Gaming's most secret secrets

In no other Mario game do you crouch on a white piece of the background scenery for six seconds with the aim of dropping down behind it. It’s not in the instructions, it’s not hinted at anywhere in the game. It’s just a fact: You can do it. You then walk behind the end of the level and into the location of the first secret warp whistle. So now we're supposed to question everything?

“You must find me to beat me!” So says Reptile in a masterful demonstration of how to state the bleeding obvious. And his random appearances with obscure clues only get more and more cryptic. “Look to la Luna!” OK, so that’s the moon, no problem. And yes, something does fly in front of the moon sometimes. “Blocking will get you nowhere!” OK, so no blocking. Ten clues later, it turns out you need to do a double flawless fatality on The Pit during a one-in-six chance that things are passing in front of the moon. Why didn’t you just say so? What a cold-blooded man (*groan*).

So you finished the game! Well done. What did you think of the second castle. Mmmm? What’s that? You didn’t even KNOW about the second castle? Then you missed half the game! All you had to do was put on the Holy Glasses before you enter the final boss fight, allowing you to see the real enemy hovering above Richter’s head. Sheesh, wasn’t that incredibly obvious? A baby would have figured that one out. A BABY. Just one that suspected there was something hovering above the last boss and you'd need holy glasses to see it.

Megaman can throw Hadouken fireballs? Well, it makes sense. He is made by Capcom, after all. But who on Earth realised that you had to get all of the upgrades, hearts and sub-tanks in the game, then go to Armored Armadillo’s level and jump off the last cart ride to find a hidden pellet? And that you had to exit the level and do that last part again another 4-6 times? Nobody would think to do that, surely. And even if they did, it can’t be saved with a password, so you can’t prove it to anyone without going through the whole process again. Incredible.

This one's a cracker. Eight secret stars, only hinted at by an empty constellation in the first area. No other reference to them anywhere in the game. They're hidden off-screen and require ludicrously complex strategies to obtain. We won't spoil anything, but let's just say most moving platforms take less than two hours to travel across the screen... Oh, and there's some extra plot details if you get them all, but nothing else. No achievements, no new levels. But it's still an incredible addition to an already incredible game.

Magus is the main villain for the first half of Chrono Trigger. But you can convince him that you both share a common enemy and he’ll actually join your party. 'Simply' play until the Blackbird ship is destroyed, the Epoch has been fitted with wings and Chrono has met his death at the hands of Lavos. Then travel to 12,000 BC and locate ‘The Commons’. Click on the blue dot by the NPC, refuse to fight Magus when he challenges you and go to leave. He’ll be like: “Hai, wait!” and catch up to you, joining your party for the rest of the game.

Everyone knows about the secret garden. But did you know about the secret parachute? You get it by completing the game on normal, then play through again on Hard mode. Having done that, return to the temple and press circle on each statue to begin Hard Time Attack mode. Defeat 14 colossi and there it is. Though we should point out Ueda-san has reportedly hinted there's still one last big secret that nobody's discovered yet...

This Easter egg remained hidden for almost a decade. What does it do? It gives you the most sarcastic race announcer ever heard in a Nintendo game. “Your wins are like diamonds, kid: Very rare” and “Greeeeaaat...” are among the gems waiting for you if you input this code: Load the game then go to the Options screen and then Audio Settings. Press the Z Button repeatedly until the waveform at the bottom of the screen looks like vertically rising waves. Now press Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, A, X, Z then pick the first rider and start a race. Bet you feel sooooo clever now.

You can search Wesker’s desk in Resident Evil 2, but it’s been ransacked. You can search a bit further along if you like, but you’ll get the same message. Any normal person would move onto the next area at this point, but no. You should stand there and search the desk 48 more times. When you do, you’ll pick up a roll of film. Carry it to the safe room at the bottom of the stairs and develop it, where you’ll deduce from the picture that Wesker has a thing for Rebecca Chambers. In a small basketball outfit. Wait… if it’s undeveloped when you find it, does that mean Wesker himself took it…? o.O

At the end of the game, when you're about to take your place on Aries' now-vacant throne, you walk past two massive statues. Indestructible statues, it seems. Even if you try a few attacks, there's just the usual clink noise of something that can't be broken. So most people move on. Ah, but as with Wesker's desk, it's one of those situations where you've given up too soon! Keep attacking the statues some 400 times. Eventually they'll break, giving you a freephone telephone number. In the recorded message, you hear David Jaffe talking with Kratos. Not such a great reward, in honesty, but certainly a great secret.

What’s that? You didn’t heed the printed warning? You ate, tasted or otherwise consumed the 'letter from Uncle Steve' that came in the box with your copy of Startropics? Then you can never know its secret! You must submerge the letter in water in order to uncover the secret radio frequency. Bet you’re sorry you ate it now, aren’t you? Of course, Virtual Console games don’t come with paper manuals, so you’ll have to virtually dip the virtual letter in a virtual bucket of virtual water, as pictured above. Cute.

Hell is one of the best areas in the game, but you’re unlikely to find it (especially on your first playthrough) unless you took to the internet beforehand and read up on what you needed to do. Would you guess that you should: Skip the Booster v0.8, get the Tow Rope in the Core and take Curly with you? Well, then you must enter the Waterway Cabin and drain the water from Curly, then pick her up again and continue. Next time you see her, she’ll have her memories missing. Go back to the Graveyard in Mimiga Village and acquire the Ma Pignon in a boss fight. Go back to Curly and feed her the mushroom. Get the Iron Bond from her. Now the door to the Prefab House will be open during your final escape, which will lead to Sacred Grounds. Phew! And it tells you this WHERE? Oh, and did you know about the secret of the Lunar Gun? Oh FFS...

Ever wondered what the logical conclusion to the evolutionary A-Life system is in NiGHTS? Well, through careful management of your Nightopeans' happiness levels, selective breeding with the enemies in the levels and a bit of luck, you can create a Super Pian. He wears a crown and behaves oddly, picking up mud and throwing it. What's he doing? He's building a castle, of course! Over a few days, he'll continue to build it. After that, he himself may disappear, but a fully-built castle (pictured) will always stay in your game. Nothing in the game or its instructions ever even hint that this could happen at all.

This is the clear winner. A question and an answer both hidden in the game through a variety of obscure clues hidden in plain sight. This one suggests the answer, which suggests the question to which you should seek the answer. 42. Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy fans will know that 42 is the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything. Long story short, after no-one figured it out after two years, RedLynx took pity on everyone and gave us the solution: The answer to the question was 'to question'. You know... stuff.

Oh, and one of the supposed clues, the wooly mammoth, wasn't meant to be in the game, it was left in as a mistake. See the full explanation on YouTube if you're in need of a good 'WTF?!' moment in your day.