Alright, let's get started. Here's the spritesheet for the inventory. Notice anything strange?
That's right: at some point in development, the inventory would've contained the Toa stones, health and energy pickups, and a key (presumably the one used to open Vakama's cell). Also present is Takua's Copper Mask of Victory, which is overlaid on the head in the middle of the inventory screen if you beat all the minigames.
The Toa stones use different renders from the pickups seen in the final game, and they look pretty good. Lewa notably appears to be holding his axe in his left hand, as seen in some prototype versions. Also, while it's almost certainly coincidental, Pohatu's stone reminds me of Macku's doll of Hewkii from MNOG2.
But wait, what's that brown thing next to the health pickups?
Well, in the final version of the game, the brown thing (now green) is a health pickup, identified in-game as a bula berry. However, it's odd that its inventory sprite would be a different color from the other health pickups, not to mention that it doesn't have a black border or a heart in the upper left corner. And maybe I'm just seeing things, but the prototype health pickup, as seen in the game demo from the PowerPack, doesn't really look like this mysterious brown thing. (The demo video is so low-quality that a screenshot wouldn't really prove anything. You should watch it for yourself and draw your own conclusion, imo.)
And another thing: the inventory has sprites for every pickup in the game except the Vuata Maca tree crystals. Curious, huh? Here's an interesting excerpt from the game's script:
Anyway, moving on from that tinfoil hat theory, here's the spritesheet for the inventory items as they appear on the HUD in-game:
Note that the energy pickup sprite appears here as well. We'll come back to that in a later installment, probably. There are also some minor differences between the two sets of sprites, most notably in the shape of Whenua's drill:
And another thing: the inventory has sprites for every pickup in the game except the Vuata Maca tree crystals. Curious, huh? Here's an interesting excerpt from the game's script:
…Okay, I call it the "script", but it's really more like all of the lines in the game are stored in plain text, one after the other, in the middle of the ROM. I've included the line before and the line after for context, but the bold part is what interests me. These lines do not appear in the final game, and they describe a fetch quest for two objects. Is it possible that the original idea for the Vuata Maca Tree quest was to find health potions to heal an NPC, rather than finding crystals to heal a tree? If so, this brown thing could have originally represented a health potion rather than a bula berry. That would explain why it doesn't look like any of the other healing items and why the tree crystals are absent.
You have found a Vuata Maca Tree crystal!
You will need to find 2 health potions to fill $'s health.
When $'s health is full, your quest is complete.
Congratulations!
You still need to get more health.
You have found the first Toa Stone!
…
Anyway, moving on from that tinfoil hat theory, here's the spritesheet for the inventory items as they appear on the HUD in-game:
Note that the energy pickup sprite appears here as well. We'll come back to that in a later installment, probably. There are also some minor differences between the two sets of sprites, most notably in the shape of Whenua's drill:
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