Urban Legends

Super Mario 64 was a monumental leap forward for the industry and had the same magic that made the 2D Mario games so special. It did have one glaring omission, however. Of course, I’m talking about the absence of Mario’s brother, Luigi. Mario, Bowser, Peach, and even Yoshi appeared in the game, so it seemed strange that Luigi would be missing in action. Many gamers remained hopeful that Luigi would eventually be revealed as a secret character, and some went looking for answers where there weren’t any. In one of the game’s courtyards, there sits a statue of a star with a plaque underneath it. This plaque is supposed to read, “Eternal Star.” However, the blurry, low-res texture made it difficult to see the inscription and many misread the message as “L is real 2041.” Some took this cryptic message as a sign that Luigi was hidden in the game. It seemed like quite a stretch, but that didn’t stop people from spreading rumors. One of the most creative rumors suggested that Mario could somehow shatter a mirror in the game and release Luigi from behind it. None of the rumors had any truth to them, and IGN even offered $100 to the first person who could prove that Luigi was in the game. Super Mario 64 DS (released in 2004) featured Luigi as a playable character, but gamers hoping to encounter Mario’s underrated brother in the original Nintendo 64 version were out of luck.

Anyone who grew up playing the NES likely has memories of Duck Hunt. After all, the game was packed-in with the console for several years. One of the most memorable aspects of the game was the canine companion that would retrieve ducks for the player. The dog was also known to mock players when they missed a shot. This was extremely annoying and left many players wanting revenge. Nearly everyone who played the game tried to shoot the dog in frustration, and some gamers insisted that it was actually possible to do so. This was one of the earliest examples of a video game-related urban legend. There was a hint of validity to these rumors though. The arcade version featured an additional bonus stage in which players actually could take out their frustrations out on the dog. Shooting the dog effectively ended the bonus round, and the comically injured canine would then hobble out on screen to scold the player. Despite what you may have heard on the playground, it is not possible to shoot the dog in the NES version of Duck Hunt. NES owners looking for revenge could always throw Barker Bill’s Trick Shooting in, however. That game featured a dog that looked remarkably similar to the Duck Hunt dog, and players were free to shoot it at their leisure.

GoldenEye featured a number of cheat codes for players to unlock. Some of these codes included invincibility, infinite ammo, and slow motion. After all of the cheats were unlocked, there appeared to be an empty space in the cheat menu. This led many to speculate that there was another unlockable cheat code hidden within the game. This speculation was finally addressed when Electronic Gaming Monthly revealed the “All Bonds” cheat. This cheat would supposedly allow players to select past-versions of James Bond (including Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, and Timothy Dalton) in the game’s multiplayer mode. In order to unlock the “All Bonds” mode, players had to earn every other cheat in the game and then finish the Aztec level in under nine minutes. To make things even more difficult, players were also required to set the enemy damage, speed, and accuracy to 100% and the enemy health to 200%. These requirements seemed impossible, but the hoax was somewhat believable because the game had a way of constantly pushing players. EGM even printed a number of convincing screenshots. Ultimately, the code was revealed to be yet another elaborate April Fool’s prank from the magazine. Rare had planned on including past versions of Bond in the game, but this feature was removed due to licensing issues. Players can access faces of the past Bonds with third-party cheat devices like the GameShark, but there is no way to unlock them in the actual game.

The Mortal Kombat series featured numerous hidden characters for players to discover. A mysterious ninja named Reptile could be found in the very first Mortal Kombat game, but many believed that there were other, more-ominous fighters lurking in the shadows. There was actually some logic behind these theories. The audit menu of the Mortal Kombat arcade machine had a listing for “Reptile Battles;” and the line below read, “ERMACS.” This led many to believe that Ermac was a hidden character along the lines of Reptile. In actuality, “ERMAC” was simply a shortening of the term “Error Macro” and the listing pertained to how error messages would be displayed. A related rumor suggested that the Genesis version of the game contained a glitch which would make the words “Error Macro” flash on screen and cause Scorpion’s trademark yellow outfit to turn red. This rumor was completely false, however. The Mortal Kombat team had a good sense of humor about everything, so they placed a few cryptic references to Ermac in Mortal Kombat II. For example; a jumbled message that appeared at the bottom of the screen after beating the game read, “CEAMR ODSE NTO EXITS” – an anagram for “Ermac does not exist.” The Mortal Kombat team had a lot of fun with the mythology surrounding Ermac, so they finally decided to officially introduced him into the series in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Appropriately enough, Ermac’s story involved his struggle to prove his existence. Ermac basically looked like a red version of Scorpion, just as the rumors had suggested. Because the fake Ermac sightings were used as a basis for his actual design and appearance, the mystery surrounding the character exists to this very day. Some people are still convinced that Ermac was hidden somewhere in the first Mortal Kombat game.

Bigfoot (sometimes referred to as a sasquatch) is a large, ape-like creature that is claimed to have been spotted throughout North America. The concept of Bigfoot fits nicely with the world of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and the abundance of heavily-wooded areas in the game would provide a nice home for the mythical beast. Shortly after San Andreas was released, various people reported seeing Bigfoot in the game. The most popular location for these sightings was near the cave on the side of Mount Chiliad. Other reports suggested that Bigfoot could be found inhabiting the Shady Creeks area. These sightings were occasionally supported by screenshots and video evidence. After Rockstar initially denied the existence of Bigfoot in the game, one of the producers suggested that he had put Bigfoot into the game as a joke, and that players would “have a 1/10 chance of finding [him].” As with the real-life Bigfoot sightings, the entire thing was a hoax. The screenshots were manipulated pictures and the comments from Rockstar were intentionally misleading. Bigfoot was added to several user-created mods, but he was never in any official version of the game.

The death of Aeris was one of the most shocking video game twists of all time. Some gamers were so emotionally invested in her character that they refused to believe that she was really gone. Even though her death has a profound impact on the rest of the story, many tried to convince themselves that Aeris could somehow be brought back to life. Some even postulated that Square’s decision to alter the spelling of her name from “Aerith” to “Aeris” for the western release was a clue. “Aeris,” after all, is an anagram for “arise.” Others insisted that she could only be brought back to life in the Japanese version. This wasn’t the case either. Japanese players even went so far as to send a lengthy petition to Square asking for Aeris to be resurrected. Given the progression of the game’s story, it was completely illogical to assume that Aeris could be placed back into the game. This didn’t stop the rumors from spreading, however. Proposed methods for keeping Aeris alive involved everything from purposely starting the game on the wrong disc to equipping certain combinations of weapons and Materia. None of these methods worked. Aeris died, and no amount of phoenix downs could bring her back to life.

The legend of Sheng Long began as the result of a simple mistranslation. After winning a battle in the Japanese version of Street Fighter II, Ryu warns his opponents about his “rising dragon punch.” During the translation process, the correct phrasing was mistakenly confused with the Chinese word “sheng long” which literally relates to a “rising dragon” and completely neglects the “punching” part. Instead of warning opponents about his rising dragon punch in the English versions of the game, Ryu insisted that they must “defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.” This left many gamers wondering who this Sheng Long fellow was. Electronic Gaming Monthly saw this as a great opportunity to create an April Fool’s joke. According to the hoax, players could fight with Sheng Long in the arcade game by making it to the end without taking any damage. Players would then be required to spar with final boss, M. Bison, for ten rounds without hitting each other. At this point, Sheng Long would supposedly jump into the arena and toss Bison aside. EGM provided several screen shots as evidence and gave detailed descriptions of Sheng Long’s moveset. It was a pretty nasty trick to play, but a few clues were provided that should have revealed the hoax. The article thanked a reader named “Mr. W.A. Stokins” (waste tokens) from Fuldigen, HA (fooled again, ha!) for sending in the explanation. They also put an announcement of their April Fool’s Day contest on the very same page that the hoax was printed on. The hoax became something of an international sensation when publications in Europe and Asia reprinted the trick without verifying its legitimacy. The funny thing about the hoax is that certain aspects of it would come to fruition in future Street Fighter games. The manner in which Akuma makes his debut in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, for instance, closely mirrored how Sheng Long made his entrance in the EGM article. Capcom would later introduce a character named Gouken who shared a similar look and backstory to EGM‘s hoax character. Gouken’s victory quote in Super Street Fighter IV is, “You must defeat me to stand a chance.”

Tomb Raider seemed tailor-made for testosterone-fueled gamers. The massive adventure featured guns, dinosaurs, and exotic locations to explore. Of course, its biggest selling point was its busty leading lady. Lara Croft’s popularity transcended the medium and she became the first gaming icon to be accepted as a mainstream sex symbol. Lara’s creator intended to make a character that was sexy because of her power. In the minds of most gamers, however, Lara was sexy because boobs. Shortly after the release of Tomb Raider, rumors began to spread about the existence of a code that would remove Lara’s clothing. Core Design immediately denied that such a code existed, but many gamers refused to accept the reality of the situation and the rumors persisted. The prevalence of manipulated images depicting Lara in the buff kept the rumors alive for several years, and the release of the fan-made “Nude Raider” patch for the PC versions caused a lot of confusion as well. Just to be clear, there has never been an official “nude code” or “nude patch” for any Tomb Raider game. In fact, Eidos Interactive even sent cease and desist notices to sites depicting nude images of Lara. Any naked images of Lara that you come across are completely unauthorized by the designers and publishers of the Tomb Raider series.

The legendary 151st Pokémon was added to the game in the eleventh hour. After the testing process had been completed, a programmer named Shigeki Morimoto decided use the memory that had previously been allocated to the debug features to add one final Pokémon. Mew was intended to be a secret character that only Game Freak’s staff would be able to obtain, (although an unforeseen glitch allowed the general public to find him as well.) Working with the Japanese manga journal, CoroCoro Comic, Game Freak decided to hold a special promotion to publicly release Mew to 151 winners. The overwhelming success of this promotion kept the hype levels high and led to word-of-mouth advertising. Similar promotions were held all across Japan. The elusive nature of Mew did wonders for the games popularity, and sales of Pokémon effectively quadrupled in the weeks following the initial give-away. Mew was later made available to North American gamers at special events at Toys “R” Us stores. This was the only official way for players to obtain Mew, so millions of Pokémon fans were left scrambling for ways to catch one in the actual game. Everyone seemed to have an idea on how they could catch Mew. One widespread theory revolved around a nondescript truck that was parked in a shipping port. According to this rumor, the original Japanese version of the game allowed players to move the truck forward in order to find a Mew underneath. This rumor had no basis to it, however. Players were not able to capture Mew via conventional methods in any version of the game. He was only made available through special promotions.

Mahatma Gandhi was an activist who led the Indian independence movement against British colonial rule. He inspired civil rights movements across the globe, and he encouraged a policy of peaceful resistance. Gandhi employed nonviolent civil disobedience in the real world, but his computer-controlled Civilization counterpart will apparently turn into a warmonger without warning. This was presumably due to a integer underflow bug that was tied to Gandhi’s in-game “aggression value.” The aggression value for any of the game’s leaders will drop by a couple of points if their civilization adopts democracy as its form of government, but this was an issue in Gandhi’s case since his aggression level was set to 1 by default. When his aggression level is reduced, it effectively wraps around to 255 and causes him to become the most aggressive figure in the game. This phenomena was mentioned on the TV Tropes wiki in 2012, and the misconception persists to this day. The only problem is that the whole story is fabricated. Bruce Shelley – who was one of the designers of Civilization – has described the bug as being “completely apocryphal.” In his 2020 autobiography, Sid Meier confirmed that the supposed bug was merely an urban legend. The truth wasn’t revealed until after Nuclear Gandhi became a meme, however, and many fans don’t even realize that they had been deceived. Even though the legend was largely fabricated, allusions to Gandhi’s unusual behavior were intentionally made in later games. In Civilization V, for example, his “nuke production” and “use of nukes” ratings were set to 12 out of 10! The developers have essentially turned Nuclear Gandhi into a running gag, so it’s no wonder why so many people still believe the urban legend.