SECRETS OF THE

MANY OF YOUR FAVORITE 8-BIT NINTENDO GAMES HAVE BEEN HIDING INCREDIBLE SECRETS ALL THIS TIME.

The invisible football team in Tecmo Bowl

While most people consider picking the Bo Jackson-led Raiders to be cheating in Tecmo Bowl, that classic sports game does have actual cheat codes. In fact, one of the game’s most obscure cheats allows you to play as an “invisible” football team. Entering the code “397BFFA5” into the game’s password system allows you to play as a gray team on a gray field, rendering those gray team players practically invisible.

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BY MATTHEW BYRD

Metroid contains a very NSFW password

Only a handful of fans know about the strange things that can happen when you input “Engage Ridley Mother Fucker” (excuse the language) in Metroid’s password screen. What happens next depends on what version of the game you’re playing. Most simply load you into a bugged version of the game or crash the game outright. But this effect is actually triggered by the fact that Metroid’s password system relies on ranges of characters rather than specific characters. In other words, you could achieve the same effect with other series of letters and numbers; this one (hilariously) just happens to work.

11Theblack and white mushroom house in Super Mario Bros. 3

Super Mario Bros. 3’s greatest secret wasn’t common knowledge until years after its release. It’s possible to unlock a special black-and-white version of Toad’s House on the world map if you collect a certain number of coins in specific levels—for instance, you need to collect at least 44 coins in Level 1-4 or at least 30 coins in Level 2-2 to spawn it. The placement of these levels and the exact number of coins you need to collect are so odd that it’s no wonder more players didn’t stumble upon this secret back in the day.

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The Punisher’s creepy Easter egg

The Punisher game isn’t very good, but it was a novelty to play as such a dark comic-book hero in the NES days. It also contains one of the creepiest ending screens in Nintendo history. When you reach the default end screen, hold “Up, B, and Select” on your controller. For some reason, that combo changes Frank Castle into a blue, Frankenstein-like monstrosity.

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One of the Punch-Out passwords is a real phone number

One of Punch-Out’s most unusual cheat codes initially appears to do nothing at all. If you enter the code “800 422 2602” in Punch-Out’s password screen, you’ll trigger an 8-bit version of a busy signal that will play in the background. More than a simple gag, that password was Nintendo of America’s old customer service phone number!

Rare’s NES games are united by hidden initials

If you name your character either Paul or Rachel in some versions of California Games, you’ll see the text “PP & RME” appear on the sidewalk during the roller skating level. These initials appear in some form in several other Raredeveloped NES games, including Marble Madness, Wheel of Fortune, and Wizards & Warriors. Those initials are a reference to Paul Proctor and Rachel M. Edwards, two programmers who worked on all of those games.

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Maniac Mansion features some familiar themes

The NES version of Maniac Mansion had to be censored in order to meet Nintendo’s strict content standards. That means that quite a bit of content was cut from the original version, but the NES port still features a few hilarious audio Easter eggs. Look for the arcade room and insert a quarter into the Meteor Mess machine. When you do so, you’ll trigger the arcade game’s theme, which is the first few notes of Super Mario Bros.’ theme. Interestingly, the NES version of the game also features a chiptune version of the Indiana Jones theme that is triggered when you call the Meteor Police.

8 The Lion King hides the strangest difficulty option ever

The NES version of The Lion King includes an absolutely bizarre hidden difficulty setting. To unlock this setting, you first need to trigger the game’s elaborate “Invincibility Code,” which requires you to complete part of the game, exit the title, and reload it in a specific spot. While following those steps, though, don’t reload the game. Instead, go to the “Options” menu, hold either “Up” or “Left,” and press the “A” button. That will change the game’s current skill level to an option called “Boy Love.”

7Ninja Gaiden’s trick move

Ninja Gaiden is widely considered to be one of the hardest NES games ever made. But in recent years, fans have found that the game contains a hidden move that makes even the toughest boss fights somewhat trivial. By holding “Down” and the slash button after a basic jumping slash, you can perform a series of rapid air attacks that make offing your foes much easier.

6 Duck Hunt’s forgotten multiplayer mode

If you plug a NES controller into the console’s port while playing Duck Hunt’s “Game A” mode, you can use that controller to manipulate the flight path of the in-game ducks. While that information was actually tucked away in the game’s manual, most NES fans didn’t discover this option until years later. This was a favorite trick among siblings who wanted to get in on (or ruin) the fun.

The Legend of Zelda’s dungeon layouts spell “Zelda”

Many of you will know that Zelda has a hidden “second quest” that changes some elements of the base game. What you might not know is that the modified dungeon layouts of the second quest are also a clever Easter egg. Try rearranging the new layouts in this order: Level 5, Level 1, Level 3, Level 4, and Level 2. Do so, and you will find that those dungeons spell out the name “Zelda.”

Castlevania II’s secret endings

Castlevania II contains two secret endings designed to reward those who beat the game in record time. If you beat it in 15 in-game days or more, you’ll trigger a “Bad” ending in which both Dracula and Simon die during the game’s final battle. Manage to beat the game in eight to 14 in-game days and you’ll trigger a “Normal” ending in which Simon succumbs to his curse shortly after that final battle. And if by some miracle (or cheating) you manage to beat the game in less than eight in-game days, you’ll trigger the “Best” ending, which not only suggests that Simon survives his curse but ends with an animation of Dracula’s hand rising from his grave.

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You can jump over the flagpole in Super Mario Bros.

Yes, you can jump over the end-game flagpole by following a specific series of steps in certain levels (most notably, Levels 1-1 and 3-3). While it feels great to finally clear the top of the pole, you should know that your excitement for pulling off the “impossible” will be short-lived: jumping over the flagpole triggers a glitch that forces Mario to run purposelessly in an infinite version of the level.

Final Fantasy references Dragon Quest and Zelda

In the Famicom version of Final Fantasy, the town of Elfheim contains a hidden grave that reads “Here Lies Link.” That’s a reference to The Legend of Zelda’s protagonist. However, Nintendo allegedly wasn’t thrilled about the joke and asked Square to remove it. The gravestone in the NES version of that game instead reads “Here Lies Erdrick” —a reference to the western version of the Dragon Quest franchise. What’s funny is that the Famicom version of Zelda 2 features a gravestone that references “Loto”: the Japanese name for Erdrick in Dragon Quest. Everyone was having a bit of fun suggesting that their RPGs would be the “death” of Dragon Quest.

Final Fantasy features a well-hidden puzzle

The original Final Fantasy was a true NES epic that offered dozens of hours of gameplay when most console games were surprisingly short. But if those dozens of hours of adventuring still aren’t enough for you, you’ll be thrilled to know that Final Fantasy contains a secret minigame puzzle. Once you’ve obtained and boarded the ship in the NES version, press the “A” and “B” buttons together 55 times. While that probably sounds like a cruel trick, completing that lengthy task allows you to play a special tile-sliding puzzle game that challenges you with placing a series of marked squares in numerical order. Doing so rewards you with some extra Gil.