencing unused acres, including several for an ocean on Layer 2:

West layer 3 to layer 2 corner 1 to 4West layer 3 to layer 2 corner ramp 1 to 4West layer 3 to layer 2 ramp 1 & 2East layer 3 to layer 2 corner 1 to 4East layer 3 to layer 2 corner ramp 1 to 4East layer 3 to layer 2 ramp 1 & 2North-west layer 3 to layer 2 corner 1 to 4North-west layer 3 to layer 2 corner ramp 1 to 4North-east layer 3 to layer 2 corner 1 to 4North-east layer 3 to layer 2 corner ramp 1 to 4North layer 3 to layer 2 ramp 1 & 2Layer 2 gate 1 & 2Layer 2 gate pondLayer 2 ocean front 1 to 6Layer 2 ocean front river W 1 & 2Layer 2 ocean front river bridge W 1 & 2Layer 2 ocean front river N 1 & 2Layer 2 ocean front river bridge N 1 & 2Layer 2 ocean front river NE 1 & 2Layer 2 ocean front river bridge NE 1 & 2Layer 2 ocean front river NW 1 & 2Layer 2 ocean front river bridge NW 1 & 2Layer 2 ocean front river E 1 & 2Layer 2 ocean front river bridge E 1 & 2

Unused Maps

Unused Player House Rooms

There exists in the game's files alternate maps of the basem*nt and the bedroom with the stairs on the right side. Their internal names are myroomBF and myroomRb.

Empty Museum Maps

There are various empty maps for the Museum, including four fossil exhibits and three painting halls.

• ms_fossilA2 (0xDB)
• ms_fossilA3 (0xDC)
• ms_fossilA4 (0xDD)
• ms_fossilB2 (0xDF)
• ms_pictureA2 (0xE5)
• ms_pictureA3 (0xE6)
• ms_pictureB2 (0xE8)

Unused Emotion

The Close emotion (ID 0x01) can only be obtained via hacking. It uses the Anger icon. When clicked, the close inventory animation plays.

Unused Text

Development-Related Strings

The following can be found in sys_SP/NPC_perimi.bmg:

【Strings】 0: ⑥Name of person 1 with full mailbox 1: ⑥Name of person 2 with full mailbox 2: ⑥Name of person 3 with full mailbox ----------------------- 【Free Management】 1: Open Town Song Window 2: Open Collection Window 3: Open Letter Box 4: Open Letter Window 5: Open Date Window

MMSRevision.txt is present in all language folders within the Script directory. Its contents are as follows:

483450

483469

479175

8465

Unused Dialogue

sys_MESS/SYS_Start.bmg in the language folders have some text about choosing kanji or hiragana...in English.

So, tell me something...How do you feel aboutreading kanji? Or maybeyou prefer only hiragana?Hiragana only!Kanji's OK!With kanji, then! Super!Only hiragana, then! Super!

Hidden Music Track Names

The outdoor background music changes every hour and is usually referred to simply by the time it can be heard (e.g. 7AM, 1PM, 11PM). The sound files for these tracks reveal that there are internal names for each loop in the game's data.

Unused Graphics

Layout/photo.arc has an early screenshot of the game, featuring a male player and Mitzi in a barren wasteland with no trees, buildings, plants, or anything. It can be found in photoTex_00.tpl.

Layout/map.arc has an early image showing a sample town map in map_240_CI4_00.tpl.

Several ARC files have a dummy Mii face using Satoru Iwata's Mii that he used at the time.

Layout/desi_win.arc contains eight dummy patterns with numbers on them. Their individual names range from md00.tpl to md07.tpl. The first four patterns appear in a few other archives.

Three tiny dummy textures for floors, walls, and miscellaneous items.

A dummy texture intended for clothes.

An unused texture found with the ground models in the BgData directory.

Unused Music

KK Slider

Sound/rv_forest.brsar contains a file BGM_KK00_TEST, which is a short excerpt of K.K. Jazz.

Phineas' Theme

Phineas' music box theme is actually comprised of hidden audio tracks that play over the normal City music when he is present. Even though Phineas only appears when visiting the City during the daytime, there are hidden audio tracks with unique versions of his theme in the night, late night, and early morning versions of the City music. These can be found in Sound/rv_forest.brsar as the last audio channel of BGM_TOWN_NIGHT, BGM_TOWN_MIDNIGHT, and BGM_TOWN_EARLY, respectively. These tracks can be heard in the unlikely case that the player waits while Phineas is in the plaza, forcing him to stay there.

Curiously, the morning version of the song is played a key higher in comparison to the main theme, suggesting that the song may have been originally pitched that way.

Night Version

Midnight Version

Morning Version

Regional Differences

Region Exclusive Villager Houses

Upon generating a town, the game selects from a preset of five house exterior combinations. However, in each region, two of these combinations are unique to that area.

TV Testcard

In the European version, the TV uses a PAL testcard instead of the NTSC one.

Bulletin Paper Name

The unobtainable item bulletin paper uses the filler name in the German version: ブランクドイツ (literally translates to "blank German").

Oddities

On New Year's Day, Tortimer will give the player a New Year's shirt featuring the animal which corresponds to the Chinese New Year. There are shirts for the years 2000-2008 even though these days predate the game's release in late 2008.

Internal Project Name

The game's internal name is rvl_forest, as evidenced by strings in the main.dol. "rvl" stands for Revolution, the Wii's original codename name. "forest" refers to Animal Forest, the Japanese name of the franchise (Doubutsu no Mori).

Build Strings

The following strings from main.dol are a build date and build time, respectively, not representing the final game's build date as it's dated over a year before the game's release.

Aug 8 2007

01:59:06