The City Escape level music ("Escape from the City") actually has two versions that play during the level that sound nearly identical. The first one is the one that plays when the mission starts and features a 10 second instrumental opening and a radio directive for GUN units to capture Sonic just before the lyrics kick in, while the second version plays after Sonic gets an item in the stage and the background music restarts. The latter version is distinguished by the singer adding a "WOOOO! OH YEAH!!" vocalization at the 10 second startup of the song before the regular lyrics start and the song continues normally.
During the Crazy Gadget stage in the Hero Story, if Sonic enters the room with the colorful gravity block puzzle after 4 minutes have passed since the start of the level, Dr. Eggman will threaten Sonic through the ARK's intercom a second time. However, making it to the room before 4 minutes have passed will not trigger this dialogue.
In a post from April 26, 2021 detailing the Version 1.10.0 update (which released two days later), Nintendo showed off a screenshot containing a villager house not seen in any previous revision of the game. While this led to speculation about possible new villagers, Nintendo clarified on their Japanese website the following day that this was done in error, and that this house would not be appearing in the update; the image was promptly replaced with an alternate screenshot.
Coincidentally, 16 villagers would be added in the Version 2.0 update, but none of them use the house seen in the removed screenshot.
The goal of the game's story is to kill the 1.2 billion Red Communists that invaded Hong Kong. However, it is practically impossible to achieve that goal normally in-game due to Chin having only one hit point, the fact that the score meter will visually loop back to 1000 after reaching 8888 points making it hard to tell what your actual score is (this could be due in part to the number 9 being nonexistent in the game's score counter), and that, hypothetically, if you killed one enemy per second (while also accounting for the extra time it takes to defeat the game's only boss, Tong Shau Ping, multiple times), it would take around 38 years to reach a score of 1.2 billion in one sitting. The only quick way to reach a score of 1.2 billion is to cheat by manually changing the score value in a memory scanner/debugger. Doing this makes the score counter stop properly displaying the score, and causes the continuously looping theme song "I Love Beijing Tiananmen" to stop playing due to that high of a score overloading the game's memory.
Captain Falcon has minor gameplay changes based on which alternate skin is being used. Presumably a programming oversight, the character's Environmental Collision Box (ECB), a small diamond that prevents the character from falling through stage environments and walking through walls, differs slightly between skins, meaning they have very slightly different widths for dealing with stage collisions/interaction (although hurtboxes remain the same on all skins). Ranked from thinnest to widest, Captain Falcon's default skin has the thinnest ECB, while the Pink, Blue, Red, and Black skins have wider ECBs, with the Green skin coming out on top with the widest.
If you turn off the music and select Captain Falcon on the character select screen, an extremely faint grunt obscured by the Announcer saying Captain Falcon's name can be heard. In the game's sound test, audio files can be found with "DEMO" attached at the end of them showing that every character in the game had similar planned sound effects on the character select screen, but only Captain Falcon's sound remains audible. Additionally, in the game's files, animations labeled "Select" and "SelectWait" can be found for every character in the game, many of which were either ripped directly from Super Smash Bros., are unfinished, or were repurposed in the final game. These are all presumably remnants of an earlier version of the character select screen that more closely resembled Super Smash Bros., where the character's in-game models were visible and used special animations and sound effects when selected.
With the Shadow Moses Island stage making a return, Snake's exclusive Codec Call Smash Taunts also return (which are triggered by rapidly pressing the down-taunt button once as Snake on the stage). However, no new codec calls were recorded, meaning it will only work for characters that were previously playable in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. In fact, all but one of the old Brawl codecs were kept intact so they now contain many awkward slights and inaccuracies.
These include Brawl still being directly namedropped by the Colonel and Otacon instead of Ultimate during Jigglypuff and Sonic's codecs respectively, Mei Ling and Snake still discussing Sheik's transformation move that she no longer has as of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U as well as the two also referring to Lucario as having his old "purple flames" instead of his new "blue" ones, and Pokemon Trainer still being referred to with male pronouns despite having a new female alt in Ultimate among other things.
The only codec that was edited for Ultimate was Link's, where the Clawshot was excluded from the list of weapons Otacon reports to Snake, as Link's redesign based on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild removed it from his moveset.
Luigi, Ganondorf, and Daisy are the some of the few characters in-game to have at least one of their alt colors be inaccurate between the character select screen and actual gameplay. Specifically, Luigi's yellow and green alt has a yellow "L" on his hat on the Character Select Screen but in-game it has a blue/turquoise "L"; Ganondorf, in his purple alt, is shown when selected as having gold accents, but in battle those same accents are silver instead; And Daisy has a gold crown with her white "wedding gown" alt when selecting her but when the character is fighting her crown is silver.
Due to screen size limitations on the Game Boy, a feature was implemented where if you pause the game while outside, you can view the rest of the stage using the D-Pad. This cannot be done inside rooms and shops.
There is a hidden feature that allows Pit to haggle with Shopkeepers to lower the prices of items.
In the NES release, this is done by simultaneously pressing A and B on a second controller. In the Famicom release, haggling is instead done using a second controller with a microphone on it, by holding A on the second controller and speaking into the microphone to haggle. In the 3D Classics port for the 3DS, haggling can be done by simultaneously pressing the A button and either Start or Select.
The main catch to haggling is that the prices will only be successfully lowered if Pit's health is one point higher than the first number of the stage he is currently haggling on (i.e. Pit's health must be at 2 arrows when haggling in World 1 to successfully haggle). Otherwise, the Shopkeeper will raise the prices instead.
However if you fail to haggle, the prices will not change until the Shopkeeper's text finishes scrolling, creating a small window of time to buy something at its original price just before they increase.
During Otto Baynes' campaign when meeting Ezequiel in the café, if you choose not to fight him, he will be ridiculed as a coward upon his return to England to inform the King they chose not to fight, and will be renamed to "Loser Baynes". Upon returning to Spain and accepting Ezequiel's duel, defeating him will cause him to express confusion as to why Otto backed out of fighting him the first time before proclaiming that he will never be called a loser again, changing Otto's name once more to "Winner Baynes".
During Catalina's campaign before the final boss fight, there are two different scenarios that occur if you decide to attack either João or one of the ships in Ezequiel's fleet first (implying that she thinks they are still her enemy) that make the game unwinnable.
Upon attacking and defeating Ezequiel's fleet first, the ships following you will stop and instead travel around the overworld in random directions until they eventually disappear from the map. Despite this, João's ship will still follow behind her, and defeating him will cause his ship to disappear entirely.
If you attack and defeat João first, his ship will disappear and cause the rest of Ezequiel's fleet to scatter. In a fourth wall break, Catalina will point out upon attacking João that she chose to do this just to see what would happen, before he encourages her to reset the game so they can see the ending.
Towards the end of João Franco's campaign, breaking the flow of the game's story by choosing to attack Catalina's fleet will prompt his crew and opponent to mock him for being spiteful against her, causing him to be renamed to "Spiteful Franco" and significantly reduce his stats, making the game unwinnable. Upon her defeat, Catalina will then appear on the overworld as a hirable vagabond sailor.
A similar situation occurs when attacking Ezequiel's fleet, causing João to be lambasted for making such a poor decision, renaming him to "Nitwit Franco", and dropping his stats to the same unwinnable level.
The seemingly unique design for the Belmonts' Vampire Killer whip, with a metal chain, a morning star at the end, and the religious-looking crossguard, is actually very closely taken from two different sources: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and the Pachinko game Castlevania: Erotic Violence.
The 2 Player mode found on the Game Boy version cannot be accessed through normal means and instead is accessible by playing the game on the Super Game Boy SNES adapter cartridge.
Delphine Software originally pitched the idea of a basketball game to former NBA star Shaquille O'Neal, but O'Neal instead opted to pitch in the idea of a fighting game because he was a fan of Mortal Kombat. Delphine Software developed the video game using rotoscoping technology by filming Shaq and the stuntmen, then redesigning them to appear as characters in the game. A kung fu expert was then hired by Delphine Software to direct the action sequences to make the fighting aspects look more realistic.
In the living room of the Border House, to the left of the corkboard, there is a small, unmarked wall area that when hovered over will reveal a caption for a "Painting". Clicking it will instead cause April to walk to the adjacent right wall where the unseen painting is hung and comment:
April: "It's a reproduction of an early Lebowski. Not a particular favorite of mine, but, there ya are."
During the cutscene "Vision in the Living Room" which is only played if April has chosen to not work the evening shift at the Fringe Café, a shot of the painting depicting an abstract rendition of a woman's head can be seen. This painting appears to be a caricature of American actress Julianne Moore, who appeared one year prior to The Longest Journey's release in the 1998 film "The Big Lebowski" in the role of artist Maude Lebowski, suggesting that the painting may be a self-portrait.
Outside the Mercury Theatre, a poster can be found for a fictional film called "A Welsh Ghost Story" that April claims is "a classic", and is written and directed by Ragnar Tørnquist, the game's creator. This film was actually based on a real work-in-progress screenplay with the same tentative title by Tørnquist that would later be uploaded online in 2014 under the name "In the Dark Places".
In a post from April 26, 2021 detailing the Version 1.10.0 update (which released two days later), Nintendo showed off a screenshot containing a villager house not seen in any previous revision of the game. While this led to speculation about possible new villagers, Nintendo clarified on their Japanese website the following day that this was done in error, and that this house would not be appearing in the update; the image was promptly replaced with an alternate screenshot.
Entering the cheat code "UGLYMUGS" and viewing the game's credits will display a group photo of the game's developers, Left Field Productions.
The 2 Player mode found on the Game Boy version cannot be accessed through normal means and instead is accessible by playing the game on the Super Game Boy SNES adapter cartridge.
In the living room of the Border House, to the left of the corkboard, there is a small, unmarked wall area that when hovered over will reveal a caption for a "Painting". Clicking it will instead cause April to walk to the adjacent right wall where the unseen painting is hung and comment: