Gakuen Senki:Cut Content

This page details cut content or version changes to Gakuen Senki.

Debug Menu
Gakuen Senki has a debug menu, which is quite easy to access. Simply press the "Changes" entry on the main menu multiple times.
 * You press "Changes" twice to access the first feature, a "Prologue" menu that does nothing of the sort. The developers admit that there is no prologue (the menu may have been repurposed later in development - a Prologue does exist in Little Vampire) and instead, it shows you all three of Kaori's screen-wide, sports club CGs. This also breaks the screen ("You can keep playing, but you need to reset to fix it."), since players originally would have been on Disk A, but the graphic that would normally be used to fix the full-screen CGs was only on Disks C and D.
 * In the original release, this "Prologue" (Disk A) copy of the image of Kaori playing tennis was faulty. It was interrupted part-way through by random pixels, and when the pixels stop, the bottom part of the image continued, now misaligned with the top. The proper image, which appears on a later disk (Disk D), does not have this error. The images can be compared below. The modern port only contains the corrected image, and does not have this error.
 * After pressing "Changes" the first two times, you can press it twice more (for a total of four) to access the debug menu, which can start the game at several later parts of the story:
 * From the Cafe: Appears in the cafe on the first day. Kaga is not officially in the party and does not appear in the party status bar, but because the game assumes he's present during the cafe scene, there are no other problems. Once he leaves the party at the end of the scene, the status bar will be corrected. In the original game, the chapter was still set to the nonexistent "Chapter 0," and you did not have your wallet or any money, leading to errors, but these have been fixed in the port. In the port, you have 20,000 yen.
 * (1) Biology Club: Appears in the student council room just after Kazumi arrives. Wataru has 19,300 yen. Midori, Takao, and Youko are technically in the party, but do not appear in the status bar. Note that Wataru is never carrying any items from previous chapters in these debug scenarios, other than his wallet.
 * (2) Youko-chan: The start of chapter 3. Wataru has 15,000 yen.
 * (3) Eraser: The start of chapter 4. Wataru's cash flow has actually gone up, to 16,000 yen.
 * (4) Astronomy club: The start of chapter 5. Wataru has 12,000 yen.
 * (5) ENDING: Takes you to the cave and the start of chapter 6. Your inventory is empty, but due to a programming error, you will be unable to see your inventory in most circumstances. See Coding Observations for more. This is fixed in the English version. Behind the scenes, Wataru's wallet is not present. In the real game, Wataru actually keeps his wallet all game long (variable B14 is never set to 0), but you can no longer see it because it's not included in the inventory code.
 * (6) ENDING 2: Puts you in the hallway, waiting for Kei to finish changing before your final attack. Strictly speaking, Kaga is not in the party and will never get a chance to rejoin, but because the game assumes he is there, nothing goes wrong outside of the party status bar and he will show up in combat as normal. Behind the scenes, Wataru has his wallet again.

Slower Rendering Speeds
While the slower MSX drawing text and image drawing speeds are generally an inconvenience, there are a few moments in the game where they were used to clever effect. The modern port attempts to substitute most special effects, some were sadly lost.
 * Whenever the party bar refreshed to empty at the start of the game and in new chapters, it would appear one box at a time. Because this constantly interrupted the music, it also appeared to play a beep "sound effect" as each box appeared, but since these "sounds" were actually the music being chopped to pieces, they could vary wildly. The end result is something like the screens turning on at the start of Jeopardy.
 * Because of the way the game drew graphics, sometimes it would draw a room and then "reveal" a character was there by drawing them after the fact, slowly drawing attention to the character. In the updated port, characters appear instantly.
 * When Wataru enters and exits the boy's dorm, female party members would leave and rejoin the status bar the moment the game was done printing their text, one after another. In the modern port, text appears instantly, which means that they leave and rejoin as a group. This effect was also used when the student council members leave the scene after they talk after seeing the ghost, but this effect was deliberately recreated in the remake since it only happens once.

Cut Content

 * Object #1 in the object list is never seen in-game, because it's used to tell the game that a verb is used on its own, with no accompanying object, like the verbs "Think" or "System." In most games that use verb-object menus, like pre-Windows versions of Rance 1 and Little Vampire, Object #1 is called "*" to indicate that it is completely unused. In Gakuen Senki, however, Object #1 is called "TADA".
 * If you attempt to take the volleyball in the first gym, Wataru will say he can't. This is followed by an inaccessible block of code that says the same thing in a slightly different fashion. The used line of text reads "ボールは､バレーボールぶいんがつかってるのでとることができません｡", and the unused reads "ボールは､バレーボールぶいんが､つかっているので､とれません｡" In the English translation, the used text reads, "I can't take the ball since it is being used by the members of the volleyball club." and the unused reads, "It is being used by members of the volleyball club so I can't take it."
 * There are supposed to be a rotating set of three responses for using Look -> Pool at the pools, but the first response never goes away, leaving the other two dummied. This is fixed in the fan-port.
 * There is a short, unused block of code in the scene where you first meet Kazumi. It would have updated the game to chapter 2, officially added Youko, Midori, and Takao to the party behind the scenes, and removed Kaori from the party. In the Japanese game, these all happen at the start of the scene (Kaori is removed as part of general cleanup). The code then proceeds to an unrelated label, possibly suggesting it was overwritten from that point on.
 * There are two responses to using the Enter command in the school infirmary, the second of which overrides the first. The used response has the nurse say: "ベットにはいりたいの｡せんせいが､そいねしてあげようか｡" or "Want to get into bed? Want me to join you?". The unused variant reads: "なに､せんせいといっしょに､ベットに､はいりたいですって?もうすこし､おおきくなったらね｡" or "What is it? Want to enter the bed together with me? Maybe when you are a bit older."
 * In the final game, you can only ask Kaga about Nagai's whereabouts once, but the game includes a second response that goes unused. If you were able to ask him again, Kaga would say: "あいつ､ゲームすきだから､ゲームセンターでまってたら､あえるんじゃないか｡" or in English: "He [Nagai] likes games. Try the arcade. If you wait he might show up." It may be notable that, in the final game, you don't have to wait, since Nagai is already there, and you have to search for him instead.
 * It's not possible to re-enter the biology club before discovering the cave, but if it were, Midori would have alternate dialogue, simply saying: "I feel kinda sick."
 * The original game features two unused tunnel graphics featuring actual pictures of the monster and human corpses. These are restored in the fan-port.
 * All of Youko's content in the screaming monster room checks to see if she is in the party, but in the final game, you can't approach the screaming monster unless she is in the party. This leaves two lines dummied. If you beat the monster with the bat three times, instead of Youko attacking it, Midori would say: "I feel really sorry for it, so let's stop this." Without Youko, walking into walls would only be described in narration, saying: "There are only walls there." The only of Youko's lines that does not test to see if she's there is Use -> Monster, which is faulty twice over, because it also fails to check if you've discovered the monster in the first place (fixed in the fan-port).
 * If you tried to leave the room during the Chapter 2 "boss fight," the original game would display a blank instead of the intended message saying the monster blocks the way. The port fixes this.
 * An unused, empty version of the classroom from the start of Chapter 3 appears in the data as image 48 (the used version, with students present, is image 51).
 * The original code intended to stop the player from leaving the gym before they finish interviewing the red herring volleyball players is faulty. It checks if you are in chapter 5, not 4, and so it never runs. This was good, because it also checks the status of variable U16, the variable that checks if you've been told to talk to the football players, which could easily have left players stranded. The code is highly similar to the code from the football players and may have been copied in one direction or another, leading to these errors. The code is fixed in the port, preventing you from leaving the gym until you're done interviewing the volleyball players.
 * In the cosmetics store, you can end the lip balm sequence by talking to Kaori until she buys one, or by buying it yourself. The latter was broken in the original release: while it sets one of the two flags required to clear the sequence, it forgets variable U14, which it leaves at "1", forcing you to get Kaori to buy the balm herself. Notably, forcing Kaori to buy the polish herself advances U14 from 1 to 3, instead of 1 to 2 like you'd expect from other parts of the game. It may be that U14 was supposed to keep track of who bought the lip balm, with 3 for Kaori and 2 for Wataru, possibly leading to future changes. In the port, both methods set U14 to 3, so the way you acquire the lip balm is irrelevant.
 * An unused overlay of Imai exists at Image 124, intended for use with the rooftop telescopes (image 233), and presumably would have been used when she passes you on her way to the observatory. She is identical to her appearance in the observatory (image 231), except that the overlay is incomplete: it includes several columns of black pixels to Imai's right, and is cropped in a way that would leave Imai cut off about mid-torso, floating in mid-air.
 * This exact style of overlay is almost never used in the original game to begin with, only being used by Oomori in the astronomy club at the start of Chapter 5 (image 76).
 * The observatory's Exit command was supposed to be equivalent to Descend, but it was being overwritten by a second Exit command that was equivalent to pressing Inventory/Misc. 1, instead. This is fixed in the port.
 * The MSX game occasionally changed images from how they appear in data. In most cases, this effect was replicated in the remake, but due to palette limitations, the background color of the battle with the gunman could not. The MSX background color can be seen below. Note the slightly different frame and scattered pixels that were changed in the remake.
 * An unused version of the room with the broken tank can be found in the code. The used version is page 94, the unused page 95. Both had their faults in the original release. The used version originally declared that you couldn't go to the roof but then immediately sent you to the roof anyways, without the disk. The unused version has a slightly different menu with different responses, and forces you to get the disk before you can go to the roof, causing the rubble to disappear for no reason. It also allows you to collect a bomb out of the wreckage, which the developers abandoned outside of this page. The bomb was not coded to appear in your inventory, but the inventory was coded to allow for multiple items even though only the magnet appears in the final game, presumably a remnant of the bomb. Perhaps the bomb was used to clear the wreckage in the original plans? The English version of the port creates a new bomb puzzle to correct this faulty sequence.
 * Several conversations with Youko and Midori were accidentally dummied after the helicopter takes off. These were fixed in the port.
 * The game features a completely unused code page, Page 158. The page appears to be an extended developer joke, with all the words self-censored or possibly "damaged" with random asterisks to the point where it is borderline illegible (and as such, it was left untranslated in the port). In spite of this, the page contains two small references to the rest of the game: Midori is available for conversation if she's in the party (saying something that might read: "It's not done here, is it?", as if commenting on the state of the code?), and if it is Chapter 2, using "Talk -> Guy" twice would lead to a submenu after the rest of his unreadable chat. The page notably never resets the conversation variables at the start of the page like nearly every other page in the game, and if you attempt to access the Inventory menu, it sends you to the System menu, instead. If you use the Exit command, the player would appear at the club center.
 * There are two other, completely unused images in the game. The first, image 77, is an image of Kaori near some sakura trees. The second is image 167, a glamor shot of Youko seemingly meant to be used in a similar fashion to the one of Kaori that you see underneath the menu throughout the game. It's done in a similar style to the Kaori image, and shares the words "Gakuen Senki" in Japanese. The original, Youko image file was too short for the finished GUI, though it was corrected for the English version (and below).

Coding Observations

 * Throughout Chapters 1 and 2, the game increments your inventory count (variable B13) by 1 each time you collect an item, however this is only used to tell if the game should produce a special message if your inventory is empty. Since you're forced to pick up your wallet to even leave the first room, that made the feature almost entirely pointless prior to chapter 6, when your inventory is emptied again. The developers seem to have realized that part-way through development, and the intervening chapters no longer increment B13 for their new items.
 * Unfortunately, the developers forgot about the B13 variable so thoroughly that they forgot to zero it at the start of chapter 6, producing a faulty inventory message that reads "I have [new line].", until you collect an inventory item. This was fixed in the port. Ironically, they remembered to zero the variable in the debug menu, even though it was already zero there, but this actually causes an error, because only the shiny stone was programmed to increase B13. As a result, your inventory would claim to be empty except for the brief period when you're carrying a stone. This has also been fixed.
 * Your bat is always destroyed in the fight against the Chapter 2 monster (specifically, it is removed from your inventory at the end of the scene), but Chapters 3-5 all include the bat in your inventory. Its description has even been updated as if Wataru is more impressed with it now, going from "I have a bat." to "A metal bat that seems to have some destructive power."
 * You cannot save in Youko and Usami's room. You can save in the crowd scene that follows, but loading that save will return you to Youko and Usami's room as though you had saved there, instead, which again, isn't possible. You can immediately Exit the room and return to the crowd. The developers presumably didn't want to reset your interview with Usami or your conversation with Kaori, given all the moving parts, but wanted to give you a break in between, ending up in this ironic situation.
 * The inventory menu during the second cave sequence originally had two options to close the menu, the second of which overrode the first. While it makes no functional difference, the English version removes the first.
 * Using the computer in the room with Hibiki before you get Midori in your party sets VAR0095 to 1. This is set back to 0 during the helicopter crash. VAR0095 is otherwise completely unused.
 * Talking to the professor in the stasis chamber is optional, but is mentioned in the ending even if you never did it.
 * South of the room where you find the plank, you can Look -> Ground to discover a snake. If you try to "Take" the snake, it will bite you, reducing Wataru's HP by 1. Unfortunately for the snake, this is irrelevant, because your HP never comes up again, not even on the subscreen, and you can even be reduced to 0 HP without any consequences.