In the April 1998 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly's spin-off magazine EGM2, the issue's Trick of the Month was an alleged method to unlock Akuma from the Street Fighter series as a secret playable character in Resident Evil 2. In order to unlock him, the magazine instructed players to play through both story scenarios six times each using only the Knife and the H&K VP70 gun on hand at the start of the game, and achieve an A ranking in all scenarios. Once these specific conditions are met, the player would receive some kind of clue that would lead them to the security computer in the Laboratory on Level B5F. At this point in either scenario, players would type "AKUMA" instead of "GUEST" into the computer, and after entering it would be sent to the Save screen and given the option to make a new save file with Akuma's name. After starting this new file, the game would start with Akuma breaking out of a cryogenic tank in an unused area where Tyrants were originally planned to escape from, and make his way through the game without the use of keys, with his main attack being a red Gohadoken used just like a gun by holding the Action button and firing.
In reality, after going through these difficult unlock conditions, entering AKUMA into the computer will not unlock anything, because the trick was an elaborate April Fools' prank (with the exception of the unused Tyrant area, that was real). This prank was the work of EGM2 editor and art director Mike Vallas, who took assets from Street Fighter EX and heavily modified and photoshopped them into Resident Evil 2 gameplay screenshots. It was one of two proposed April Fools' pranks that were in consideration to appear in the main EGM magazine that month, being beaten out by a prank trick for GoldenEye 007 where you could play as previous James Bond actors. Unlike Akuma, they actually were planned to appear in that game, but can only be accessed with GameShark codes.
Just before Sonic transforms into Super Sonic near the end of the game, the surviving crowd in Station Square can be heard in the background chanting Sonic's name to encourage him. This crowd recording is actually comprised of over one thousand attendants in the audience for the official reveal of the game at the Tokyo International Forum on August 22, 1998. The chant was led by special guest Hiroshi Fujioka portraying Segata Sanshiro, the Japanese advertising mascot for the Sega Dreamcast's predecessor the Sega Saturn, and recorded by Sega to use in the game.
If you insert the PlayStation or PC versions of the game into a CD player, or play the Sega Saturn version's disc in the console's music player, you can access a hidden song on track 6 titled "Motty's Rap". The song consists of humorous phrases recorded by longtime FIFA commentator John Motson that mostly comment on the song's techno/rock instrumental with some mild innuendos, including: "That is the fattest bottom end I've ever heard" and "This reminds me of touring with the Sex Pistols". The song was the work of EA composer/audio designer Robert Bailey, who got Motson to record lines for the song during his time in the recording booth. In a 2024 interview, Bailey stated that the song was one of many obscure Easter eggs involving Motson's dialogue that the developers put together, with "Motty's Rap" being pulled from "just all of the stupidest phrases John said" and were put into the context of the music. The song was approved to be put into the game by its executive producer Bruce McMillan.
Located on the rooftop of Tom's Diner (over at Bradbury & Buran) is a pair of binoculars. If the players uses the binoculars to look up to the left, they'll find graffiti of the Northern cardinal bird that's used in CD Projekt RED's logo. After waiting a few moments, the vision in the binoculars will glitch and shift to show a picture of the game's dev team superimposed over the screen. According to global community director Marcin Momot and senior PR manager Marta Piwońska, this picture was taken at an annual company picnic on CD Projekt RED's 20th anniversary in 2022.
The origami cranes scattered across the games feature a jumbled QR Code pattern that when put together links to the Japanese microsites for Another Code and Another Code: R.
Method: - Look up the file "ditem_PaperCrane" inside Textures2D of the game's data. - Stitch the texture together into one complete QR Code if necessary. - Scan it with any QR Code decoder like the one used in smartphones. Resize if necessary. - QR Code should display the following: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/anoj/index.htmlhttps://www.nintendo.co.jp/wii/rnoj/index.html
The code can be recreated by inputting these URLs exactly as they are shown above into the following Japanese QR Code generator: https://qr.quel.jp/
In the Hall of Justice Area, two tribute plaques can be found for Kevin Conroy and Arleen Sorkin, the respective voices of Batman and Harley Quinn in "Batman: The Animated Series" who passed away during the game's development.
One of the picture frames seen in Chapter 3's Home Sweet Home area contains the phrase "A clap and a half to you. We'll miss you." This is a reference to a catchphrase used by YouTuber Matthew "MatPat" Patrick, the host of the webseries "Game Theory", who had announced that he would be retiring from making YouTube content a few days before the chapter was released.
In the English dub of the Ace Attorney anime, the character Furio Tigre is voiced by Sam Riegel, the English voice of series protagonist Phoenix Wright starting with his appearance in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (with the exception of Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, where Phoenix was instead voiced by Trevor White). Based on a tweet from Kyle Phillips, the voice director for the dub, this appears to be intentional, as the case Tigre was involved in, "Recipe for Turnabout", involved him Spoiler:posing as Phoenix in a plot to frame Maggey Byrde for murder.
Donkey Konga 2 features a set of unlockable badges based on not only Donkey Kong Country characters (specifically DK, Diddy Kong, Dixie Kong, and Cranky Kong), but also other Nintendo IPs such as Mario, The Legend of Zelda and Pikmin. The Japanese version of the game also features badges of generic humans.
The international release of Donkey Konga 2 would remove the aforementioned human badges (as well as the Boo badge) and replace them with six extra Donkey Kong Country badges (Funky Kong, Kiddy Kong, Swanky Kong, Wrinkly Kong, Banana Bird, and King K. Rool). Five badges from Star Fox: Assault, another Namco developed game, were also included, featuring the Star Fox team as depicted in that game (Fox, Falco, Krystal, and Slippy) and also strangely enough, Andrew Oikonny; it's possible that this is meant to be a reference to both the Donkey Kong and Star Fox series heavily featuring ape/monkey characters.
One of Ditto's Sleep Styles, called Rock-Formed Sleep, has it turning into a stone. This is a reference to its Pokémon Gold Pokédex entry: "It can transform into anything. When it sleeps, it changes into a stone to avoid being attacked."
Sujimon Sensei describes Hawaii as being "blessed by the sun and the moon." Considering that Sujimon Sensei and several other related elements introduced in Yakuza: Like a Dragon are parodies of the Pokémon series, this line is most likely a reference to Pokémon Sun & Moon, which takes place in a region inspired by Hawaii.
Bubsy: Paws on Fire! attempted to raise funds for DLC with a Kickstarter campaign before its launch, which would've added new levels with new themes, mini-games, costumes, and Commander Video from Bit.Trip as a guest character. The Kickstarter was heavily criticized for the confusing structure it had, where the funding goal would merely add extra one-liners and two costumes for Bubsy while the stretch goals were individual parts of a short extra world, known as the "Impossible World". The campaign did not reach its base goal, and Paws on Fire! recieved no DLC.
In the GameCube and Xbox versions of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, it was intended for there to be portraits littered throughout Hogwarts of various real world people, specifically developers, their families, and some people the developers forgot about years after the fact (but believed they were involved in some kind of contest). The portraits of family members in particular were included as a coping mechanism, as they were suffering during development.
"We were doing very long hours, and it wasn’t just us suffering – our families were, too. They were supporting us – often suffering in silence. Marriages were strained, children were missing a parent. It seemed only right to put their pictures into Hogwarts; our odd way of showing our love and gratitude. And possibly to remind us what they looked like."
The development team considered these portraits some of the very few elements of the game they were truly proud of. Eurocom requested the portraits be removed without explaining why, something the developers were "too tired to fight".
In Final Egg, two large stasis tubes can be found. One holds Metal Sonic, while the other holds an unknown Sonic-based robot, later referred to as Mecha Sonic Mark III by Ian Flynn. This robot has no importance in the story, however, it seems to be based heavily on the design of Mechagodzilla from the "Godzilla" franchise's Shōwa era, due to many similar parts and possible textures from the robot. This also seems to be a reference to Mecha Sonic Mark I, also known as Silver Sonic from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, whose concept art also shows similarities to Mechagodzilla.
The character Veigar seems to be based on the Black Mages from the Final Fantasy series. This connection is further backed by one of Veigar's skins, called White Mage Veigar, which has the white and red coloring of the White Mages from the Final Fantasy series.
If the Song of Healing in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is reversed, it sounds similar to Saria's Song from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. While this may seem unintentional, the inputs to perform each song are also reversed from each other, with Saria's Song being played by pressing Down, Right and Left, while the Song of Healing is played by pressing Left, Right and Down.
In the Slum area of the hub world, there is a peaceful green cheeseslime named Snotty. If one is to kill Snotty, a permanent tombstone will be placed in the hub world, but if he is kept alive, he will be added to the Crumbling Tower of Pizza stage as a rescue, and the save file with which the game was completed will get a stamp saying "Snotty Approved". Saving Snotty does not contribute to the game's completion rating, and if one kills Snotty after the save file is Snotty Approved, the stamp will not be taken away.
In the Commodore 64 version of the game, there are two known messages written with destroyable blocks that are hidden out-of-bounds in two levels of the game. In Level 1-1, the year "1989", referring to the year the game began development, can be found in the middle of the map. The other message is hidden in Level 1-3, where the letters "DTE" can be found in the middle of a land mass in the bottom-right corner of the map.
The two Bird Keeper trainers that you face on Route 20 are named Bert and Ernie, referencing the Muppet duo from the children's television series "Sesame Street" who have a fondness for pigeons and rubber ducks respectively.
In the April 1998 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly's spin-off magazine EGM2, the issue's Trick of the Month was an alleged method to unlock Akuma from the Street Fighter series as a secret playable character in Resident Evil 2. In order to unlock him, the magazine instructed players to play through both story scenarios six times each using only the Knife and the H&K VP70 gun on hand at the start of the game, and achieve an A ranking in all scenarios. Once these specific conditions are met, the player would receive some kind of clue that would lead them to the security computer in the Laboratory on Level B5F. At this point in either scenario, players would type "AKUMA" instead of "GUEST" into the computer, and after entering it would be sent to the Save screen and given the option to make a new save file with Akuma's name. After starting this new file, the game would start with Akuma breaking out of a cryogenic tank in an unused area where Tyrants were originally planned to escape from, and make his way through the game without the use of keys, with his main attack being a red Gohadoken used just like a gun by holding the Action button and firing.
If you insert the PlayStation or PC versions of the game into a CD player, or play the Sega Saturn version's disc in the console's music player, you can access a hidden song on track 6 titled "Motty's Rap". The song consists of humorous phrases recorded by longtime FIFA commentator John Motson that mostly comment on the song's techno/rock instrumental with some mild innuendos, including: "That is the fattest bottom end I've ever heard" and "This reminds me of touring with the Sex Pistols". The song was the work of EA composer/audio designer Robert Bailey, who got Motson to record lines for the song during his time in the recording booth. In a 2024 interview, Bailey stated that the song was one of many obscure Easter eggs involving Motson's dialogue that the developers put together, with "Motty's Rap" being pulled from "just all of the stupidest phrases John said" and were put into the context of the music. The song was approved to be put into the game by its executive producer Bruce McMillan.
Located on the rooftop of Tom's Diner (over at Bradbury & Buran) is a pair of binoculars. If the players uses the binoculars to look up to the left, they'll find graffiti of the Northern cardinal bird that's used in CD Projekt RED's logo. After waiting a few moments, the vision in the binoculars will glitch and shift to show a picture of the game's dev team superimposed over the screen. According to global community director Marcin Momot and senior PR manager Marta Piwońska, this picture was taken at an annual company picnic on CD Projekt RED's 20th anniversary in 2022.
The origami cranes scattered across the games feature a jumbled QR Code pattern that when put together links to the Japanese microsites for Another Code and Another Code: R.
In the Hall of Justice Area, two tribute plaques can be found for Kevin Conroy and Arleen Sorkin, the respective voices of Batman and Harley Quinn in "Batman: The Animated Series" who passed away during the game's development.
Donkey Konga 2 features a set of unlockable badges based on not only Donkey Kong Country characters (specifically DK, Diddy Kong, Dixie Kong, and Cranky Kong), but also other Nintendo IPs such as Mario, The Legend of Zelda and Pikmin. The Japanese version of the game also features badges of generic humans.
One of Ditto's Sleep Styles, called Rock-Formed Sleep, has it turning into a stone. This is a reference to its Pokémon Gold Pokédex entry: "It can transform into anything. When it sleeps, it changes into a stone to avoid being attacked."
In the GameCube and Xbox versions of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, it was intended for there to be portraits littered throughout Hogwarts of various real world people, specifically developers, their families, and some people the developers forgot about years after the fact (but believed they were involved in some kind of contest). The portraits of family members in particular were included as a coping mechanism, as they were suffering during development.
In Final Egg, two large stasis tubes can be found. One holds Metal Sonic, while the other holds an unknown Sonic-based robot, later referred to as Mecha Sonic Mark III by Ian Flynn. This robot has no importance in the story, however, it seems to be based heavily on the design of Mechagodzilla from the "Godzilla" franchise's Shōwa era, due to many similar parts and possible textures from the robot. This also seems to be a reference to Mecha Sonic Mark I, also known as Silver Sonic from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, whose concept art also shows similarities to Mechagodzilla.
The character Veigar seems to be based on the Black Mages from the Final Fantasy series. This connection is further backed by one of Veigar's skins, called White Mage Veigar, which has the white and red coloring of the White Mages from the Final Fantasy series.
In the Slum area of the hub world, there is a peaceful green cheeseslime named Snotty. If one is to kill Snotty, a permanent tombstone will be placed in the hub world, but if he is kept alive, he will be added to the Crumbling Tower of Pizza stage as a rescue, and the save file with which the game was completed will get a stamp saying "Snotty Approved". Saving Snotty does not contribute to the game's completion rating, and if one kills Snotty after the save file is Snotty Approved, the stamp will not be taken away.
