Rayman 3

[DaveRattlehead]

People got obsessed with his huge features and are looking for them everywhere lol

[Hunchman801]

In that case, I must say it was more of a tiny feature. Sorry Rayman!

[PluMGMK]

I'm pretty sure that whole meme arose independently of the "huge features" thing, funnily enough!

[bunnieblaster]

I decided to make a little spreadsheet with all the 100% (5 stamps) scores for all Rayman 3 maps (data taken from GameCube):

Here's the xlsx file:

Rayman 3 scoresheet.xlsx

(8.2 KiB) Downloaded 104 times

Feel free to put it on the wiki or someplace else

[dr_st]

That's pretty cool! And the level names are interesting as well. I wonder how the numbers were determined.

[DaveRattlehead]

That's very interesting. It would be nice if that was posted here too.

[PluMGMK]

Thanks Robin!

It's funny, I never looked too deeply at the level names before, even though I've used Raymap. It's interesting how "menu" was the prefix for the Heart of the World and the Doctors' Offices. I wonder if that hints at their previous use as parts of a scrapped hub world…

[Hunchman801]

Thanks for sharing! We should definitely document this on the wiki.

I wonder how the numbers were determined.

I don't know how the base for each level part was determined, but it appears that the 2-star score is always one quarter of the 5-star score, 3-star is half and 4-star is three quarters.

[dr_st]

I don't know how the base for each level part was determined, but it appears that the 2-star score is always one quarter of the 5-star score, 3-star is half and 4-star is three quarters.

Oh, yes, I noticed that. I meant the numbers that are part of the level section names. Like, you have 10, 15, 17, 20... And sometimes they are not even in ascending order.

[Hunchman801]

Oh, of course! I have absolutely no idea either.

[hoodlumsworld]

Funny crash in Rayman 3: https://clips.twitch.tv/BlindingInquisi ... 5FW9m2amrX

[PluMGMK]

I don't know how the base for each level part was determined, but it appears that the 2-star score is always one quarter of the 5-star score, 3-star is half and 4-star is three quarters.

Oh, yes, I noticed that. I meant the numbers that are part of the level section names. Like, you have 10, 15, 17, 20... And sometimes they are not even in ascending order.

I just realized this was your 1000th post, congratulations!

[RayCarrot]

Not sure if there's a topic specifically for R3 GBA, but I recently discovered some previously unknown cheat codes in the game! You enter them all on the worldmap by holding select and pressing the specific buttons in order.

Code: Select all

All powers:
R, A, A, A

99 lives:
B, B, B, A, A, A

All levels:
Up, Left, Down, Right, B, A, L, R

All levels + 99 lives + all powers, lums & cages:
Down, Up, Down, Up, A, Left, B, Right

What's noteworthy here is that the ones to unlock all levels also marks the final level, Heart of the Ancients, as completed! That is normally impossible since the game doesn't auto-save after finishing it. That has also been the reason you can't unlock 2D Nightmare by normal means. So using these cheat codes it is now fully possible to unlock 2D Nightmare without any external tools

[PluMGMK]

Oh wow, that's fantastic news! So it wasn't an off-by-one error, just a failure to save the game at the appropriate juncture…

[RayCarrot]

Yeah, you can see in the game that beating The Heart of the Ancients doesn't make the level name go from white to gold like it normally does when beating a level. That's because the game doesn't ever save that the level is beaten. But with these cheats it sets all levels as beaten, including that one.
I'd imagine this is why the devs never noticed this error. The GameCube team probably just used this cheat code to test the connectivity and assumed it'd work. The GBA team probably never realized it as there's nothing that meaningfully changes in the GBA game if it auto-saves after the final boss or not.

[dr_st]

I don't know how the base for each level part was determined, but it appears that the 2-star score is always one quarter of the 5-star score, 3-star is half and 4-star is three quarters.

Oh, yes, I noticed that. I meant the numbers that are part of the level section names. Like, you have 10, 15, 17, 20... And sometimes they are not even in ascending order.

I just realized this was your 1000th post, congratulations!

Thanks! At least one of us noticed that.

Yeah, you can see in the game that beating The Heart of the Ancients doesn't make the level name go from white to gold like it normally does when beating a level. That's because the game doesn't ever save that the level is beaten. But with these cheats it sets all levels as beaten, including that one.
I'd imagine this is why the devs never noticed this error. The GameCube team probably just used this cheat code to test the connectivity and assumed it'd work. The GBA team probably never realized it as there's nothing that meaningfully changes in the GBA game if it auto-saves after the final boss or not.

This makes so much sense. Yet another amazing discovery, Carrot.

Now I wonder - is there an emulator that would allow me to "link" a GC ROM to a GBA ROM with the cheat applied, and play 2D Nightmare?

[Hunchman801]

Really interesting discovery! I was going to update the wiki but I can see that RibShark has already done it, thanks!

[RayCarrot]

Right after I update the wiki with the cheats I discovered in the GBA version I end up making another discovery! Using the 100% cheat makes a whole new level appear...

R3 GBA - Ly's Punch Challenge 3.png (38.71 KiB) Viewed 1479 times

What is this? Well the level has been known about, but it was always assumed to be unused. We found the level when working on Ray1Map a few years back and I made a video off of it then:

I found mentions in some articles that there was a final bonus level to unlock if you connected the GBA version to a fully completed GC version. The level was also internally known as "Challenge Ly GCN". So it seemed to be another case where the GBA <--> GC connectivity didn't work as expected. (It's also worth noting that this level is available in the N-Gage version as a normal level - edit: actually, the N-Gage version has both this version, but unused, and a modified version of the level which is used... very odd).

Anyway, so the 100% cheat makes the level appear in the final world. Funny enough the curtain for the level was there in Ray1Map all along, we just never noticed it being out of place

This got me curious though, could the level actually be unlocked normally? I dug into the code using Ghidra and could see what flags it was checking. Problem was the flag to unlock it is part of the packet of data transferred from the GC version... icup then tried connecting a 100% completed R3 GC to the GBA version and it actually worked!

R3 GBA - Unlock Ly GCN.png (34.47 KiB) Viewed 1479 times

Now my guess is that the reason no one has gotten this to work before is because for the GC version to be considered 100% completed you also have to beat 2D Nightmare. And since that has been rather inaccessible no one has met the requirements for this. This would also mean that to unlock this level you would have to first 100% complete the GBA version to unlock 2D Nightmare. Then 100% the GC version and finish 2D Nightmare before then finally connecting again to unlock this. Quite complicated, and confusing as the game doesn't tell you about it! And all for a single, rather simple, bonus level which, as far as I know, doesn't do anything when finished.

[PluMGMK]

Oh man, a simple programming error means it takes twenty years to unlock a pretty simple little bonus level! Fascinating, great work as always!

[dr_st]

Using the 100% cheat makes a whole new level appear...

Thanks for this! I've beaten it after a few tries, and now have a truly 100% saved game.

This would also mean that to unlock this level you would have to first 100% complete the GBA version to unlock 2D Nightmare. Then 100% the GC version and finish 2D Nightmare before then finally connecting again to unlock this. Quite complicated, and confusing as the game doesn't tell you about it! And all for a single, rather simple, bonus level which, as far as I know, doesn't do anything when finished.

Yes, convoluted. Hiding an easter egg behind an easter egg. Which would have been fine, if they hadn't botched it up.

Oh man, a simple programming error means it takes twenty years to unlock a pretty simple little bonus level! Fascinating, great work as always!

Hah! This one took 24 years!