Topic: There's a boss missing from CV3

[TheouAegis]

CV3 has a lot of empty placeholders in its code. If you open reVamp, go to Death's room, and right-click on Death's spawner, you'll notice in the menu that the slot between Death and the Mummies+Cyclops spawners is empty. All the data's been cleared (zeroed) except the y-value, which for some reason is always set to $20 by default. This aspect and the layout of the spawner data in the code suggests there were a lot more enemies or other NPCs intended, or that originally the interactive terrain was to be coded with the same spawner mechanic as enemies.

Anyway, the empty spawner before Death's didn't get reinitialized like all the other enemy spawner data. All spawners have a designated set of code they perform each step, just like phase counters in enemies (read through my blog for more details). Every boss in CV3 has the same spawner code which prevents the boss from reacting until Trevor is within a certain distance of it. That empty spawner next to Death's spawner is set to the boss code., meaning at some point in development there was another boss planned and removed. But like I said, the rest of the data's been reinitialized, so trying to spawn the deleted boss yields nothing. EDIT: Actually, trying to spawn the deleted boss sets the Boss HP to 8 (2 bars), which is the HP for enemy object 0 (due to the rest of the data being zeroed).

[Lelygax]

Maybe its a scrapped form of Death? Like a 3rd form?

[TheouAegis]

Actually my theory is it was the Leviathan solo.

Here is a list of the spawner objects:

CD85    Null
D185    Zombies slow
2386    Zombies Ground
5988    Medusa Head Solo
C889    Winged Demon
0C8E    Skull Knight
0C8E    Cyclops
0C8E    Grant Danesti
C190    Lightning
BD90    Sypha-statue Bolt
2F91    Thunder clouds
128B    Fleaman
4A89    Flying Bat
2D8C    Sleeping Bat
F18B    Bone Pillar 3shot 1
DD8A    Axe Knight
748B    Crow Low
C78A    Sword Skeleton 1
A686    Jumping Fishmen
268B    Blood Whip Skeleton
748B    Floating Eye
268B    Slime
268B    Bone Skeleton
268B    Whip Skeleton
638A    Ghost no flicker
268B    Blood Skeleton
158A    Mummy 1
0C8E    Giant Bat
5C90    Alucard
148F    Bone Dragon King
EF8F    Medusa
B28F    Water Dragons
0C8E    Akmodan+Cyclops
0C8E    The Creature
0C8E    **REMOVED**
0C8E    Death
0C8E    Doppelganger
0C8E    Demon Triad
0C8E    Dracula
748B    Crow High
268B    Dhuron
8A8B    Spider
178C    Bone Pillar 2shot
CD85    Flying Bats 3
CD85    Fuzz Buster 2
2289    Floating Spore
E08B    Spore Bud
CD85
CD85
CD85
268B    Normal Skeleton
CD85
CD85
CD85
0A8D    3-Tile Current 1
CD85
CD85
0A8D    2-Tile Current 1
4C86    Zombies fast 1
9D87    Mudman
4A87    Frog
A086    Swimming Fishman
A086    Swimming Fishman Jumping
268B    Fireman
128B    Knight
F18B    Bone Pillar 3shot 2
3C8D    Auto-Walk to Forest Door
4E8C    Bone Dragon
898A    Owl
A08A    Fuzz Buster
AA88    Harpy
4A89    Flying Bats 2
0B88    Medusa Head Duo 1
FE8A    Sword Skeleton 2
F087    Medusa Head duo 2
5B8A    Ghost flicker
3C8D    Auto-Walk to Cave Door
0A8D    3-Tile Current 2
0A8D    2-Tile Current 2
7686    Zombies fast 2
158A    Mummy 2
FA86    Flood

Grant and the Cyclops are much higher up in the data since they were added for special situations. The numbers on the left are the spawner codes.

I said all bosses have the same code, but I forgot about the others. Water Dragons have a different code because there are two of them. Alucard has his multiple bats, hence he has a special code. Medusa has her many snakes, hence she has a special code. The Bone Dragon King has all his many ribs, hence the special code. Akmodan+Cyclops and Demon Triad use the singular boss code because the boss is actually the wisp. As you can see though, the removed enemy has a singular boss code, so it was intended to be a single enemy. Akmodan was comprised of two, so he would have had a special code if he was the deleted boss. Hence, I think it was Leviathan.

You'll also notice the awkwardly located empty codes. CD85 is a null code that forces the spawner to skip its phases, meaning anything that has CD85 as the spawner code won't spawn at all. The ones between the water currents I think were supposed to be the gears in the Clocktower but the programmers decided to rework the code for them.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Sure it's not Death's 2nd form?  He has two forms in that game.  That other placeholder could be for that form which is in that same room and only activates upon Death's first form collapsing.

[TheouAegis]

I never saw this post. Woops.

CV3 doesn't actually change objects when changing boss forms. I noticed this while looking through Drac's code. I can't remember which, but I think it's RAM offset $7EC that gets incremented during when a form is defeated. Granted I didn't look at Death's code  yet, but I would guess $7EC is set to 1 when Death is in his skull form, just like it was set to 1 for Drac's multi-face form and 2 for Pazuzu. It's possible originally Death was supposed to be two bosses and then they implemented the $7EC offset, though. We'll probably never know, though.

[Lelygax]

Igor counts as a separate boss in CV1? If yes, maybe it was going to be Death's scythe?

[TheouAegis]

You mean a spawner for Death's scythe? That'd be possible. There is an object for Death's scythe, but a lto of attacks never had one. Or maybe they were planning on bringing Igor Back (since the blank is after The Creature).

[Lelygax]

This makes even more sense then

[DoctaMario]

Interesting thread!

My money's on it being Igor but that'd be interesting to know thr answer to for sure.