Helpful Stuff

Helpful Stuff (Japanese: おたすけグッズ, Helpful Goods) is an early name in The Legendary Starfy for what used to be called Vehicles in previous games. The name implies that they are a special kind of Stuff. At least some types of Helpful Stuff never made it into the final game. According to some unused text from the Japanese version of The Legendary Starfy, eight different kinds of Helpful Stuff were meant to be used for boss battles with more than one player in cooperative play (possibly via what became Team Play). The Helpful Stuff would account for several elements, including fire, ice and poison and depending on the boss and element, the player could be in an advantage or disadvantage.

Although unused text from Moe states that there are only eight kinds of Helpful Stuff, following the names of Super Bugawk and Super Vanish in the ROM is the text "Helpful Stuff 9" and "Helpful Stuff 10" suggesting two more may have been in development, however, these could simply be placeholders because ten is a nice round figure.

It may be noteworthy that there are eight of Bunston's Powers including the four unique powers and their upgrades; the same number of Helpful Stuff that were supposedly planned.

There are also unused sprites of Starly under Bunston's transformations even though she doesn't get to use them in the final game. If Bunston's Powers were planned for cooperative play, it is possible that Starly may have got to use them there, although they may have simply been added for compatibility and consistency.

It may be of note that there are some sprites in the game of completely unused transformations, such as a Cockroach, Frog and Mermaid which may have once been Helpful Stuff. In fact, the Frog and Mermaid appear in the Stuff as Specials, with the Frog called the Ribbit Costume.

Relevant Japanese text

There is a relatively large section of text in the Japanese version of The Legendary Starfy mentioning Helpful Stuff. It has been translated in a post on Jul by Joe. The original Japanese text and the translation can be found here (archived version).