Video games like to hide little hidden secrets that only the most devoted gamers can ultimately find. Easter eggs have become so commonplace in video games that they can be found in nearly every major release from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, and are frequently found in PC and arcade games as well. It’s come to the point where the programmers have taken to hiding even more secrets in their games. Sometimes they are so secret that they can only be found by inspecting the ROM of the game itself. These are the secrets that not even the publishers knew about.
Many of Nintendo’s most well known games (and some that have been forgotten) contain hidden messages from programmers. Some are innocuous messages included to pad the game’s ROM, some are added in order to directly communicate with the select few individuals who would be able to access the ROM, and some are just incredibly weird and offensive messages injected into the game without anyone knowing in order to settle some long lost beef. No one does secrets like Nintendo does, though, because their games include some of the most memorable secret messages in video game history. Here are 30 hidden messages in Nintendo games that they didn’t think you would notice.
30 They Named A Whole Room For Him
The Chris Houlihan Room is one of the more well known video game secrets in the industry, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to get to. It is remembered because Nintendo Power magazine ran a contest in 1990 that would get the winner’s name in a future NES game. That game turned out to be Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in 1992. Despite everyone knowing it was there, it took years for anyone to find it.
If the player is able to glitch Link’s location within the game, the player will be transported to a secret room containing rupees and a plaque of the wall. It tells the player that Chris Houlihan was the winner of the contest and this was his reward.
29 He Got To Put His Name On It
Developers have always found a way to hide their names inside the video games they worked on. Some secret messages are more hidden than others, and some are so well hidden that it takes 26 years to be discovered. That’s what happened with the original Donkey Kong video game released in 1981.
Programmer Landon M. Dyer hid his initials inside the Atari 400 home computer version of the game so well that it took a very long time to discover. Apparently the only way to make his initials appear on the title screen is by dying with a score that is a certain combination of digits, lose your last life by falling, and then selecting the level 4 difficulty. Now that’s a secret easter egg. No wonder it took so long to find.
28 Nintendo’s President Talks To The Audience
One of Nintendo’s biggest failures was the Nintendo 64DD peripheral attachment that was meant to significantly enhance the capabilities of the system. After years of delays, the N64DD finally saw release in Japan before being discontinued after just two years on the market. Despite its short life, it played a big part in the Mario Artist series of games.
The Nintendo 64DD plays Mario Artist Talent Studio from 2000, a game that hides a fun little message from Nintendo’s late former president Hiroshi Yamauchi. In the Movie Creation Tool, a file is hidden under the user directory all the way at the bottom of the selectable slots. It’s a video of an animated Yamauchi filming a video discussing the N64DD system and Mario Artist Talent Studio.
27 Hyrule Has Been Decoded
Hylian text has been prominently features in many of the installments of the Legend of Zelda video game series. Over the last 10 years, many of the different alphabets have been translated through the use of a cipher, allowing players to read little in-game signs and notes for a little extra fun. Before Breath of the Wild was even released, fans were able to discover that the strange symbols seen in Shrines were actually Hylian characters.
With a complete alphabet for these characters, everything in the game has since been translated. Fans have noticed that the Shrine doors say “dungeon” and the text at the end of the Shrines say “goalpoint.” Nintendo even added a few jokes in. When Link downloads new map data, the stone reads “Now loading do not turn off all your base are.”
26 Subliminal Pokemon Message
This one is more of a subliminal message that might pass over the heads of some of the game’s younger players. The Pokemon franchise is loaded with all kinds of sexual innuendos. During the course of Heartgold and Soulsilver, the player will encounter two Pokemon trainers by the name of Duff and Eda. When they show up on the screen, they are described as a young couple and he is holding her in his arms.
Sounds normal, right? Except for the fact that they send out the Pokemon Onix and Cloyster at the same time. If you don’t get the sexual innuendo, Onix represents the male and Cloyster represents the female. It’s a subtle thing, but you know that Game Freak knew exactly what they were doing.
25 This Guy Doesn’t Like Nintendo
In 1988, SNK released the game Iron Tank on the Famicom and NES, which was based off their 1985 arcade title TNK III. It’s a simple enough game that is fondly remembered by those who played it, but today it is remembered for a completely different reason. Apparently Yukio Kaneda, one of the game’s programmers, was very unhappy about his time working on the game, so he included a few colorful secret messages inside Iron Tank’s ROM.
Among his messages, he curses at Nintendo and calls for the company to go bankrupt. He also declares his hatred for the Famicom system. He even calls out someone by name, so it’s possible that he had a very bad experience working with Nintendo all those years ago.
24 Are They Still Hiring?
It can be hard for small game studios to survive in the industry, especially when the most talented programmers usually end up at the bigger companies. In the ‘90s, one company by the name of Tiburon Entertainment did something unorthodox by hiding a secret job offering inside the ROM of their 1996 game NHL 96.
For the hackers and testers who discovered the message, they received a full pitch from Tiburon about why they should want a job with them. At the time, they offered full benefits and competitive wages if applicants just faxed over their resumes. Did anyone apply this way? The company was bought by EA in 1998 and now works on the NBA Live and Madden football franchises, so things must have worked out for them.
23 Nintendo Sees You Coming
Nintendo brought fans into a frenzy when the company released the Nintendo Classic Mini for the 2016 holiday season. Everyone wanted one and almost no one could get one. The system comes loaded with 30 built-in titles, and its success has led to the release of the Super Nintendo Mini. The success of the system led to hackers wanting to explore the depths of the console, but it should come as no surprise that Nintendo saw this coming.
When hackers attempted to load new games onto the Nintendo Classic Mini, they were surprised to find a message from a programmer called “the Hanafuda Captain” already waiting for them. It told them that a lot of work had gone into this system, so if they were going to mess around, at least keep the place clean.
22 Things Got Weird In Tetris
The 1999 game The New Tetris for Nintendo 64 shipped with several secret messages locked away inside the ROM. Hackers who have accessed this information were treated to programmer David Pridie’s long-winded rant about his boss, the company he worked for, Nintendo, and the game itself. It turns out he didn’t like a few people involved in the making of the game.
Other text hidden in The New Tetris include a numbered list of 56 things that one programmer hates. There is also text pulled directly from songs and video games and ASCII logo art included in the ROM. Sometimes the most inconsequential of games has the most secrets locked inside. The programmers thought it would take years to discover, but hackers found everything in a matter of days.
21 They Knew You’d End Up Here
Many gamers like to discover glitches in games in order to access areas that are normally not accessible. The funny thing is that Nintendo often sees this coming and tries to get out ahead of it. This happened in the original Paper Mario game, where instead of closing a loophole, the programmers simply left a message in the game for the gamers to find.
A glitch exists that allows Mario to gain access to the southern part of Toad Town before he’s really supposed to get there. This allows the player to skip over more of Chapter 1, but instead of everything continuing like normal, Nintendo decided to have some fun. If the player achieves this glitch, all the NPCs in the new location will tell Mario that he’s not supposed to be here and that the player should contact Nintendo about it.
20 Find The Secret, Win The Prize
In 2000, Nintendo released the European localization of The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland on the Game Boy Color. It’s a simple kids game based off the 1999 movie of the same name. The funny thing is that if you can access the game’s ROM, the programmers have a fun message waiting for you.
Apparently, the simplicities of this game called for only about 2 Megabytes of data, but Nintendo determined that the company would only release games that are at least 8 Megs. The programmers, finding this ridiculous and needing something to pad out the ROM, decided to add two .GIF files onto the game. The group even says there is a prize waiting for you if you discover these files and call them up.
19 Who Are You Running From?
One of Nintendo’s many attempts to create popular accessories for their gaming systems was the poorly received Game Boy Camera. Released in 1998, the idea came well before its time, since this was before camera were attached to everything. The Game Boy Camera was discontinued by 2002, but it maintains a terrifying legacy to this day.
For some reason, Nintendo thought it was a good idea to included doctored pictures of people that are actually pretty terrifying if you’re not expecting them to pop up. Select the ‘Run’ feature on the menu and one of these creepy pictures pops up and asks “who are you running from?” because that’s normal. The pictures also pop up if there is ever an error in loading the game. Whose idea was this?
18 The Perfect Love Letter
Many programmers have left behind hidden messages in their games. While most of them are addressed directly to the player, some can take on a more personal focus. Usually it’s just programmers complaining about the people they had to work with, but when it came to Pokémon Puzzle League for the Nintendo 64, it was a message of love.
The 2000 release based on the Pokémon anime actually holds, not one, but two separate love letters within it. Hidden in the ROM of the game are audio files from two separate programmers declaring their love for two other people. It’s hard to say how these people would ever get their messages, but isn’t it super romantic? Hopefully this was a mutual thing and not just some creepy stalkers.
17 The King’s Secret Message
Super Mario Bros. 3 is remembered as one of the best Mario games of all time, not just because of its fun gameplay but also because of its many secrets. You might remember how you have to travel from world to world in order to turn the realms' kings back to their normal form. When you save them, they thank you, but there are secrets that can be unlocked during these interactions.
If you are able to defeat the castle while wearing the Tanooki, Frog, or Hammer Bros. Suit, the king will return to normal and react to the specific costume that Mario has on at that moment. Wear the Tanooki Suit and the king will think you are a raccoon, and the Frog Suit will make him think you were transformed into a frog. If you have the Hammer Bros. suit, he’ll ask to borrow it.
16 The Cutting Room Floor
Remember the video game Paperboy? Nintendo decided to make an ill-conceived 3D remake for the Nintendo 64. It was a pretty bad game that did a disservice to the original, but by exploring the game’s ROM you’ll find some funny stuff that got left on the cutting room floor from the final version of the game.
The game consists of several fake headlines for the newspapers that the titular paperboy hands out. Apparently quite a few of them didn’t make the final game, but you can check them out for yourself. The list includes simple jokes, play on words, and even references to the video game programmers themselves. There are also lines that reference Resident Evil, Shakespeare, and “I Am the Walrus” by The Beatles.
15 A Story About Monkeys
Secret messages hidden inside games usually hold some kind of purpose. Maybe a programmer is telling us how much they hate their coworker, or perhaps they needed to pad the ROM of the game. There’s a message hidden inside the Game Boy Advance titles Hot Wheels: Velocity X and The Hobbit that seem to serve no other purpose than to weird us all out.
If you check out the inside of either game, you’ll come across a copy and pasted story about monkeys. It’s a vulgar and disturbing tale about a person who bought 200 monkeys at the pet store, as the storyteller repeats the phrase “I like monkeys” throughout the story. All the monkeys die and the storyteller gives them away as Christmas gifts. What was the point of all this?
14 Someone Was Not Happy To Work On This Game
The 1988 Japan-exclusive two-player adventure game for the Famicom called Erika to Satoru no Yume Bouken (Erika and Satoru’s Dream Adventure) holds a secret message from one of the programmers at the end of the game. The only way to access the message is to allow the game to idle for an hour and a half and input a specific combination of commands.
These commands will open a hidden message from one of the game’s developers, known as “Hidemushi.” He goes on to detail all the people he worked with on the project and how awful they were during the making of the game. There were a few people he genuinely thanked, but he was vicious against those who did him wrong. A second message can be triggered after the first that is dedicated to his lover.
13 The Programmer Lends A Hand
Commando was a popular arcade game created by Capcom that was released in 1985 before getting an NES port in 1986. Within the ROM of the Nintendo version is a secret message from one of the programmers that details special conditions in order to trigger a secret thank you screen at the end of the game.
The programmer left a message saying that if the player finishes the game with three lives and 24 hand bombs—because his birthday is 3/24—they will get a special thanks. The programmer then asks the player to get his next game. There is also another message expressing regret that the programmer was unable to meet Mamiko Takai, a popular Japanese singer in the ‘80s, because Capcom was moving offices at the time.
12 You Need To Know Morse Code
The 2009 game Wii Sports Resort is packed with fun leisurely games for you and your Mii, but it also hides a fun little easter egg from Nintendo. If you play the Island Flyover mini-game, you’ll see a lighthouse nearby. Fly near it and you’ll hear a series of beeps emanating from what the game refers to as “the Candle.”
It turns out, these beeps are actually Morse code, and if you translate the message (because who can’t) you’ll discover a secret message from Nintendo. What does it say? Well, nothing important, because they are mainly talking about Morse code itself. It basically just says “Morse code takes forever” and “does anyone out there know Morse code?” It’s a good question as to why the programmers even put this in here.
11 Never Try To Find This Message
Nintendo wanted to cash in on the popularity of games like Guitar Hero, so in 2007 they released Jam Sessions for the Nintendo DS. It uses the console’s touch screen to allow players to simulate playing a guitar. It’s all pretty standard stuff until you realize that there is a terrifying secret message hidden in the game that’s not too difficult to discover.
Apparently, if you play the note A6 and hold it out, a terrifying message will play as the note fades out. A whispered voice can be heard saying “forgive us” that truly tingles the spine. Some have reported that the message sounds like “don’t kill us,” but that’s not any better. Someone needs to track down Ubisoft, Nintendo, or whoever is responsible for this and get answers.