There’s a wonderful feeling to look back at videogames and see that they can have the hidden depth of other art forms. My favorite films are those that are crafted with great detail by the director, with subtle references and Easter eggs planted inside the reels. Like a good book, a good film or game can have depth beyond what is captured in the front-end of a story.

Below are a list of “secrets” showing hidden depth, surprising design decisions, and even some development cheats behind popular videogame franchises.

Super Mario Brothers

• The bushes in Super Mario Bros are actually just colored clouds placed on the ground.


• Perhaps to save storage space, the ghostly Boo’s laugh in Super Mario 64 is generated by playing Bowser’s laugh at high speed.

Mega Man

• By taking entering button combinations using a second controller, a friend can make your adventure in Mega Man 3 a mega adventure with slow motion enemies, invincibility, and extended jumping abilities.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

• Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman, the creators of the Ninja Turtle comic franchise, cleverly mixed a Watchmen reference into the NES arcade game cover art. Take a look at the smiley face on the skateboard (and the drop of blood).

Metal Gear Solid

• Emma Emmerich (E. E.), the delicate and frightened scientist in Metal Gear Solid 2, is named after the Emotion Engine, Sony’s marketing name for the Playstation 2’s graphics chip.


• Not surprisingly, Metal Gear Solid 2 has some interesting production notes.


• The Boss who started it all in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater uses the same voice talent as Family Guy’s news reader, Diane Simmons.

Kid Icarus

• When the team who created the Metroid franchise created their original title, they made sure to bring some intergalactic jellyfish along for the trip. Even the manual makes a reference to Samus’s foes.

Ogre Battle

• The popular tactical RPG is named after a Queen Song

Secret of Mana

• The human face on Mars is also hidden in Square’s ocean.

Star Fox

• The first level of StarFox matches up perfectly with Dire Strait’s Money for Nothing.

The Legend of Zelda

• As shown in the original manual, the beta version of The Legend of Zelda lets a user select between a boomerang or a sword as the gamer’s initial weapon.


• The underground dungeons of The Legend of Zelda fit neatly into a rectangle.


• After completing The Legend of Zelda, the gamer is offered to play all over again in a remixed quest with different dungeon layouts. As shown above, five of the revised dungeons form the letters to spell out “Zelda.”


• The Legend of Zelda 2: Link’s Adventure is created using a map of land found north of the original Zelda’s adventure. Both games share Death Mountain, only the northern cliffs in the original title can be found in the south of Link’s Adventure’s landscape.


• The flute warp song used in Super Mario Bros 3 is actually originated as the tune from the original Legend of Zelda’s warp whistle. The traveling music is also played in the start-up screen of The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time


• Five of the masks featured in Majora’s Mask are based off main characters in Star Fox 64.

Pokemon

• The islands in each Pokemon represent a different area of Japan.


• The naming convention of the game’s creatures have a hidden logic.

Wii Sports

• Early beta versions of Wii Tennis featured Mario instead of the still in-development Mii characters.

Uniracers

• In this racing game by DMA Designs (who would later become Rockstar North and create the Grand Theft Auto series), gamers were scolded for naming their uniracer after Sega’s popular and “fast” mascot.

Conan O’Brien

• And finally, Conan didn’t move to LA for his new late Night talk show, instead he jumped in a New York sewer pipe and ended up in Super Mario World.

Source: NEOGAF Forums