Konami code found in Castlevania N64 game 25 years after release

Twenty-five years after Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness launched for Nintendo 64, somebody has found a brand new Konami code lurking inside — and it’s a fairly helpful one.

Discovered by two fans on the Castlevania 64 speedruns Discord server, this code unlocks all characters, plus their alternate costumes, plus a tough mode, on the spot. Beforehand, followers earned these unlocks after beating the sport twice.

However wait, there’s extra. The followers additionally found one other two cheat codes very useful to at least one’s playthrough, particularly if it’s a speedrun. One code fully fills the participant’s stock, it doesn’t matter what character they’re utilizing, and one other just for the Japanese NTSC and PAL variations max out their weapons’ energy and provides them a max variety of jewels. Gamers have since tweaked the sport’s code to make them accessible of their variations, though some report minor bug points.

YouTuber JupiterClimb has the entire particulars, together with the best way to entry the codes, the video above. However the content material unlock code is fairly easy; it’s mainly inputing the basic Konami Code (for Nintendo 64) twice on the recreation begin menu.

See for your self on this condensed video posted to X:

New KONAMI CODE found after 25 years!!

In Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness, you may unlock all characters and costumes from the beginning: pic.twitter.com/ZkueeXCNeb

— JupiterClimb (@JupiterClimb) April 15, 2024

Historical past of the Konami Code

Initially a improvement instrument for the 1986 residence port of Gradius, the Konami Code has been used  in console video games (by publishers aside from Konami, too) for practically 40 years. Generally, it’s a developer secret and typically it’s used as a deliberate Easter egg for gamers to search out.

Creator Kazuhisa Hashimoto, who died in 2020, said he used it as a result of he hadn’t performed a lot Gradius within the first place, and was having a troublesome time beating it when creating the house port.

Most likely its most well-known use got here in 1988’s NES port of Contra, the place it granted gamers 30 additional lives, indispensable for the notoriously difficult run-and-gun platformer.

Featured Picture via Ideogram