RetroGaming

Gamer sites on the early Internet were full of these "Easter eggs" that were really just non-obvious things with clear explanations in the manual.

One that I found particularly irrimusing (and seems to keep popping up forever) was that holding some combination of buttons on the Gameboy Advance when you turn it on "plays a secret, alternative start-up sound, then it just sits at the Gameboy logo until you press a button. That's all it does."

Except if you read the manual you'd know that holding that button combo overrides the normal start-up and forces the GBA into multi-play download mode, so you can play those games without having to take the cartridge out of the console. Pressing a button in that mode cancels it and resumes normal start-up, loading a game from cartridge if one is inserted.

I've seen some people insist that their manual didn't say anything about this, but I have trouble believing them given that it was written in the manual for the GBA which I bought on launch day.

Me when I learned that Minesweeper actually had logic and you’re not supposed to just click randomly.

I had Duck Hunt but didn't have the gun to play it with - nor the knowledge that I needed the gun. Every now and then I would try and fail to figure out how to play the game.

So to me, Duck Hunt is a game about a dog that laughs at you.

Found this out completely by accident once after my sister and I played some Mario.

I had the 2nd controller still plugged in, and while shooting the ducks I stepped on the controller and the ducks moved differently.

From the on, every time someone wanted to play duck hunt I would grab a second controller and make it harder for them.

Bonus knowledge: the original game works by a light-sensitive sensor in the blaster tip, and when you pull the trigger, the screen goes black and a white square appears whee the ducks were, in a specific order. If the game controller detects the light square, it counts as a "hit" on whatever duck was in frame. You can cheat by pointing the blaster at a white light and pulling the trigger. It will just go through them one by one as you squeeze, thinking the light is the duck square.

Gen Z/late millenials trying to interpret retro games they play on emulators with no manuals is the modern "people making extremely detailed marble statues because they don't realize Romans painted theirs".

That's how you end up with Blue Prince and Dark Souls and stuff.

my brother and i would always control it just to mess the other person up :3

You could actually win Battle toads, you'd only have to get gud

I see you didn't have siblings.

The worst was games that required info from the manual to progress past a certain point, like star tropics. Rented the game and the rental place didn't include the manual? Shit out of luck. And no Internet back then to look it up, either. (Yes, I'm still bitter)

I remember some computer games would also do things like that to prevent copying the game from a friend, like requiring a certain word from a certain page before loading.

If you press F in Skifree, you can outrun the snow monster.

I didn't have the gun, but I had duck hunt, so I could only control the duck. Needless to say I didn't play much duck hunt

This reminds me of the MGS one where the frequency for Meryl is on the back of the game case.

I feel like I was aware of this (much time has passed), but I think it's something we discovered by trying it out of curiosity.

Til.