This month’s community challenge is a most fitting one for the month that is home to April Fools, revolving around the many secrets found in video games, from the ridiculous to the outright fake. I have encountered a good number of these secrets and have managed to unlock many of them, to feelings of great glee all around, while on the other end of the spectrum, I have experienced frustration and befuddlement as I attempted to unlock a secret I later found was all false. I’m sure we’ve all had this happen to us, so I decided to create a little quiz to see how good you are at distinguishing between hoaxes and the real thing. Whether or not you’ve heard of the game or the secret involved, try and guess which ones sound legitimate and which are merely pranks designed to trick the gullible gamer (myself included).
Time to Spot the Hoaxes
#1: In Super Mario 64, you can unlock Luigi as a playable character by collecting every coin in the game.
#2: In the original Star Fox on the Super Nintendo, you can reach a hidden level where Fox can fight a giant slot machine to the tune of When the Saints Go Marching In.
#3: In Vexx, you can unlock a cow suit by locating a hut in Timberdale behind five metal trees, which clank if you uppercut them. Uppercut the cow found in the hut, and you will get the cow suit.
#4: In Donkey Kong Country 2, you can reach the Lost World during the boss fight against Kaptain K. Rool on the Flying Krock.
#5: In Banjo-Tooie, Humba Wumba can turn Kazooie into a dragon.
#6: You can find 1000 Yellow Lums in Rayman 2 even after Razorbeard eats one.
#7: Toad can be unlocked as a playable character in Super Smash Bros Melee by getting a perfect score in the credits mini-game.
#8: In the Qwark vid comics in Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Captain Qwark can be made to wear a tutu.
#9: In Rayman 3, Razorbeard, the villain from Rayman 2, can be found in a secret room in Hoodlum Headquarters.
# 10: In Banjo-Tooie, you can unlock a mode where the recently deceased mole, Bottles, turns evil and possesses enemies.
All right, it’s time to see how well you did. Behold!
The Big Reveal
#1: This one is false. Luigi is not playable in the original N64 version of Super Mario 64. This rumor came from a message found on a statue that said “L is real 2401” when people thought there might be 2401 coins in the game, though what I heard was that you merely needed to collect every star. I believed this rumor for years, until I finally succeeded in collecting every star in the game and there was no Luigi to be found. Either way, it would seem that Luigi sat this one out.
#2: As crazy as it sounds, this one is completely true. It also involves shooting down paper airplanes. To unlock it, well, I have a post about it, if you’re curious. (No, this is not just a cheap way of bolstering views for myself. I just don’t want to type the directions again.)
#3: No, the mythical cow suit in Vexx is very likely another hoax. Nevertheless, I searched long and hard for the stupid thing and wondered what the heck I was doing wrong. Now that I see there is no actual evidence of it, I will have to dub this one as fake.
#4: Another hoax, and while I can no longer find any mention of it on the Internet, I swear I once heard about it. Many years ago, back when I was trying to figure out how to reach all the levels of the Lost World, someone claimed that, during the boss fight against K. Rool, if you were lucky, the game would allow you to reach the pilot seat, and the Flying Krock would take you to the Lost World. Admittedly, this one is obviously not true, but I guess I wanted so badly to get to the secret world, I suppose I just wanted it to be true. You’re far better off getting the secret Kremkoin that is worth 75 coins. That one’s real. I promise.
#5: Okay, so probably everyone knows about this one, but in Banjo-Tooie, if you give Humba the Mega Glowbo, obtained from unlocking a safe using the Ice Key, she will transform our sassy Breegull friend into a little green dragon with fire-breathing capabilities. It’s pretty neat, though I’ll always prefer her original self.
#6: This one is the real deal, too. A secret Yellow Lum can be found in the Tomb of the Ancients. For details on how to find it, just check out my post.
#7: As was the case with a lot of rumored playable characters in the SSB series, this one is false. Toad is not a playable character. Now I just wish the inclusion of the Wii Fit Trainer had been a cruel joke.
#8: This one is actually true. It’s actually unlocked via a cheat code, and if you listened to Al, you would know what it is….
#9: This one is true, as well. Razorbeard does make an appearance in Rayman 3, as does many of his cronies, towards the end of the game in Hoodlum Headquarters. In the room with the lava and the moving platforms, you can find a secret hallway in the wall and follow it to a room where Razorbeard and his fellow robo-pirates can be found standing about in a strange rendition of The Last Supper.
#10: As farfetched as it sounds, this one is also true. Wiley hackers have found a secret game mode in Banjo-Tooie where an evil version of Bottles will possess enemies, and then a second player can control that enemy and use it to attack.
What is your favorite video game secret or hoax? What are the most unbelievable secrets, real or fake, that you have heard of?
A Talking, Blog-Writing Duck: True or False
The Star Fox one was pretty shocking the first time I read it. I couldn’t believe it until I watched a video.
Nice post.
That was a pretty crazy level indeed, and it definitely must be seen to be believed. I’ve gone through the level several times, partly to ease my shame at being unable to beat the game. Yes, I am completely incapable of beating anything beyond the easy path, but darn it, I can beat the secret slot machine from space!
I didn’t know all of these, but I was convinced that the Bottles game was a hoax. I tip my hat to you Duck! :)
I think the Bottles game was the most unbelievable of all of these, but alas, it somehow is a real thing. Even after confirmation that this was real, I still have trouble believing it. And to think, Rareware apparently cut it because of glitches. I think they should have cut it because it made absolutely no sense.
Oh, I remember that Luigi nonsense in Super Mario 64! I was never motivated enough to try to find out if it was real or not. And I actually never knew that about Humba Wumba in Banjo-Tooie. Kinda makes me wish I had the game so I could try it! Makes me think of the Stop N’ Swop shenanigans — so many rumors back then and all for nothing. Supposedly it was going to be included in a re-release of Banjo-Tooie some years back. Wonder if that actually happened…?
I originally thought you needed to collect all the stars in order to play as Luigi, not all the coins, and since I wanted to try and collect all the stars anyway, I had more motivation to try and unlock Luigi. If I had known it was supposed to be all the coins, however, I would have never tried at all. That sounds too overwhelming.
I think I heard Stop n Swop was included in the Banjoo-Tooie on the XBox 360. And yet, I am not really interested in checking out the new Stop n Swop. I liked it far more when it was accessed through secrets codes. Now that it’s supposed to be a real part of the game, it has lost its mystery.
When I was about 8, there was this rumor going around school (and other schools in my district, believe it or not). If you drove your kart into a specific patch of lava on the Bowser’s Castle course a nude photo of Jenny McCarthy would appear.
Hold on. I was 8 and the Internet wasn’t really a thing then. I still dismissed it but when I heard kids at other schools talking about it my friends and I spent countless hours driving into lava during a sleepover.
That’s the funny thing about secrets, no matter how unlikely they seem, we still try to unlock them. But, when secrets like Star Fox being able to fight a giant slot machine are true, it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not.