There is nothing in the world more powerful than a video game secret on a school playground. For an entire day — maybe even a week — you can become the king of recess, just by wielding the Mew Under Truck rumour, or the secret Triforce hidden in Ocarina of Time. Hey, who said the secrets need to be real?
Lately, Twitter has been packed with secrets ready to take to the playground, after podcast hosts Aaron and Tommy asked everyone what their best "useless" piece of video game knowledge was:
And boy, did the internet deliver. The tweet now has over 84 million views, with thousands of replies to the question that range from the well-known secrets to the stuff that even we didn't know. Here are our favourites:
Teeny tiny hobbitses
The Super Mario Bros. 3 box was a lie
You can cut down long grass in Pokémon
Sakurai never shuts up about his cat
Ocarina's dungeon targeting
Charles Martinet's movie career
What are your best useless video game facts? Tell us in the comments!
Comments 79
Lego lord of the rings is one of my favorite games so that fact was really interesting even though I don’t play the ps3 version.
The playtime counter in Pokémon Red/Blue stops counting at 255 hours!
It’s not much, but:
In Pokémon GO, Nosepass will always point towards north. if you start the encounter, forcing it turn away, and then run, it’ll turn and point north again after a few seconds.
On the Endurance level in Rogue Leader, the turrets’ lasers will never hit you
Did anybody know that Cammy from the Street Fighter series was actually the template for Resident Evil's Jill Valentine? (me neither )
There's a lake with a waterfall in Breath of the Wild (Faron Region) with a specific spot underwater where you can stand up and be completely dry. You can see the entire lake underwater and shoot arrow & stuff.
In Dragon quest 3 when in alefgard, if you play the boardgame in the well, land on a spot that gives you 10k experience while your close enough to leveling up, it will not trigger the level up event. Leave the board, go to the overworld and fight any creature, you have a small (almost random)chance of leveling up all the way to lvl99.
Edit: this was the Gameboy Color version aka Dragon Warrior 3
The famous Justin Bailey password in NES Metroid is not an Easter egg or reference to a developer or person who worked on the game. It’s just a coincidence of how the password system works.
Not sure this is useless, but in Pokémon Colosseum you can catch the 3 Johto starters from the beginning and not wait until post game for the uncaptured ones if you knock yourself out after capturing them.
@HammerGalladeBro Talking about Colosseum, I was never able to confirm this but, everytime my pokemon got "confused" the attack Swift always worked, I mean always. I played the game 3 times and the move always worked when my pokemon got confused. Again, I never verified if this was a glitch, I got luck or I'm being dumb
In smb3, the fortress that takes you to the sky in world 5; there’s these two little dangly lamp things. You never see them anywhere else in the game why
@PtM Brawl came out like 15 years ago, chances are that it’s a different cat.
@shgamer Didn't know but I can visualize their assets and it makes sense.
Already shared this one on Twitter but I rather enjoy this little tidbit as a fan of both series: in Pikmin 2, the treasure "Cosmic Archive" is a Famicom disk of Nazo no Murasamejou (aka The Mysterious Murasame Castle), the game Takamaru is from.
Pikmin and Mysterious Murasame Castle would later cross over again in Smash Bros. and Nintendo Land.
In X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, there's the Death Valley stage where it features Blanka and Beast in the background. In X-Men vs. SF, if the player or the CPU choose Charlie as their fighter, then Blanka will be replaced by Beast. In Marvel Super Heroes vs. SF, the stage now had both Beast and Blanka, if Shadow (a brainwash Charlie) is chosen as a character, Blanka will disappeared leaving only Beast by himself. This is a nod reference to the Jean Claude Van-Damme film Street Fighter: The Movie in which Blanka and Charlie were the same character.
If you beat Ultimate MK3 with Rain in the Super NES version of the game you get nothing. He had no ending.
Princess Daisy appeared only in 3 games in the 90s: Super Mario Land, Mario is Missing, and a third game which I won't tell you (hint: it's a golf game).
Unlike in every other Pokemon game, in Legends: Arceus, your fainted Pokemon still accumulate EVs when an opposing Pokemon is knocked out. (This is despite - or perhaps because of - the fact that EVs don't do anything in this game.)
@Shiro28 swift is a move that always hits no matter the situation.... as far as I remember.... is its unique feature
In the original official art for Fire Emblem Fates, F Corrin had two left feet.
A revised version was later released.
But then in the SSBU banner art, M Corrin has two left feet!
Pretty sure all video game knowledge is considered useless.
Love the movie The Game!
Didn’t realize that about the screenshot on the back of MB3 box!
@theModestMouse you can tell that to the Nascar driver who qualified from 10th to 5th at the last moment with a bit of videogame knowledge.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/epzkba/a-wild-video-game-move-in-nascar-is-tearing-the-sport-apart
Haven't used the Game Genie on the original Legend of Zelda in probably 30 years, but I still remember the code for "don't take damage from anything": AVVLAUSZ
@Shiro28 on Colosseum, whenever you had Espeon and Umbreon on the field, the opposing pokemon always attacked poor Espeon. It was always the first to faint 😂
In Ocarina of Time, the scene for Zelda escaping the castle is shown three times. Link can have different equipment in the last two scenes based on what you have equipped at the time. The first scene has no equipment as you haven't found the sword and shield yet.
A video game…
IS A VIDEO GAME!
Crazy, right?
Not useless but a lot of ppl don't know, you can actually kill the Angry Sun in SMB3 by throwing a koopa shell at it. You can also kill it with the Hammer Bros Suit I believe, but you can get nearly anything with that. You can also can grab a shell in Sm64 to swim faster in Dire Dire Docks and Jolly Roger Bay. Mario galaxy actually didn't introduce that.
The Charles Martinet in The Game one kinda blows my mind. Good movie, and Micheal Douglas' father, although only appearing briefly is integral to the plot of the film.
On the original N64 Goldeneye there is a controller setting that allows you to use two controllers at once. As far as I know it’s the only dual thumbstick game on N64.
Hold A while selecting a stage in Mega Man 2 to make birds fly in the background instead of stars.
When in the SPECIAL World map in Super Mario World (accessed from Star Road), if you hang around for around 2 minutes the original Super Mario Bros. theme will begin playing.
The ARMS wiki has always called the Helix clones found in 1-on-100 and Warm-Up mode “The Cell.” The only place the actual game refers to those enemies as “The Cell” is in Helix’s 1-on-100 victory screen, which also implies that they share a hivemind, with the screen saying “WE ARE THE CELL!”
Strangely enough, Helix’s 1-on-100 end screens the only ones where the Cell speaks. All other 1-on-100 end screens are an unknown narrator speaking directly to the fighter that you’re playing as.
…one could argue that all ARMS trivia is useless. Tee hee.
@Zaphod42 Star Wars Episode I Racer also had a double controller option but, if I recall correctly, you had to enter a cheat code to activate it.
When switching on a GameCube, if you hold the Z button down, the sound effects for the unfolding "G" logo change into bizarre squeaking noises and a child's laughter.
In 007 Nightfire, there's a special variant of the Kowloon pistol that's fully automatic. This gun can only be used by selecting the "Random" weapon set and restarting until it spawns. It appears nowhere else in the game.
Here's some useless knowledge.
A cut item from Dragon Quest 3 was found 25 years after the game launched. The item was called "Stun Seed" and its purpose is unknown but a developer note left over in binary says to read "Stun Seed" backwards.
If you're familiar with the game, it's probably common knowledge, but in Faxanadu (NES), there's a talisman that is supposed to raise your attack. Due to a coding error, it actually lowers your attack instead.
This will blow people’s minds, but Super Mario Bros 2 (USA) was actually originally a game called Doki Doki Panic!
In Final Fantasy VI a second player can join in on battles.
In Secret of Mana you can reenter your home village by lining up with a full party and pressing select repeatedly while walking upward to bypass the guard.
Also in Secret of Mana there's a harder path to take where you avoid talking to the girl in Pandora and instead solo through Gaia's Navel to recruit the Sprite first. You then encounter the girl before the Haunted Forest in an extra battle with werewolves and get totally different dialogue.
In Mega Man X2 if you use the cutter weapon the deliver the last hit on Wire Sponge, he is cleaved in half before he explodes like normal.
In Mother 3, Flint has extra humorous dialogue if you talk to him repeatedly before going to the final battle with the Masked Man.
Ocarina of Time has a big typo on the back of its box.
Guess I'm gonna share it here too.
In Sonic & Knuckles, if you crouch at a pixel perfect spot near Knuckles in Sonic's Sky Sanctuary Act 1 route, he signals you to go away.
Hmmm. Okay I got that will blow everyone's mind! Did you know that by putting two AA batteries in your Gameboy Advance, it will turn the system on? BOOM baby
@Crockin Those lamps have haunted me for 30 years. Every few years I replay SMB3 and I'm reminded of those accursed lamps. There's a part of me that still believes they have a function and all will be revealed in time.
Or perhaps the truth is too much for mortals to comprehend.
Hold down the B button while selecting Shade Man in Mega Man 7 to hear Ghosts and Goblins music instead of the usual music.
Here is a secret from a rather old game that is forgotten. In "Boktai 2", a certain special star from one the biggest stealth games in history makes a special appearance.
@Shepdawg1 Same in Legends Arceus too.
@edhe
In a similar vein, in Secret of Evermore, the Silver Sheath item is intended to raise Sword damage by 25%, however due to a bug, this +25% bonus is always applied to your character no matter if you have the Silver Sheath or not. - This means that, in practice, Swords are just naturally 25% stronger than other weapons, and the Silver Sheath does nothing.
Phantasy Star 4 has a bug where if you reach level 99 with any character, their stats start drastically bugging out. Stats can raise and lower in extreme ways as the game interprets the data incorrectly.
The final boss can be beaten comfortably at around level 40-50, so most players won't run into the bug without extreme amounts of endgame grinding.
This bug was fixed in a few of the older Virtual Console releases, but remains unfixed in the most modern releases on Mega Drive Mini and the Mega Drive Classics collection.
The PlayStation 2 version of Phantasy Star 4 (SEGA AGES 2500 Phantasy Star Complete Collection) actually contains an option that allows you to select whether you want to play with the level 99 bug fixed or not.
(btw this PlayStation 2 version is pretty dang great overall - It contains both English and JP versions of all four games, contains options to speed up the horribly slow walking speed of the first three games, and even contains the PSII text adventures and the two Game Gear Phantasy Star games as bonus inclusions, though they remain JP only. It is the definitive collection of the entire classic Phantasy Star series before it went Online)
@PtM Still upset that Miiverse is gone. But that definitely counts as useless knowledge now
Grapes were supposed to be a food item in Kirby Mass Attack. Sprites of them can be found in the files, as well as in beta background sprites for Dedede Resort. Official artwork of them exists, too, and was originally used for a KMA-themed Flash game on Nintendo’s website. I say “originally used” because it’s shown in the tutorial image, but when you start the game, it’s replaced with a second image of bananas that’s identical to the first one. This tells me that whoever made the Flash game figured out that grapes were cut from KMA, so he/she hastily removed it but forgot to change the tutorial.
I like how a lot of people here are telling us useful information, you're suppose to tell us useless information about your gaming.
Oh man the Brawl one takes me back. Spent hours online researching the behind-the-scenes of that one back in the day.(And loved the free camera access provided by Project M, remember that?)
Surprised I never consciously noticed the Ocarina one either considering how much of that I played growing up.
In Dark Souls 2, the really really fast Hollows that run around the map super fast will give you a guaranteed consumable item drop, such as a life gem.
@Savage_Joe Yeah, that's why I never started with him
@YoshiF2 has it always been like that? I don't play much pokemon but I remember in the later games that sometimes Swift wouldn't work when my pokemon gets confuse and ends up hurting it self. But I don't know you're probably right
In Paper Mario, when you fight the Shy Guys holding a note you need translated, pay attention to the order of them, they're each a different colour. The note needs to be translated by a Toad to let you work out which order to hit certain blocks, but the Shy Guys are already standing in the order you need to know, allowing you to hang onto the note for the rest of the game.
This is definitely useless but I remember discovering this as a kid and being excited since I hadn’t seen it anywhere else.
In Mario 64 in Bom-Omb Battlefield, if you jump up under the first bridge you can grab and climb across the bottom of it just like some of the “hanging bars” later in other levels in the game.
Quake and Mario 64 share the same warp sound FX.
In Goodeneye 007 - if you activate the fast mode cheat in the cradle level - Bond will fly off the helicopter. If you activate the slow mode cheat- the helicopter will leave without him. And if you play the train level on fast mode, in the end level cut scene, bond will somehow kill the final guard while pointing his gun in a different direction!!
Pac-Man was originally called Puckman.
Striker's Brutality on Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for the SNES is HP, LP, HK, LK, HP, LP, LP, LK, HK, HP, LK, LK, LK
I can do that within a second
Random Fact about Perfect Dark:
When saving Carrington from kidnappers in his villa, the player will come across his wine collection. If you shoot every bottle, Carrington will tell the player to "act your age."
In MGS on PS1 while being with Meryl in the Basement 1 hallway in the Nuke Building (right before the battle with Psycho Mantis), Snake can make Meryl blush by staring at her (by holding Triangle for first-person view). Her skin gets more red with every remark of hers.
On Tetris Battle Gaiden (SNES, Bullet-Proof Software, 1994), still one of the finest versions of the game almost 30 years on, you can unlock the two boss characters by rotating your controller 180° and entering the Konami Code on the copyright screen. If the text turns blue, it’s worked.
Under the influence of Mirurun’s Level 2 trick-play spell, UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A becomes B B X X A Y A Y UP LEFT . This is one of only a handful of occasions that the Konami Code has featured in a title they had nothing to do with.
@YoshiF2 As far as I know Swift bypasses accuracy, i.e. it isn't affected by your accuracy and opponents' evasion, while confusion is its own thing.
Unless it really is a glitch specific to Colosseum I'd say @Shiro28 just got really lucky.
On the cover of Super Mario Bros, Mario is about to die
In Metroid they decided at the last minute to make Samus a woman.
Guybrush Threepwood (from the Monkey Island games) claims he can hold his breath for 10 minutes. At some point in Monkey Island 1 he gets tied to a heavy object and thrown into the sea. If you wait 10 minutes he actually dies!
@Tandy255 Love Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game!
You can actually hear Ice Climbers’ chant in Smash 4 3DS! It’s extremely specific and I’ve never tried it out myself, but it’s really fascinating to see: https://youtu.be/8u2vA71r3-I
Not sure if this is a glitch or Easter egg
In Mega Man 3, if you time your shot right so a bullet lands as Hard Man pounds the earth, it will look like Mega Man shot him in the butt
Basically, all information is useful from a certain context. However, in the context of information that doesn't affect game progression, here are some.
In Castlevania: Symphony of the Night...
... press Up with Alucard's sprite over the telescope at the very bottom of the Outer Wall to view a lake. Occasionally you'll see a fish jump out of the water, or even the boatman on his boat, rowing away.
... press Up with Alucard's sprite over any background chair to make him lounge on it. In some versions of the game where the green-dressed Faerie familiar is available (such as in the PSP Dracula X Chronicles), doing this with the familiar at a certain level will make her sit on Alucard's shoulder and eventually sing a song. Move Alucard in any direction to make him stand up and see an amusing animation from the Fairy and Faerie familiars if they were on his shoulder when he stands up.
... you gain certain benefits when you use the Shield Rod together with a shield... except the Alucart Shield, where Alucard will perform the animation, but will only result with a question mark popping up near his head and no benefits gained.
EDIT: Added additional information.
Zelda is actually the Princess, the green guy is Luigi.
In Kirby Air Ride, when you play the mini-game "Destruction Derby 1" you can trigger an unused alert sound and graphic if you fall down a hole into the abyss after your star has been destroyed, this trigger is located beneath the death barrier so it was left behind as a developer oversight, however the death barrier only resets you if are riding a star as you fall, if you fall without a star Kirby will fall beyond the death barrier triggering the unused alert that is normally impossible to trigger.
Shared this on TW, but I'll share here.
In Binding of Isaac 3DS, you can draw on the map.
@Shiro28 I don't think that ever happened to me. I know there are abilities that prevent confusion, but I wonder if there's an attack that disregards confusion and always works under a confusion (sorry, I stopped playing since Black 2 so I don't know if one exists). If not, there should be one.
@HammerGalladeBro Well this only happened in Colosseum, it didn't happened with other games in the series. So I was always wondering if it was a bug or something but I never cared to confirm it
@Crockin
that whole part of the game is super different and weird! but yeah the dangly lamp things wtf! 😂
Don't know if this counts or if someones already said it but, in Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope after you win a battle and you are redeeming rewards you can still manuevur the camera
In Mega Man 3 for the NES, if you hold right on the 2nd controller Mega Man can super jump without Rush and jump in and out of holes. If you take damage while you are in a hole, you will lose all your health and come back out completely invincible.
In Sonic the Hedgehog, the level select code is Up A Down A Left A Right A Hold A Start.
In NBA Jam for the Genesis, at the TONIGHT'S MATCHUP screen, if you rotate the D-pad counter clockwise and press Ax13 times and hold A on the 13th press while still rotating the D-pad until the game starts, you will be able to dunk from halfway across the court.
In Double Dragon II for the NES, if you play a game in 2B mode and beat up your partner, you will earn a 1up every time you kill him.
Entering the name HELP ME in Castlevania III gives you 10 lives to start.
In the 1st dungeon of Legend of Zelda, the locked door will be unlocked if you enter, exit and reenter the dungeon.
In A Link to the Past, you can shoot bombs and arrows at the same time.
In Link's Awakening, you can steal anything from the shop as long as you don't mind being killed when you come back for more. 😄
In the Safari Zone of Pokemon Red and Blue, if you swim up and down the coast you can catch some crazy wild Pokemon and glitch your items to get 99 of each.
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