Who doesn’t like a good videogame Easter egg? There’s nothing like playing a game and discovering some incredible secret you had no idea about, like the sinister messages scrawled on the walls ofPortal’s Aperture Laboratories, or John Romero’s bloodied head on a stick in good old Doom II.
Then there are the secrets that most of us don’t discover, the ones so insanely tricky to find that only a handful of people ever find them on their own. Some secrets were buried so deep into their games they became the stuff of legend, the magical old wives’ tales of gaming – before the Internet came along and made nothing a secret, right? Which I guess makes this article detailing the labors behind seven particularly insane videogame secrets no more than a big fat part of the problem.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Nintendo Power once ran a contest offering the kind of immortality a Zelda fan could only dream about: his or her very own room in A Link to the Past. Unfortunately for winner Chris Houlihan, his special room was so obscurely hidden that for years most players had no idea of its existence.
The Method: This is only possible with the haste-bestowing Pegasus boots equipped. You have to sprint through a specific sequence of around ten screens until you reach the well hidden under the bush just inside the castle walls. Not only is the route so specific, but also you can’t take any damage along the way, you have to cut through the bush from the south side, and you need to do it all in a matter of seconds. There are other confirmed methods, but they’re all just as oddball and obscure.
The Reward: You fall into a room with 45 blue rupees scattered around it and a plaque which reads “My name is Chris Houlihan. This is my top secret room. Keep it between us, OK?” And that’s just about it, I’m afraid. Still, fanfare or no, it’s a cool secret – especially if your name is Chris Houlihan.
But what I need to know is…. have you ever done any of those yourself?
Yes. But I’m not saying which :)