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Schoolyard Video Game Myths

SailorDaravon said:
The big thing when I was in Middle School was that you could get General Leo playable in FF6 =/.

That is one of the few I tried. The rumor said that you had to fight Brachiosaurs in the dragon head forest for a chance at an ultra random drop (1/4000 chance) which was a crystal that you could use to revive Leo. I always used that place to level up anyway, so I did once spend about four hours fighting there. Supposedly there was alos a magic potion that could bring him back, but I don't remember where that was.

I also remember:

Secret move that let Chun=Li throw her bracelets in original SF2 for SNES.

Hidden mirror that showed Black Orchid's reflection in Killer Instinct when she ripped her shirt open.

An ending in Chrono Trigger where you could rescue Schala by finding her lost in the Black Omen ( I looked for her for 5 years, until Chrono Cross came out).

That kids in Japan had Super Mario Brothers 5 when we were up to 3.

That Sony signed a deal with all of Nintendo's 3rd party developers so that all 3rd party N64 games would be released on Playstation.
 
Shen long playable in SF2
You can pick up the rock on ChunLi's stage in SF2
SMB has a -1 world (true)
You can freeze Guile in SF2 (true in original ROM)
 
Has to be Ermac being in MK1. Over a decade later and a good portion of the MK community still believes he is in the game, either as a glitch or a real hidden character. Like a classic urban legend the story is never quite told the same way, with each person telling it having their own little variation on what fighting him is like and each person swearing up and down that they are right. In all these years there has never been any basis for it but people continue to mention it as if it were common knowledge and claim Ed Boon said it was real, they know someone that saw it, or whatever.
 
All I remember was all the kids talking about world 2-3 and 3-1 and all that shit. I was like WTF. Didn't give in and got a Master System.
 
Luigi is unlockable in Mario 64 if you beat the game 100% in one sitting while holding R continuously.

The PS2 could be used to guide missiles in new and terrifying ways if it gets into the wrong hands.
 
1) It wasn't a myth but actual fistfights took place over which was better: SNES or Genesis. I don't remember who usually won but it happened more than once. I was the black sheep who still had the NES so I kept quiet during these little fights.

2) In Junior High, Nintendo 64 was the undisputed king. PlayStation owners weren't equal. Especially when Goldeneye came around. Nobody really liked the kid who had a PlayStation. Owning a Saturn was unheard of. Nobody owned one. If they did, they never admitted to having one.

3) When I admitted to owning a Dreamcast, most people thought I was dumb for buying it and not waiting for the PS2 instead. There were always a few people who waited for the Game Cube and the Xbox but the PS2 was supposed to do everything and anything...plus more. I've heard lots of ridiculous BS, most of which has already been covered in this thread.
 
In Battlezone (arcade), if you keep heading towards the volcano, eventually you will reach the mountains.

You can visit the people that live there; they have their own society where free love is practiced and there is no war.
 
The most rampant one I remember was spurred from EGM's Sheng Long code in SFII. I remember kids at school telling me they had done it correctly and fought against him.

Also, there was this kid in one of my junior high classes that swore on everything holy that there existed "Nudality" finishers in Mortal Kombat II. He swore that he saw Sonya do a striptease after losing a fight and being forced into the Nudality.
 
Ha, I like this thread. Lots of memories of kids trying to bullshit you with NO WAY kind of stuff. :lol

From my dealings with people, I came across these:

- Getting so many points in SMB1 that you had to flip the cartridge so it wouldn't overload

- If you went to the adult section of the video store, they had Porno Super Mario Bros... and instead of getting big, you would get a woody, and instead of fireballs you'd shoot mansauce at the enemies. And when you rescued the princess at the end, she was waiting for you in a bedroom, and a sex scene would happen.

- The usual "I got mario for sega/sonic for snes" kind of stuff

Lots of times if kids spouted some nonsense and you'd call them on it, they'd say their dad worked in Japan for whatever company you were discussing, too. But this seems to happen even now... just a couple of years ago, I heard some kid telling his friend that they were making Capcom vs DBZ, and that his dad worked in Japan, and he worked for "Capcom and Dragonball Z." So I called him on it.

Your dad works for who?

"Capcom and dragonball z"

What the fuck do you mean, he works for two companies?

"Yeah, Capcom and Dragonball Z!"

Dragonball Z ISN'T A COMPANY

:at this point his friends started going "damn fool, you got clowned" and shit: :lol
 
Jeff-DSA said:
Also, there was this kid in one of my junior high classes that swore on everything holy that there existed "Nudality" finishers in Mortal Kombat II. He swore that he saw Sonya do a striptease after losing a fight and being forced into the Nudality.


Even without the Nudality that's an amazing story since Sonya isn't even playable or fightable in MK II.


Inspired by the MK rumor nudalities are actually in Tattoo Assassins.
 
Anyanka said:
Has to be Ermac being in MK1. Over a decade later and a good portion of the MK community still believes he is in the game, either as a glitch or a real hidden character. Like a classic urban legend the story is never quite told the same way, with each person telling it having their own little variation on what fighting him is like and each person swearing up and down that they are right. In all these years there has never been any basis for it but people continue to mention it as if it were common knowledge and claim Ed Boon said it was real, they know someone that saw it, or whatever.
I thought Ermac WAS a glitch in MK1? I heard it happened when there was an error loading the palette for Scorpion and the outfit would come out red. When it didn't load properly, the word ermac would stay on the bottom right of the screen and stood for error macro. It seems completely plausible to me.
 
Anyanka said:
Even without the Nudality that's an amazing story since Sonya isn't even playable or fightable in MK II.


Inspired by the MK rumor nudalities are actually in Tattoo Assassins.


Oh, he was ridiculed plenty when people had actually spent some time with the game.
 
Some kid told me he jumped over the flag in Super Mario Bros. When he couldn't do it again, I said he was a stupid liar and that you can't jump over flag. Well...come to find out, appearently you can. Whoops. He was probably still lying though.
 
Haleon said:
I thought Ermac WAS a glitch in MK1?
There was. Ermac would show up and fight you to prevent the machine from crashing.

Smash TV had treasure rooms for the same reason.
 
Haleon said:
I thought Ermac WAS a glitch in MK1? I heard it happened when there was an error loading the palette for Scorpion and the outfit would come out red. When it didn't load properly, the word ermac would stay on the bottom right of the screen and stood for error macro. It seems completely plausible to me.


No one has ever been able to prove that anything like that happens or been able to reproduce a glitch like that. I guaruntee if I post what I said in another forum you'd have a completely different description, like saying Ermac appears in the lifebar instead of at the bottom. That game is one of the most played arcade titles in the past 10 years, the arcade board is owned by tons of fans and is readily avaible in the emulation scene. Fans have looked through every bit of the game and nobody has ever been able to show anything for it.

There was something in the game called "ermacs". It's in the audits screen in the operators menu. It seems to just be a log for hardware errors though. It was removed when they switched to the T-Unit hardware in later revisions. Whatever the case it can't be a glitch they overlooked because there's an audits listing for it. Why would a simple glitch where Scorpion turned red warrent putting in a log in the audits? In a Gamepro interview with Boon and Roger Sharpe they said it was something specifically programmed in by Boon for when the game crashes. He said nothing at all about a red ninja or any special character.

The listing for ermacs is right under the listing for Reptile appearances, so it's easy to see why people would think it was talking about another character. The whole origin of this was that EGM used to run a "most wanted cheats" thing and they had a reader send in an obviously fake pic and story about Ermac where the guy described him coming down and giving clues and this elaborate method to getting to him, some BS about hitting them right in the middle of the Warrior Shrine stage. Once people realized that was nonsense the story evolved into the much more plausible glitch explination.
 
truffleshuffle83 said:
getting on the island in goldeneye at the dam

pretty much everything else has been covered

I thought someone made their way over there with the help of a Gameshark code or two.
 
Anyanka said:
No one has ever been able to prove that anything like that happens or been able to reproduce a glitch like that. I guaruntee if I post what I said in another forum you'd have a completely different description, like saying Ermac appears in the lifebar instead of at the bottom. That game is one of the most played arcade titles in the past 10 years, the arcade board is owned by tons of fans and is readily avaible in the emulation scene. Fans have looked through every bit of the game and nobody has ever been able to show anything for it.

There was something in the game called "ermacs". It's in the audits screen in the operators menu. It seems to just be a log for hardware errors though. It was removed when they switched to the T-Unit hardware in later revisions. Whatever the case it can't be a glitch they overlooked because there's an audits listing for it. Why would a simple glitch where Scorpion turned red warrent putting in a log in the audits? In a Gamepro interview with Boon and Roger Sharpe they said it was something specifically programmed in by Boon for when the game crashes. He said nothing at all about a red ninja or any special character.

The listing for ermacs is right under the listing for Reptile appearances, so it's easy to see why people would think it was talking about another character. The whole origin of this was that EGM used to run a "most wanted cheats" thing and they had a reader send in an obviously fake pic and story about Ermac where the guy described him coming down and giving clues and this elaborate method to getting to him, some BS about hitting them right in the middle of the Warrior Shrine stage. Once people realized that was nonsense the story evolved into the much more plausible glitch explination.
Interesting. I always thought the Ermac thing was true because it sounded like it could easily be true. I just heard it was a palette swap glitch. I admit I've never seen it (though I've talked to kids who "have"), but I figured it was one of the more plausible of the ultra secrets.
 
Lyte Edge said:
Great topic. :)


-There was this kid at a summer camp I went to as a kid that was easily the biggest liar I have ever met to this day. The kid would spit out the biggest loads of garbage about anything kids were into, telling us that if you got to the last level in the TMNT arcade game without dying once, Casey Jones and Usagi Yojimbo would come out and help you win.

yeah only Usagi Yojimbo comes.. what a liar..
 
hobbitx said:
The classic that used to float around in my day was the Mortal Kombat sex fatality rumors. There always used to be kids talking about the infamous fatality where Liu Kang has sex with Sonya and they have a mutant baby. When Mortal Kombat 3 came out, people wouldn't shut up about "sexalities" and other non-sensical "alities" you could do..........but only on certain arcade machines though, never the consoles, remember that? :lol

Yeah, Mortal Kombat used to be the king of schoolyard bullshit back at my elementary school. SNES Blood Code, Sexalities, Nudalities, etc.
 
beermonkey@tehbias said:
In Battlezone (arcade), if you keep heading towards the volcano, eventually you will reach the mountains.

You can visit the people that live there; they have their own society where free love is practiced and there is no war.

I remember that one :lol
Except when you got there, you would be attacked by a 'Laser Tank', which could destroy the obstacles.
 
Haleon said:
Interesting. I always thought the Ermac thing was true because it sounded like it could easily be true. I just heard it was a palette swap glitch. I admit I've never seen it (though I've talked to kids who "have"), but I figured it was one of the more plausible of the ultra secrets.


What's funny is there's a bunch of glitches like this that are actually easy to reproduce and see for yourself but nobody cares or remembers. There was a cool glitch in MK1 for Genesis where if you managed to get to Reptile on an endurance match when you beat him a messed up greenish version of a character would fight you. Then there was the metallic Goro in SNES.


It's cool how many MK rumors have become true or been referenced in later games as a nod to the fans. Animalities, Kano transformations, Cage transformations, Kintaro transformations, Ermac, the trees in the Living Forest eating people, picking up a weapon in the Armory, Stryker shooting you with his gun, fighting the fire guy in the back of the Pit II......


The coolest MK glitch that actually turned out to be totally true: attacking the baby after a Bablity.
 
Haleon said:
Interesting. I always thought the Ermac thing was true because it sounded like it could easily be true. I just heard it was a palette swap glitch. I admit I've never seen it (though I've talked to kids who "have"), but I figured it was one of the more plausible of the ultra secrets.

he definitely doesn't exist. In MKII one of the "hints" or whatever the backwards shit they do is "ermac doesn't exist". It's pretty much a myth. But between Ermac in Mortal Kombat and Sheng Long in SFII my late elementary / early middle school was filled with kids who had seen them once in an arcade (and the really bad liars who had played against them or actualy plaeyd as them). They were the ultimate ultra secrets.
 
Diomedeskun said:
Hidden mirror that showed Black Orchid's reflection in Killer Instinct when she ripped her shirt open.

Oh yeah, reminds me of all the "Get her to turn around" rumors.

...Rare knew just how to play us. ;_;


In terms of other rumors, well, a semi-friend and I got into a BS/rarity match back in elementary, and I don't remember what it was that he made up, but I countered with Mario being small but still having fireballs in SMB1. But this is before I knew you could actually do it, so my process involved Small Mario getting this Fireball Sack powerup out of a block, kind of like those cheap library felt bags with their logo on it. Because he had to keep the fireballs SOMEWHERE...

The only other one I remember offhand that wasn't a magazine thing (Shen Long I didn't fall for, but Simon Belmont in TMNT2 I did, because they did a good job with the edit, and both were Konami productions), I think came from a book. (Tips 'N' Tricks Second Edition I think, or "How to Win at Nintendo" or something, it had a red cover and a bunch of cheats, tips, tactics, all that.) Some weird rumor about Mario being able to go to a Chocolate Factory in SMB1. (Yes, like Willy Wonka's.) At the time, completely reasonable rumor. :P I theorized that it involved trapping yourself inbetween the pipe and the green blocks in the first water level, and then breaking them somehow. Shockingly, I had no success with my process.
 
Anyanka said:
Even without the Nudality that's an amazing story since Sonya isn't even playable or fightable in MK II.


Inspired by the MK rumor nudalities are actually in Tattoo Assassins.

How explicit were these nudalities? Did TA have some T&A?

Also, my memory's hazy. Was Reptile in arcade MK1 or just consoles?
 
Grifter said:
How explicit were these nudalities? Did TA have some T&A?
I googled the game right after the guy posted that. Apparently the girls would disappear in a puff of smoke and then reappear with their hands covering the important parts.
 
I don't know I never actually played TA since it never went into public release. I doubt you saw anything. But I have seen pictures in EGM2 of a farting fatality and a fatality where a guy in a hotdog suit ran past the screen.

Somewhere floating around the net is an article written by one of the developers of the game bashing it, admitting it was garbage and how they were just trying to pump out a quick game for easy money. They said the game was so bad the testers would refuse to play it and instead play MK II.


Reptile is in arcade MK1. He wasn't in the first versions, but was added later. The MK games used to be updated with new content. That's why it would take a while to find the secrets and why there'd be so many rumors. Stuff like Noob Saibot weren't even in MK II until the game had been out for a few months.
 
Haleon said:
I googled the game right after the guy posted that. Apparently the girls would disappear in a puff of smoke and then reappear with their hands covering the important parts.

Thanks! Weren't the characters in that game digitized? If the nudes weren't faked, would the girls have to agree to some terms on these? I'm picturing the devs interviewing Cinemax rejects for the fighters.
 
Anyanka said:
What's funny is there's a bunch of glitches like this that are actually easy to reproduce and see for yourself but nobody cares or remembers. There was a cool glitch in MK1 for Genesis where if you managed to get to Reptile on an endurance match when you beat him a messed up greenish version of a character would fight you. Then there was the metallic Goro in SNES.


It's cool how many MK rumors have become true or been referenced in later games as a nod to the fans. Animalities, Kano transformations, Cage transformations, Kintaro transformations, Ermac, the trees in the Living Forest eating people, picking up a weapon in the Armory, Stryker shooting you with his gun, fighting the fire guy in the back of the Pit II......


The coolest MK glitch that actually turned out to be totally true: attacking the baby after a Bablity.


...is there a compilation of these references anywhere? Do you mind elaborating on metallic Goro, transformations, and armory weapons please? Are these mostly events in the side-games like Shaolin Monks?
 
Yeah TA was digitized. It was pretty much a MK clone. Looked horrible. MK has spawned some of the worst clones ever. That game, Ultra Vortek, Kasumi Ninja, Survival Arts, Way of the Warrior. MK has such a bad reputation...people just haven't played the truely awful digitized fighters.
 
VALIS said:
That the Sears Atari (Telegames) couldn't play all the games that the regular Atari 2600 could.

<looks at other posts>

Man, I feel old.

I was just thinking the same thing. :(

The thing I used to hate was when kids would get a better gaming system, like the 5200 or Colecovision and say, "It's just like watching cartoons!"
 
Flynn said:
I was just thinking the same thing. :(

The thing I used to hate was when kids would get a better gaming system, like the 5200 or Colecovision and say, "It's just like watching cartoons!"
When I was young I used to dream about the day that videogames looked just like cartoons. I knew it would happen, and to me that would be the pinnacle of technology.
legend-zelda-wind-waker-4.jpg

I just realized that Link looks like he's got a nasty 5 o'clock shadow in this picture.
 
Anyanka said:
Yeah TA was digitized. It was pretty much a MK clone. Looked horrible. MK has spawned some of the worst clones ever. That game, Ultra Vortek, Kasumi Ninja, Survival Arts, Way of the Warrior. MK has such a bad reputation...people just haven't played the truely awful digitized fighters.

It's really astonishing the crap that came as a result of MK. More direct SF clones were semi-playable like Martial Champions, Kasumi Warriors, and Fighters History 1. MK brought us Time Killers, Bloodstorm, etc.
 
- You could change the story in FF7 so Aeris would survive if you did [insert gigantic list with lots of near impossible shit]
- You could see [insert women] naked if you did [insert yet another list].
- In Ocarina of Time you could get the triforce as an item if you did [another list].
 
Grifter said:
...is there a compilation of these references anywhere? Do you mind elaborating on metallic Goro, transformations, and armory weapons please? Are these mostly events in the side-games like Shaolin Monks?

Metallic Goro happened if you did a Fatality as Raiden on the 3rd Endurance fight in SNES MK1. When Goro jumped down he was silver and glitchy, sort of looking like he was made of metal.

Armory weapons was a rumor in MK II. You supposedly could pick up the axe and hit them with it. Same with the trees. Both are now true in Shaolin Monks.

The transformations were when people first started playing as Shang Tsung. Everyone was flipping out thinking you could morph into Kano, Sonya, Kintaro, Kahn, Barney, Bill Clinton, and so on. Once the rumors took off Boon put a listing for "Kano Transformations" in the audits menu of MK II arcades, to make it seem like it was something you could actually do. Then he put in "Johnny Cage transformations" as a listing in MK3. Also Nightwolf's friendship had him morphing into Raiden and saying "I've never seen a Kano transformation".

In the Pit II you could see two people fighting in the far off bridge. A Liu Kang palatte swap the fans have dubbed "Hornbuckle" and the flaming Liu Kang everyone calls Torch. In MKDA they made him a real character...but could not use the name Torch and had to call him Blaze.

Another big rumor was that you could play as MK characters in NBA Jam TE...which actually turned out to be true. But only in the very first versions. The NBA did not approve and Midway took them out. You could be Raiden, Sub-Zero or Reptile.

There's also Rain, who started out as a stupid joke and is now a real character. In the opening to UMK3 arcade you see a bunch of quick cuts from various fights. One shows a purple ninja named Rain attacking Shao Kahn. It was meant to just be a silly Prince reference(rain....is purple...) but everyone went nuts over it so they made him into an actual character in the 16 bit ports and MK Trilogy.
 
SailorDaravon said:
The big thing when I was in Middle School was that you could get General Leo playable in FF6 =/.

Have Gau leap a Retainer enemy towards the end of the game. Next best thing :)
 
Anyanka said:
Armory weapons was a rumor in MK II. You supposedly could pick up the axe and hit them with it. Same with the trees. Both are now true in Shaolin Monks.

I do remember the MK2 rumors and assumed that you were referring to MK:SM since I saw the trees in the commercial. Until you brought it up, I had forgotten that it was merely a rumor.

Anyanka said:
Once the rumors took off Boon put a listing for "Kano Transformations" in the audits menu of MK II arcades, to make it seem like it was something you could actually do.

Gotta love the fan service and red herrings throughout MK's evolution.

Anyanka said:
A Liu Kang palatte swap the fans have dubbed "Hornbuckle" and the flaming Liu Kang everyone calls Torch.

Any idea how they came up with "Hornbuckle?"

Anyanka said:
Another big rumor was that you could play as MK characters in NBA Jam TE...which actually turned out to be true. But only in the very first versions. The NBA did not approve and Midway took them out. You could be Raiden, Sub-Zero or Reptile.

I played a ton of the early arcade versions of NBA Jam and did indeed play as Reptile and Sub Zero. That was a real shocker at first. I thought that they were in the SNES version as well.

Thanks for expanding. By the way, Reptile was console only, right? I don't recall being able to fight him and enter the pit in the arcade version
 
Hornbuckle is the last name of one of the staff members and one of Jade's clues is "Hornbuckle who?". I guess fans figured it had to be someone and that green palatte swap of Liu Kang was as good as any to give the name to.


If you played a version of MK arcade that had no Reptile it was an early one before revision 3. He is in the later ones though. I got to him last time I played. It's just a lot harder since you need the shadows over the moon to get to him and that only happens after several passes through the pit.
 
1. Blood code SNES MK II - friend claimed he knew how to enable blood. I asked him to do it and he started hitting random buttons on the controller. When we finally started fighting, I asked him, "Where is the blood?" He said, "Look, Johnny Cage is spitting white blood." (Pointing to the spit that would come out regardless of any codes entered)

Years later I read in some magazine a code for Game Shark (or whatever the thing was at the time) that changed the color of the spit from white to red (I don't know if that really worked).

2. Ermac MK II - This one never got old. It would pop up at the arcades every week and some idiot would claim he knew how to get it working. Being the idiots that most people were, they gave up the machines to watch some bozo occupy it for 1 hour resulting in, "I think I left the real code in my magazine!"

3. Playstation 2 - It can control nuclear weapons!

4. Playstation - Sony is making it easy to hack to encourage piracy and increase the installed base so unsuspecting developers will start releasing exclusives there. Oh wait...

5. FF VII - Aries can be revived (this never ended)

6. Square on N64 - Square is releasing a game... It's coming... Just wait...

7a. Super Mario 64 - You can ride Yoshi! You can play as Luigi! There is one missing star!
7b. Zelda 64 - You can get the triforce! You can play as Zelda!

8. Sonic 1 - You can unlock Super Sonic if you just collect ALL of the rings!

9. Virtual Boy - they are going to link it up with Nintendo 64 to create virtual reaity!

10.... and my favorite: Sega is releasing an adaptor to play all SNES games, so there is no reason to get a SNES and they are going out of business! :lol
 
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