We Love Katamari Hacking Part 5

I was on the loading screen messing with the mission address and I managed to pass the stage immediately! However, the slot machine was having a moment. I was afraid of it crashing the game... but it rolled this!

What is that? I was messing with the Japanese version later for reasons I'll get into later, but I did this again and it gave me a name!

The name appears in the Japanese version! It's a dummy item! I wonder why it pulls this instead of namco.

Anyways, remember that weird stage layout I pulled last entry where I was in the middle of people flying on tatami mats? I think I found an unused map...

It might be hard to figure out what this area is without the buildings... It's the town from Katamari Damacy! It starts with the message from the namco transmission demo where the King tells you how to play.

There's the rest of the town. Over there is where all the tatami people are located. As you can see on the picture, I don't have a goal at all. Once the timer runs out, nothing happens. Also, my Katamari is from the Katamari Damacy tutorial stage.

In several pre-release Japanese screenshots, you can see the same Katamari being used in other stages.

The reason I started the Japanese copy to check for unused missions is because usually Japanese versions release first and almost always contain way more unused stuff than the localized versions that release later. I was particularly interested in a few missions that would crash the game in the American release. Unfourtunately, those still crash.

Then I remembered, isn't there a demo out there? I got the demo from the namco transmission v3.2 disc and tried it for a spin. I wanted to try out the Minna Daisuki Katamari Damacy demo, but I don't have access to a disc image of it.

I think this is a later version of the demo, I remember playing one where the intro was the Japanese version.

I didn't dive deep within the demo, as it is a different version of the game, it's addresses are in different places. I found the size address and the flower count address. Though, it's not really that useful. I did get a view of outside the school yard.

I hope to find something else.

I want to find the values that dictates what gimmick stages have. I'm having trouble finding them. I want to find the value that chooses the Katamari Drive. It's possible to change the value of a ALAP mission to the Racetrack mission. It will change the katamari to Katamari Drive! It works, but some stages have issues.

Stages that need to load other areas like ALAP2 and above crash. To get around this, you need to change it to the original value and then switch it back after the transition. It also screws with things that the King says too. He will get stuck on screen most of the time. These issues come up because the game assumes we're playing the Racetrack stage normally instead of giving only the Katamari Drive function.

It's weird how despite my best efforts, I can't find any values related to stage specific stuff. I tried finding the katamari type, drive type, and the fire timer.