10 Secret Video Game Endings Nobody Saw

The iconic Ghosts ‘N Goblins has a special place in many gamers’ hearts. The deviously challenging original first released in September 1985, a Capcom arcade release that fit right in with the super-difficult standards of video games at the time (anything to keep players pumping those coins into arcade cabinets).

Checkpoints are few and far between and the fiendish level design is seemingly cut from the same cloth as the Mega Man series. As a result, few players have what it takes to defeat the multiple taxing boss battles against Satan (including Astaroth/Great Satan) himself.

Those who somehow did, however, found that the game had pulled its cruellest trick of all: a simple text box appears stating that the whole experience was an illusion, and that the game would have to be played all over again to actually complete it and see the real ending, in which the Princess is freed.

With a kick in the teeth of that magnitude, it’s no surprise that few but the most determined of players have ever succeeded in doing so. Or wanting to.