8 Video Games That Accidentally Included Things You Weren't Supposed To See

5. The Konami Code (Gradius)

Gradius The Konami Code
Konami

The Konami Code is one of the most famous cheat codes ever, having appeared in some classic games like Contra, Metal Gear Solid 2, Castlevania: Bloodlines, Silent Hill 3, and... Dance Dance Revolution Supernova 2?

Okay, maybe they aren't all classics.

Before all of that though, the code's first appearance was in the 1986 release of Gradius on the NES, where it awarded players with a full set of power-ups that they'd otherwise have to unlock through normal play.

Gradius addicts certainly weren't going to complain at being handed a much easier way to beat this difficult title - but this isn't exactly what the creators had in mind.

The Konami Code was actually left in the game by accident, having been created by developer Kazuhisa Hashimoto during testing. Simply put, he found the game to be too bloody hard, so he implemented the code in order to make his job much easier.

It was supposed to be removed before the game was published, but clearly, everyone involved just forgot that it was there! And it's a good job they did too, because they ended up creating one of the most fun video game legends of all time.

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Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!