Urban Legends in Retro Videogames

[Palazzo]

Something I don't think really exists anymore in today's videogames are urban legends and daft rumours or secrets. Here's what I mean:

Back in 1996/1997 when Mario 64 was released, many people believed that Luigi was a playable character, hidden somewhere on the game. This was backed up by weird symbols spotted throughout the castle, the most famous of these was thought to read 'L is real 2401'. Many people with the game at that time were convinced that by doing a level a certain way, making a certain jump or by going through a certain number of doors that Luigi would be unlocked. It was of course, totally impossible and Luigi was not on the game, well not until the re-release on Nintendo DS many years later. Still, I think it was a little bit of excitement while it lasted.

One more to keep you going here, this one from Final Fantasy VI, first released in 1994. This jist of this one concerns the final destination of the game, Kefka's Tower. The rumour went that if you flew your airship around the tower for hours and hours on end then you would unlock a super-powerful weapon. This again, was nonsense but it didn't stop some people trying, some even put tape around their controllers in such a way that they could walk away from their consoles while their airship would be left circling the tower.

There are loads more of these, the above two are the tip of the iceberg. I would be interested to hear other people's favourites and even better, the ones you even believed in or tried!

[RiCu]

Double Dragon on the Master System - it went round our school that on a certain level, if you stayed in a certain place and did hundreds of roundhouse kicks you'd get infinite lives.

Can't remember if it worked. I suspect it probably didn't!

[darren]

Re: Urban Legends in Retro Videogames

Another is if you won streetfighter 2 on the hardest difficulty and won every match in 2 rounds and never suffered any damage you could fight ken and ryu's master.

is it true did anyone get to fight him.

[stoysville]

Re: Urban Legends in Retro Videogames

A couple of classics for the ZX Spectrum inspired by Ultimate (Play the Game).

1. The trailer on Lunar Jetman. The alleged photograph turned out to be a fake.

http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/stevo/gamefaq/gamefaq.htm#6.1

and

http://archive.org/stream/crash-maga...e/n31/mode/2up

2. Mire Mare. Mentioned once the player completed Underwurlde as a further adventure for sabreman. It was never released fueling rumours that a development version existed somewhere. RetroGamer magazine (and others previous) just about disproved the fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mire_Mare

and

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infos...cgi?id=0009957

Cheers!

[Palazzo]

Re: Urban Legends in Retro Videogames

Haha some good ones there, nice one. As for the Street Fighter 2 one Darren I think I recall hearing that one many years back, it was fake although you could finally play as Master Gouken when Street Fighter 4 rolled around a few years ago. On the subject of Street Fighter 2 I recall a daft rumour that my mate got from somewhere, I suspect it was probably a joke feature in Games Master or something, he went round the playground telling everyone that M Bison was actually a postman. If you think about it and look at M Bison's clothing he does kinda look like a postman but where this daftness came from I have no idea.

I will get round to posting something about the infamous legend of 'finding' the triforce in Ocarina of Time on N64, one of the biggest and longest-running game rumours ever. Even now there are people convinced that you can find the triforce on that game even though time and time again it has been proven false.

[Richard1978]

Re: Urban Legends in Retro Videogames

I've heard that Jet Set Willy supposedly had a hidden level that could only be reached by waiting by a river until a raft drifted along.

It might have been an April's Fool Joke that got out of hand.

I've got the feeling Elite had one that no-one could prove.

[darren]

Re: Urban Legends in Retro Videogames

ha thanks mate that story is one ive heard since SF 2 came out,i was convinced it was real until now heh. never heard that OOT one before and ive played the game since It came out, what you mean u can actually physically hold it like in the snes Zelda game link to the past.

Haha some good ones there, nice one. As for the Street Fighter 2 one Darren I think I recall hearing that one many years back, it was fake although you could finally play as Master Gouken when Street Fighter 4 rolled around a few years ago. On the subject of Street Fighter 2 I recall a daft rumour that my mate got from somewhere, I suspect it was probably a joke feature in Games Master or something, he went round the playground telling everyone that M Bison was actually a postman. If you think about it and look at M Bison's clothing he does kinda look like a postman but where this daftness came from I have no idea.

I will get round to posting something about the infamous legend of 'finding' the triforce in Ocarina of Time on N64, one of the biggest and longest-running game rumours ever. Even now there are people convinced that you can find the triforce on that game even though time and time again it has been proven false.

[Palazzo]

Re: Urban Legends in Retro Videogames

Yeah that was exactly it Darren, the rumour was that the triforce could actually be found and held. There were so many made-up theories and rumours that it is worth checking out online, there were loads. The starting point for the entire thing was that in early footage of the game there was a scene showing Link opening up a chest and then the triforce floating out of it. Of course, this scene was never in the actual finished game yet people naturally thought the triforce could still be physically obtained and then held in the game's inventory screen.

The most famous one of all was from around 1999 when a woman using the name Ariana Almandoz began posting information about a secret ocarina song called 'The Overture of Sages'. This song is given to Link by the owl who follows you around during the game. Supposedly, playing this song would transport Link to 'The Temple of Light' where the Triforce could be found. This all may sound ridiculous to begin with but this girl backed the entire thing up with some extremely well-made screenshots that made the entire thing look genuine. This thing went on for awhile and was picked up by a lot of people who all tried it out but obviously to no avail. In the end Aria Almandoz was called out on it and on March 11, 1999 she revealed the entire thing to be a hoax. To this day though it remains one of the biggest and most famous gaming myths ever created and tested by so many players.

Personally, one of my favourite Ocarina of Time rumours was that apparently if you ran around Hyrule field during certain times and were in the right place, you could sometimes see the Goddesses appear in the sky. Absolute rubbish but I bet some people tried it.

[jason h]

Re: Urban Legends in Retro Videogames

A nice article here about creepy video game myths;
http://listverse.com/2013/06/06/10-c...urban-legends/

Also, I remember hearing a story about a game where you had to lick your finger then press it against joy port 1 on the C64 to activate a cheat. Can't think of which game it was though.

[Sly]

Re: Urban Legends in Retro Videogames

Naked Lara Croft. I bet nearly everyone that played Tomb Raider tried that code.

Getting over to the island behind the dam in Goldeneye.

Mortal Kombat on the SNES was heavily cut. One of the magazines ran a April Fools at the time saying if you taped a coin to the cart and did certain things in game all the blood and stuff would be back.

Pokemon Red/Blue had the Lavender Town music that apparently made kids commit suicide. Also, buried within the music is a secret that I'm unsure if it's been dismissed as fake. I'm pretty certain it's fake anyway. If you play the Lavender Town tune through a visualiser it shows a shows a ghost and some pokemon that weren't about when that game was new.

Creatures 2: Torture Trouble gave you unlimited lives if you licked your finger and rubbed it on the pins of the joystick ports Jason. I know there's another game that let you do that too, as Creatures 2 was the game that copied it from the other game.

[Jay Mc]

Re: Urban Legends in Retro Videogames

I've heard that Jet Set Willy supposedly had a hidden level that could only be reached by waiting by a river until a raft drifted along.

It might have been an April's Fool Joke that got out of hand.

I've got the feeling Elite had one that no-one could prove.

I heard similar to this that if you stood on the bow end of the boat until just before midnight that a boat came that you could jump onto that took you to a secret island ....... never tried so not sure

[Richard1978]

Re: Urban Legends in Retro Videogames

Barbarian supposedly had a hack to make the princess appear in the nude, or at least one Poke in Zzap 64 claimed to do this,

[darren]

Re: Urban Legends in Retro Videogames

never heard of any of those others
it may have been a hoax but she went to a lot of bother to try and make it genuine.

i like the idea of the other one where the goddesses appear by running around hyrule field it seems a bit more believable.
id ave tried themhad i known.

maybe not quite the same but why in shadowman for the N64 can you end up with with 121 dark souls out of 120.

in some places you can get 15 out of 14 dark souls.

Yeah that was exactly it Darren, the rumour was that the triforce could actually be found and held. There were so many made-up theories and rumours that it is worth checking out online, there were loads. The starting point for the entire thing was that in early footage of the game there was a scene showing Link opening up a chest and then the triforce floating out of it. Of course, this scene was never in the actual finished game yet people naturally thought the triforce could still be physically obtained and then held in the game's inventory screen.

The most famous one of all was from around 1999 when a woman using the name Ariana Almandoz began posting information about a secret ocarina song called 'The Overture of Sages'. This song is given to Link by the owl who follows you around during the game. Supposedly, playing this song would transport Link to 'The Temple of Light' where the Triforce could be found. This all may sound ridiculous to begin with but this girl backed the entire thing up with some extremely well-made screenshots that made the entire thing look genuine. This thing went on for awhile and was picked up by a lot of people who all tried it out but obviously to no avail. In the end Aria Almandoz was called out on it and on March 11, 1999 she revealed the entire thing to be a hoax. To this day though it remains one of the biggest and most famous gaming myths ever created and tested by so many players.

Personally, one of my favourite Ocarina of Time rumours was that apparently if you ran around Hyrule field during certain times and were in the right place, you could sometimes see the Goddesses appear in the sky. Absolute rubbish but I bet some people tried it.

[Powdered toast man]

Re: Urban Legends in Retro Videogames

Polybius. Whether it's true or not, this story has always given me the creeps for some reason-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybius_(video_game)

[jason h]

Re: Urban Legends in Retro Videogames

Creatures 2: Torture Trouble gave you unlimited lives if you licked your finger and rubbed it on the pins of the joystick ports Jason. I know there's another game that let you do that too, as Creatures 2 was the game that copied it from the other game.

Thx Sly, will try to track down the other game that used this 'cheat'.