Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness’ Konami Code discovered after 25 years

Throughout the NES generation and up to even the PS3, Konami used to hide a cheat code in almost all of its games that was colloquially dubbed the “Konami Code.” The most famous example is the 30-lives cheat in the NES version of Contra, a code almost everyone has used to actually finish the game for the first time. While the company cut back on including this easter egg in a lot of its games over the years, it seems there was one hiding on the N64 for the last quarter century.

New KONAMI CODE discovered after 25 years!!

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

— JupiterClimb (@JupiterClimb) April 15, 2024

A recent discovery by speedrunners Moises and Liquid Cat has revealed that Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness, a remixed and updated version of Castlevania 64, actually has a Konami Code that unlocks all of the characters and costumes right from the start. It even allows you to jump straight into Hard Mode, which would be very convenient if your cartridge’s save battery needs to be replaced.

The code doesn’t exactly follow the classic inputs from the NES, but it comes close enough. At the title screen, you can input one of two codes on the controller in Port One and if done correctly, you’ll hear a sound effect indicating it has worked. The first code is kind of pointless as it only unlocks Henry, but the other code unlocks every character, their alternate costumes, and Hard Mode. There’s some bug with Hard Mode where after entering the code, the game won’t actually display “Hard” on file select, but a reboot fixes that.

 

Here is the Henry Code:

• C-Up, C-Up
• C-Down, C-Down
• C-Left, C-Right
• C-Left, C-Right
• L, R, Z

Here is the Everything Code:

• C-Up, C-Up, C-Up, C-Up 
• C-Down, C-Down, C-Down, C-Down 
• C-Left, C-Left 
• C-Right, C-Right 
• C-Left, C-Left 
• C-Right, C-Right 
• L, R, Z

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