|
genericusernamething Random nobody Level: 4     Posts: 1/2 EXP: 130 For next: 149 Since: 07-11-16 Since last post: 5.8 years Last activity: 5.5 years 
|
|
| I'm new, please ignore me/let me know if this is out of place or has been covered elsewhere
I noticed that TCRF has a page on Ham-Hams Unite. It doesn't actually have some of the missing stuff that I found. And there aren't any pages on the other Hamtaro games, either backstory: last fall I noticed there weren't any Youtube OSTs of the entire soundtrack for any of the four "big" localized Hamtaro games, so I decided to create them myself. I ended up taking game rips and using them to create youtube videos with the soundtracks (youtube name is the same as name here). Well... there's some interesting stuff in those rips. Ham-Hams Unite: TCRF's page includes a mention of the title screen and menu screen's themes being different between the Japanese and localized versions. That's not all the soundtrack holds. Now, I think this is where I got the original rip from. (Don't worry if you can't open it - it's all preserved in my playlist.) Well, if you look at the playlist, you'll notice six interesting tracks at the bottom, that I colloquially termed Unused Tracks 1-6 (there was never an official OST with official titles for any of the Hamtaro games). I've played Ham-Hams Unite start to finish enough to know that these six themes are, indeed, completely unused. (notice: all 6 of these were at the end of the game rip, not scattered around the rest of the OST, in case that says anything) Quick analysis of them: Unused Track 1 - An 8-bit theme of the Japan-only song, Hamutaro Ekakiuta (Hamtaro Drawing Song), comparison here. I don't really have any idea what this might have been originally conceived for in the context of the game. Unused Track 2 - Sounds like it could be some sort of death theme (akin to the Kirby or Mario one), except... you can't die in Hamtaro. Failure song (for Tack-Q Bowling or something), maybe? I was not the only one to notice that it seems to bear a slight resemblance to the famous Totaka's Song. Ham-Hams Unite music was composed by one Satoko Yokota. Unused Track 3 - A more rhythmic-sounding adaptation of the 4th movement of the New World Symphony (see 16 seconds in for the exact theme utilized). Hamtaro is no stranger to classical music - both Ham-Hams Unite and its direct successor Ham-Ham Heartbreak utilize 2 classical themes (2 for each game, that is) as Ham-Jam tunes. Most likely this was a scrapped Ham-Jam. Unused Track 4 - An adaptation of the main theme from the (more famous) 2nd movement of the same New World Symphony (see 50 seconds in). Another Ham-Jam, I presume. Unused Track 5 - A more electronic-sounding, syncopated version of... the same bit of the New World Symphony used in Unused Track 3. Unlike the other one, this one moves to a major key and ends triumphantly. Unused Track 6 - The only one of the unused tracks that loops, making me believe it's an ambient track (used for a level or area or whatever). It uses the whole-tone scale, a feature it shares with the (used) Flower Garden/Cave music, but to me has some stylistic similarities to the Ruins theme. I'd suggest it's a proto-Ruins theme, except for the part where it's literally the last theme on the soundtrack and Ruins... isn't. Ham-Ham Heartbreak: Rip here. A couple oddities: American and Japanese versions have different title screen sequences. The same was true in Ham-Hams Unite. (Both themes are on my Youtube playlist, but they're no more than 32-bit-ified versions of the themes used for Ham-Hams Unite.) Additionally, the menu is different between the three versions (Japanese, American, European): 
 (this is European; American has no language option, but the text is spaced the same)
A passing reference to this was made on the Ham-Hams Unite page, but Japanese Ham-Hams Unite utilizes an altered version of the Japanese title screen for its dictionary theme, and an altered version of the credits for its menu theme. The localized versions of Ham-Hams Unite use the altered credits music for both the menu and the dictionary. Japanese Ham-Ham Heartbreak uses the same system, and localized Ham-Ham Heartbreak actually follows suit instead of following the localized Ham-Hams Unite. The in-game version and Ham-Jam version of Moonlight have mild differences (different harmonies and a different ending). They are #18 and #38 in the rip respectively. I am unsure of why this is. Two versions of the (localized) title theme. This theme is used in two different places: for the title screen, and for Ham-Jam. However, I can't hear any functional difference between these two versions. Plus, they are #01 and #31 in the rip. I am not sure why this is the case. Unused Track 1 - #27 in the rip from KHInsider, so it's actually not at the very end. It sounds a lot like an epilogue theme to me (c.f. the ending theme from Kirby's Adventure). Perhaps it was originally meant for a credits sequence or something after Spat's last defeat (possibly before being replaced by Hamour, which is #30 in the rip, obviously coming after #27)? Immediately following this unused track is post-game Spat Tower, which seems relevant in my book! Unused Track 2 - This sounds to me like a carnival fun house (the kind of scary kind) which makes me wonder if maybe Fun Land and Boo Manor were originally once related, or something. #29 in the rip, it comes after Fun Land (#22) and Boo Manor (#25), though. Rainbow Rescue: Full rip and Youtube playlist. Unused Track - Only one this time. It's very short and repeats quickly. I don't have any idea what this might have been used for. Ham-Ham Games: Full rip and Youtube playlist. There are no unused tracks in this game, but there's a handful of oddities. Basically, in this game, the overworld areas don't have their own music. Instead, the background music randomly goes between tracks every so often. You can change the background music at the beginning of each in-game day at a jukebox in Ham Studios. If you choose a song, it may (keyword: may) be played if you watch the Ham Studios broadcast in the morning. Sometimes, they'll play your song, and sometimes they'll play "other hamsters'" requests. 
The songs have titles. But after extensive testing with savestates, I've come to the conclusion that none of these song titles actually correspond with any 1 song. I believe that it is purely random what these song titles actually reflect. It doesn't help that the Jukebox, from which you can choose a song to play on the spot, meaning you'd be able to immediately tell if the song you chose played in-game... 
... doesn't actually have song titles. This is where the Ambient Tracks in my playlist come from. They are in the same order in the game data as in the Jukebox, and the same order as that in my Youtube playlist. That being said - some of these tracks I've definitely heard in-game. Tracks 16-17, 19, 22, 25-26, and 29 (among others) however, I'm not sure I've ever heard in the game outside the Jukebox. I don't know if they're just not set to ever be ambient tracks in the overworld, if they're bizarrely rare (some seem more rare than others), or if they require some sort of unlock condition. I don't know what's up with this. But that's not the only oddity. The other is the accursed Costumes. This is a Costumes guide. It seems accurate enough. I've gotten a lot of those costumes myself. ... but not all of them. And that's not all: this guide corroborates it, too. (For the record: According to both guides, the Sheep costume is literally the very first one you can get. But in all the dozens of times I've played this game, the first costume I'm offered is always Tiger. So there's no chance I could miss it.) Inevitably there comes a point where even if I've explored as much as possible and gotten to the point where the game literally stops providing me costumes, I still don't have them all. Because this guide exists and because I've played this game so many times, I feel like some of these I shouldn't have missed. And I am adamant that I did not. I discussed it in much more detail here, but in essence, I am very sure that there is some sort of "alternative costumes" that you can get. I'm not sure if it's cart-specific (as the game did have a connectivity function, which may have been involved in costume trading - I never got the chance to try it out personally), or region-based, or what, but I'm pretty sure there's something fishy here. I don't know shit about code so I wouldn't be able to go check it out myself, but I think there's something weird going on here. Any comments or information would be much appreciated, and again, let me know if I did something wrong due to being a new user, or whatever |
 Register - Login | |||||
|
Main
- Memberlist
- Active users
- Calendar
- Wiki
- IRC Chat
- Online users Ranks - Rules/FAQ - Stats - Latest Posts - Color Chart - Smilies |
|
| | ||
