According to Raww Le Klueze, global admin of the Suikosource forums, there is a secret 10th Old Book. There is no known button combination to access it, and acts more like a hidden programmer message with only one page. Translated to English, it reads:
"Nomo Hideo"
Congratulations on starting the Major League Baseball All-Stars Game!"
Hideo Nomo was a Japanese baseball player and a starter in the 1995 Major League All-Stars game in the United States - the same year Suikoden was released in Japan - and is known as the first Japanese citizen to join an American major league team after having played professionally in Japanese major leagues.
After recruiting Hugo, you can give him your Old Books and read them in the Castle's library on the third floor. In the Japanese version of the game, while reading these books, dataminers years ago found that a seemingly unused crudely-drawn sketch of the game's cover artwork was loaded into the VRAM. In reality, this sketch was not unused, but was actually part of an obscure Easter egg: a secret 9th Old Book. While highlighting the 8th Old Book titled "The Kalekka Incident", press Square, Circle, Triangle, and Cross at the same time. This will unlock the hidden 9th volume entitled "Hirotaka Development Diary" (presumably referring to the game's producer Hirotaka Ishikawa). A very rough English translation of the book's first four pages can be seen below:
- Pages 1 & 2 - (About the library)
"The Game Master used a ”Please/Favor Card”.
Thus my daily assistance began.
July 10th (Mon)
Made the BG graphics.
July 11th (Tue)
Made the page graphics.
July 12th (Wed)
Entered the text.
- Pages 3 & 4 - (About the mural)
The Game Master gave me the next job.
July 13th (Thu)
Made the images for the pieces.
Didn't have time so had to finish in one day.
(About the Stone Monument)
July 17th (Mon) – July 21st (Fri)
It was difficult because it doesn't have a face.
(About the Bath)
July 24th (Mon) – July 29th (Sat)
I want to have a bath too!"
The last two pages of the developer diary featured the crude sketch of the game's cover art alongside a request to mail in your opinions on the game to a listed address that is presumably somewhere in Kanda-Jinbōchō in Tokyo (Note: this full page has not been translated). It's not known if this secret is in the Sega Saturn version of the game, but it is confirmed to work on the PlayStation Portable port, Genso Suikoden I & II. However, this port has the last two pages (including the sketch of the cover art and request for opinions) removed, reducing it to four pages instead of six.
In the Japanese version of Alex Kidd in Miracle World, there is a heartfelt secret message accessible by holding Button 1 on controller 2, and then Button 2 or 1 on controller 1 on the ending screen:
"We dedicate this story to Kōichi and Emi. May children yet to be born be strong, and have love and bravery like Alex. And we, together with Alex, hope that all who love him may be forever happy. By: Kōtarō Yōko Matilda Rie Wakashimazu Papa Kōichi Toku Kaori the Bully Toshi the Bullied"
Inside the code for the SNES version of Daze Before Christmas are a set of mostly Christmas-related quotes and messages:
Any dramatic game the producers want us to take seriously as a representation of contemporary reality cannot be taken seriously as a representation of anything -- except a game to be ignored by anyone capable of sitting upright in a chair and chewing gum simultaneously. -- Richard Schickel (slightly modified)
... Now you're ready for the actual shopping. Your goal should be to get it over with as quickly as possible, because the longer you stay in the mall, the longer your children will have to listen to holiday songs on the mall public-address system, and many of these songs can damage children emotionally. For example: "Frosty the Snowman" is about a snowman who befriends some children, plays with them until they learn to love him, then melts. And "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is about a young reindeer who, because of a physical deformity, is treated as an outcast by the other reindeer. Then along comes good, old Santa. Does he ignore the deformity? Does he look past Rudolph's nose and respect Rudolph for the sensitive reindeer he is underneath? No. Santa asks Rudolph to guide his sleigh, as if Rudolph were nothing more than some kind of headlight with legs and a tail. So unless you want your children exposed to this kind of insensitivity, you should shop quickly. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph. -- Shirley Temple
Within the game is a series of hidden developer messages. The first one, which reads "PRESS CTRL-Z DURING THE CARTOONS," is accessible by enabling joystick mode and pressing button 1 after navigating the joystick cursor to the bottom-left of the title screen. If the player complies with the message and presses Ctrl-Z during the game's cutscenes, they'll be given different fragments of a cipher message; piecing them together and decoding them reveals the sentence "ENTER THREE LETTER CODE WHEN YOU RETIRE." Likewise, pressing Ctrl-Z while the game displays the cipher fragments brings up the phrase "DOUBLE HELIX," alluding to the shape of a DNA molecule. Accordingly, if the player types "DNA" on the retirement screen that appears after beating the game, they will receive a congratulatory message from programmer Robert Cook.
The complicated nature of this Easter egg resulted in it going undiscovered until 2016, when game preservationist 4a.m. tried cracking the ROM's atypically complex antipiracy protections while attempting to preserve as many Apple II games online as possible. Cook sent 4a.m. a congratulatory message on Twitter after discovering the secret, jokingly stating that "I assumed it would take a thousand, but you solved it in a mere 33 years."
In the European version of The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland for Game Boy Color, there is a friendly message to hackers:
Hello There Pilgrim...
If you have hacked this ROM, you no doubt are reading this text. This game is basically a 2 Meg. Game. However, Nintendo, in their infinite wisdom, has decreed that the smallest ROM they will produce for the Gameboy Color is 8 Meg. -- Now, what to put in that empty 6 Meg.? So, the developers of the game decided to put .GIF pictures of themselves into the game. Why not? Might as well fill the void with something entertaining. See if you can retrieve them from this ROM. If you do, you win the prize. Please call (609) 466-2092 (in New Jersey, USA) if you have been able to view the two .GIF pictures, located in the rest of the upper 6 Megs of this ROM. We will have a nice reward for you...
Good Luck!
Roger W. Amidon September 28, 2000
The described graphics do indeed exist within the game code. It is unknown who the first person to discover the images were, or if and how they were rewarded. Sadly, Roger W. Amidon has since passed away.
Courage the Cowardly Dog: Creep TV has secret codes and levels that went undiscovered until 20 years after its release due to a glitch making them inaccessible. The "daScore" code, which shows a counter of how many ghosts you've zapped; and the "mirage" code, which expands the game map and allows access to secret levels - one where you can acquire glasses, and another that has a sign simply reading Eustace's catchphrase, "STUPID DOG!" - however, if you get the glasses then read the sign, it will instead say "Wee...amazing! You found it! GOOD DOG!"
Within the game's code is a commented-out test string transcribing the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise, a monologue by Chancellor Sheev Palpatine from the 2005 film Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith; the monologue previously became a popular copypasta in the late 2010s, midway through the game's development. By nature, this text cannot be seen in the normal course of play and is only visible through observing the game's data.
In the 1999 Sega Dreamcast commercial for Crazy Taxi, the DMV features the address number 666 (the Number of the beast) in reference to common complaints about long wait times and poor service at DMVs.
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Inside Fowler's model textures is a crudely-written rendition of the word "COCK".
In Greenflower Zone Act 1, there is a house in the upper section of the level next to a lake. If the player has all 200 Emblems, this house will have a note on it thanking the player for keeping the game alive.
This house belongs to the in-universe persona of RedXVI, an old member of the Sonic fangame community who had significant influence over Sonic Robo Blast 2's development.
The location of this note is a reference to Version 1.09 of the game, where an Easter egg was hidden on the very same house. In this version, jumping on the house would cause RedXVI to come out and send the player to an early work-in-progress version of Red Volcano Zone Act 1 if the player jumped on the house repeatedly after beating the game three times.
The board for Pac-Man contains a DIP switch titled "Alternate Ghost Names", which in the Japanese release contained early English names for the ghosts:
When the Street Fighter skin set was released for Fortnite, a back bling of an arcade machine was released that would show attract mode footage from Street Fighter II. Coinciding with this, a texture was found in the data, under the name "FrenchFry" showing animation from Family Guy in a similar format. While many believed this confirmed that Peter Griffin was planned to be featured in the game alongside a back bling that would show Family Guy clips, it was later stated by a reputable Fortnite leaker named FNBRUnreleased that the Family Guy content could've only been added for one of two reasons: to annoy dataminers, or to internally test the Street Fighter graphics in a humorous way.
Griffin would eventually be added to Fortnite in Chapter 5. To coincide with his addition, a video titled "Peter Griffin Seeks Fitness Advice From Meowscles" was released: animated in the same style as "Family Guy", it features Griffin getting a fitness exam from Fortnite character Meowscles, ending with him drinking an expired bottle of Slurp Juice in order to become "swole", explaining his design in the game. The expiration date on the Slurp Juice is a reference to the date when the leak originally happened, and the trailer also used the leaked back bling. Despite appearing to be animated by Family Guy's animation department, the video noticeably does not feature any spoken dialogue, or voice acting by Family Guy creator and Griffin's voice actor Seth MacFarlane.
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The source code for Gremlins Unleashed contains several hidden messages, including pictures of Gremlins characters, a shoutout to Subito Pizza and Pizza Hut from the graphists, and several profane rants.
One of the messages, resembling the Windows Blue Screen of Death, can also be found in Kirikou, another title developed by Planet Interactive.
In Slayers X, the Boise Potato Festival contains a crevasse leading to a bottomless pit. If the player manages to land on an outcropping just below the kill plane, they can access a hidden tunnel littered with messages by Adam Chase, a character in the Hypnospace Outlaw universe who assisted Zane Lofton with developing the game. According to Chase, he helped make the game as part of a promise he made with Lofton back in high school and that even though he now despises Lofton, he pities his situation as "a deadbeat dollar store manager" who believes that the game will help him and his son escape their current lot in life. The end of the hallway contains a photo of Lofton in his underwear peppered with "BWL" (short for "bursting with laughter"), the Hypnospace Outlaw equivalent of "LOL."
In the healing rooms of Mole Mania, you can pester the old mole after having your life bar healed, who will grow increasingly annoyed. If you try to speak to him 6 times in a row, the relaxing healing area music will be replaced with the tense music that plays when entering the final castle level, and the old mole will exclaim:
"Woo! You ungrateful mole! Just wait 'til I get my claws on you!"
There is a hidden questline in the game that is not trackable and only progressed by finding letters, each one a Key Item referred to as "A Family's Escape", hinting to where the next one would be. This questline follows a family that is fleeing the island of Tsushima who are leaving notes for an unaccounted family member named "Toku". Spoiler:The fate of the family and of Toku are left ambiguous by the quest's end.
After recruiting Hugo, you can give him your Old Books and read them in the Castle's library on the third floor. In the Japanese version of the game, while reading these books, dataminers years ago found that a seemingly unused crudely-drawn sketch of the game's cover artwork was loaded into the VRAM. In reality, this sketch was not unused, but was actually part of an obscure Easter egg: a secret 9th Old Book. While highlighting the 8th Old Book titled "The Kalekka Incident", press Square, Circle, Triangle, and Cross at the same time. This will unlock the hidden 9th volume entitled "Hirotaka Development Diary" (presumably referring to the game's producer Hirotaka Ishikawa). A very rough English translation of the book's first four pages can be seen below:
In the European version of The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland for Game Boy Color, there is a friendly message to hackers:
In the 1999 Sega Dreamcast commercial for Crazy Taxi, the DMV features the address number 666 (the Number of the beast) in reference to common complaints about long wait times and poor service at DMVs.
In Greenflower Zone Act 1, there is a house in the upper section of the level next to a lake. If the player has all 200 Emblems, this house will have a note on it thanking the player for keeping the game alive.
The board for Pac-Man contains a DIP switch titled "Alternate Ghost Names", which in the Japanese release contained early English names for the ghosts:
When the Street Fighter skin set was released for Fortnite, a back bling of an arcade machine was released that would show attract mode footage from Street Fighter II. Coinciding with this, a texture was found in the data, under the name "FrenchFry" showing animation from Family Guy in a similar format. While many believed this confirmed that Peter Griffin was planned to be featured in the game alongside a back bling that would show Family Guy clips, it was later stated by a reputable Fortnite leaker named FNBRUnreleased that the Family Guy content could've only been added for one of two reasons: to annoy dataminers, or to internally test the Street Fighter graphics in a humorous way.
In Slayers X, the Boise Potato Festival contains a crevasse leading to a bottomless pit. If the player manages to land on an outcropping just below the kill plane, they can access a hidden tunnel littered with messages by Adam Chase, a character in the Hypnospace Outlaw universe who assisted Zane Lofton with developing the game. According to Chase, he helped make the game as part of a promise he made with Lofton back in high school and that even though he now despises Lofton, he pities his situation as "a deadbeat dollar store manager" who believes that the game will help him and his son escape their current lot in life. The end of the hallway contains a photo of Lofton in his underwear peppered with "BWL" (short for "bursting with laughter"), the Hypnospace Outlaw equivalent of "LOL."
