After 27 years, a new cheat code has been discovered in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night's most controversial port, and it might've just created the dumbest speedrun category in Metroidvania history

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is one of the greatest games of all time, with its blend of Super Metroid-inspired exploration and action-RPG elements arguably serving as the inflection point of the whole Metroidvania genre. As the game is one of the most beloved ancestors of a genre built to appeal to very hardcore enthusiasts, you might think those fans would've long since wrung out every secret in it – but, as it turns out, there was at least one more hidden facet to be discovered.

Symphony of the Night originally launched on the PS1 in 1997, and by most accounts, that original release is the definitive version. But a year later in 1998, a Japan-exclusive Sega Saturn version would release with additional content, including new areas to explore and a whole new playable character. You'd think that would be enough to make it the premiere way to play Symphony of the Night, but a range of technical compromises put the Sega Saturn edition behind the PS1 original, though fans have put in some effort to combine the best of both.

Regardless, the Saturn version of Symphony of the Night is the one that brings us to this new discovery: at the name entry screen on the main menu, if you input "STAFF" as your name, the credits will instantly roll. This code has, somehow, gone undiscovered – or at least undocumented – for 27 years.

The new discovery comes courtesy of software engineer Bo Bayles (thanks, Time Extension), writing on Substack about a load of new cheat codes discovered by reverse engineering old Saturn games. In response to a tweet from Bayles breaking down the new discovery, the same question keeps coming up: does getting to the credits straight from the main menu count as beating the game?

If so, I think we might've just landed upon the most delightfully dumb speedrunning category in Metroidvania history: Who can input five letters into the file creation screen fastest? If breaking a game to such a degree that you warp straight to the credits is a valid speedrun category in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time or even in The Wind Waker these days, who's to say a genuine cheat code shouldn't count for Symphony of the Night?

These are the best Metroidvania games you can play today – the ones that don't have "Metroid" or "vania" in the title, anyway.