The invisible ink blew my mind as a kid. This was the very first videogame I bought with my own money as it was one of the few I could afford at the time. Me and my sister were so scared of trying to place a paper in water. We couldn't believe it worked.
@josephjones7828 Жыл бұрын
It isn't invisible ink. The hidden message is a watermark. You don't even have to get the letter wet to see the message. You can read it just as easily by holding a bright light source (like a flashlight) behind the paper. Watermarks are created by strategically manipulating the thickness or density of the paper at select areas during the manufacturing stage until the desired hidden image or message you want is achieved within the paper itself. By holding a bright light behind the paper you can see the watermark due to the amount of light that passes through the paper.
@reginaldforthright805 Жыл бұрын
@@josephjones7828or you could just figure out the code logically. It took me about ten seconds.
@MichaelOKeefe2009 Жыл бұрын
That's because it's...Very fucking Nintendo.
@curseyoujordanshow Жыл бұрын
It was the same for me. I remember at first being confused about what "letter" the game was talking about and assumed it must have meant something in-game. It was such a thrill realizing it was referencing a real-world object. I also recall being extremely nervous putting the letter into water, worried that it would ruin it and thinking how stupid I'd feel if I was wrong. In a pre-internet era where you couldn't just look up the answers to whatever questions you had and you were left to figure puzzles out for yourself, this one really made you feel like you were Sherlock Holmes. I've never had a gaming experience quite like that before or since.
@BigJohnM Жыл бұрын
The first commenter completely missed your point. Yes I remember this as a kid. My mom and brother and me played this game. When we got to point point where you had to add the water for the ink to show, it was awesome. Memory I will never forget! So awesome.
@rhone733 Жыл бұрын
Rented this one weekend and hit this part. I went back to the video store to see if they had the manual somewhere. They didn't. Meanwhile, my sister sat there trying every combination. She was successful and I've never forgotten that code.
@SkiBumMSP Жыл бұрын
I remember running into the same problem. In my case, I bought a used copy of the game and it was missing the manual and letter. I remember just putting random values in and I was just thinking "747" as in the jet airliner and it friggan worked. I wrote it on the cartridge (come to think of it, I wonder if I still have it down in the basement). At that time, there was no just looking it up on-line. You either had to find the letter itself, find a magazine that have published the code (oh how I remember as a kid looking through those magazines on the magazine rack at the store), ask somebody that you know that may have played the game, brute-force it/guess at it, or call the Nintendo hint line (and rack up some charges).
@adamb89 Жыл бұрын
I owned a copy so it never affected me, but I remember one time at a local place called Videoland I came in with a sharpie one day and wrote the code on the cartridge before putting it back on the shelf. The funny thing is about 20 years later I was talking to some random guy at work and he commented about how one time he rented startropics and was glad that someone wrote the code on the cartridge. He refused to believe it was me though lol
@neoqwerty Жыл бұрын
@@adamb89 Not all heroes wear capes!
@Hate-Crime Жыл бұрын
747
@SwapPartLLC11 ай бұрын
I did the exact same thing, including it being a rented game. I literally just commented about it and then saw your comment. That code is permanently seared into my brain.
@LenaTheDeer Жыл бұрын
i think dipping the letter in water is kinda neat in its own way and having it and then the game telling you to do it might add a bit of "Wow im going to do something in the real world that reveals a secret for the story!" i kinda thing its charming in this way!
@MegaZeta Жыл бұрын
Realistically, though, the cardboard packaging and the loose paper inside (mostly promotional flyers) were not retained back then by most buyers of video games. It was generally only the plastic sleeve, if that. So this was generally not fun, but annoying and aggravating, to the extent that Nintendo's hint line had a dedicated script for it, apparently.
@BigJohnM Жыл бұрын
It worked for us! It was epic and still in the top 10 all time video game moments for me. It was awesome.
@ultimateman55 Жыл бұрын
I feel like the letter in the water gimmick was a benevolent form of antipiracy. It had to have been pretty awesome to have gotten to that point in the game as a kid and then go put the letter in the water to reveal the secret code. So, in a way, it was almost like a gimmick to incentivize people to buy the game new, as many kids likely read about that gimmick in a magazine and wanted the game afterward. It fits the theme of the adventure very well, gets the consumer excited about playing the game, and doesn't harm the consumer in any real way, as 747 is so easy to remember and was easy to find in magazines at the time.
@sarowie Жыл бұрын
and other fun one is including a letter and map - a useful one - with an RPG. Imaging buying a text game and it starts out with those physical artefacts, for a game, that is factually only text on a screen. It really boost the immersion to reference the map.
@smsff7 Жыл бұрын
I would call it anti-rental, not anti-piracy as it can be solved with time, but being a rental means there is little time.
@MegaZeta Жыл бұрын
It's the opposite, really. Realistically, back then, many parents did not hang on to the loose paper in a video game package or the packaging itself when the kid got a video game. That all went in the trash on day one. NES games came in plastic sleeves, and that was generally all that was kept, if that. So this was more than anything an annoyance waiting to happen.
@MegaZeta Жыл бұрын
@@sarowieThis is one case where hindsight will lead you astray. People buying video games back then (often parents for kids) were used to loose paper in the cardboard packaging. Generally, this was promotional crud, flyers and the like. And it all went in the trash. People were not looking for fun multimedia games hidden in video game packaging. So, this was more than anything an extreme annoyance waiting to happen.
@SkiBumMSP Жыл бұрын
@@MegaZeta Whenever I got a game as a gift from my parents, they always gave me the complete, unopened retail package. They never opened the box, throw away all the inserts and box and just gave me the bare cartridge. I am willing to bet that is the case for the majority of people that got games as gifts. It was the same with all my friends at the time as well (believe me, I remember during Christmas vacation, going over to friends/cousin's houses and playing the new games they got as well). More then likely the letter got lost due to the kids not realizing it, or more likely, due to rental or buying the game second hand. In my case I did get StarTropics second hand. It had the manual, but was missing the letter, so it was the ol' "guess at the code and hope it works" thing for me.
@EarthboundX Жыл бұрын
The code 747, for some reason is something I've remembered my entire life, even decades after having played the game. I have no idea why. Guess it was a pretty memorable gimmick/anti piracy measure.
@robintst Жыл бұрын
I tend to think because the game is packed with references more common in the west, 747 was chosen to refer to the Boeing plane model. Once you dipped the letter and found out, that wouldn't have been easy to forget on repeat playthroughs.
@AltCutTV Жыл бұрын
Unless there is a passenger plane theme in the game I think it could be an east-west numerology thing. 7 is considered a lucky number in Japan as well as most everywhere. 4 is considered unlucky though. So you have two points of luck divided by unluck. 7 is apparently also somehow (yes, I googled this.. ;) specifically of some importance in baseball. Which is of course a story aspect in the game. Don't remember clearly if some rise and fall equivalent could also be part of the story though.
@Schwarzorn Жыл бұрын
@@robintstYeah, especially with Nintendo of America being in Washington, 747 seems pretty obvious to be a reference to the plane, which Boeing made in Everett, WA from 1968 to 2022. It's like how when they translated Mother, they changed the city names to places in Washington (or at least on the west coast). Thanksgiving became Merrysville (Marysville, WA), Halloween became Spookane (Spokane, WA), and Valentine became Ellay (L.A., as in Los Angeles, CA).
@Schwarzorn Жыл бұрын
@@AltCutTVNo passenger plane, but the code allows the submarine to travel to the necessary destination.
@stickershock66 Жыл бұрын
There was a story, maybe from EGM, where someone lost the manual, so he and his friend bruteforced guessing every 3 digit number in order.
@SirTonk Жыл бұрын
I lost my letter when I got the game as a kid and had to call the Nintendo hint line to get it. They definitely had been getting calls about this and had a script ready to go where the person asked me what a large plane is known as, so they certainly weren't trying to hide it.
@CommodoreFan64 Жыл бұрын
I remember me, and my friend renting the game, and it did not have the manual, or anything with it other than the plastic rental case, and after about 10 minutes putting in random codes he yells out 747 at random, and worked, we did not dare call the hint line to rack up those fees on my parents phone bill, or we would have gotten a good yelling at LOL!!
@ImSquiggs Жыл бұрын
@@CommodoreFan64I love that you beat the copy protection through good ole brute force… haha I miss the infinite time and no internet days, I did so much dumb stuff like that. I remember not being able to beat Dr. Robotniks Mean Bean Machine on SEGA, so I just typed in codes until I found one that worked and got me to the later levels, haha
@CommodoreFan64 Жыл бұрын
@@ImSquiggs Yep I had NES, and Game Gear Game Genie devices, and would play around typing in random codes writing them down on notebook paper, and marking notes when one of them worked with what it did, putting in it a composition book and I still have the little composition book in my filing cabinet at home, I had one code that allowed Mario in SMB 1 to walk over the top of every level without falling, so I could beat the game in like 5 minutes lol!
@SteveBennet500 Жыл бұрын
How much was the hint line? $4.95 first minute, $2.95 each additional minute? And did they talk really slow? 😆
@CommodoreFan64 Жыл бұрын
@@SteveBennet500 LOL you're close when you consider inflation as it was $1.50 a minute, or $3.86 in today's money if you calculate the inflation from when the Nintendo Power Hotline started in 87, and no telling how long you would be on hold for, or how long it would take to answer a question depending on how complex it was. So let's say the call was ten minutes, then it would have been $15 in 87, or $38.64 in today's money, which is more than the price of a budget indie game on the Nintendo eShop, just to get a simple game hint that might, or might not help you. YIKES!!! So like I said my parents would have yelled at me, and tanned my hyde for making a phone call like that!!!
@undrhil Жыл бұрын
It might be easy to Google it now, but back in the day that was a pain in the butt. Imagine a 11 or 12 year old kid getting a brand new game getting all this stuff out of the box putting the cartridge into starting to play being told to go to sleep, Etc. One day he gets this message on the screen that says hey submerge that letter and water and he looks around and can't find the letter because he either threw it away or his mom threw it away or any number of things could have happened to the stuff that was normally in the box that had come on packed when you open the box. That sucks. I'm just saying dot-dot-dot I'm not salty or anything lol
@HaveYouTriedGuillotines Жыл бұрын
I got this game second hand in a pile of games my mom bought together. It was some time around... 1992 I think, and it didn't come with the code. :/
@viperx27 Жыл бұрын
Some of us got lucky and guessed the right number after a couple of attempts. My first attempt was 007.
@kekeke8988 Жыл бұрын
I literally never finished it back then because of the code.
@jeremyf9124 Жыл бұрын
I’m sure they printed it in Nintendo Power magazine sometime. Also, I think it was a gimmick to get some people to call the Nintendo tip phone line which cost $.
@vaguedreams Жыл бұрын
Those of us that didn't have a computer or internet. I mean, no one I knew had a computer growing up.
@aphexGIBA Жыл бұрын
It reminds me a lot of Konami's strategy in Metal Gear Solid, for the Playstation 1, in which Meryl's CODEC frequency is in an image on the back of the CD case.
@harveywallbanger3123 Жыл бұрын
I vaguely remember this. I don't recall how I got around it. Probably word of mouth, same as since the 80s.
@Canma890 Жыл бұрын
Ive had a bootleged copy of MGS1 so I tried every freq. manually till I found the correct one for Meryl. I think as a kid I was stuck around 2 weeks at that part until I figured it out.
@flippy1589 Жыл бұрын
If you try to call Campbell after 3 tries, the game will eventually add Meryl to the contact list
@bluedragon219123 Жыл бұрын
This always confused me as a kid since they say the back of the CD Jewel case but by that time in the game you have in game CD from the ARMSTech President so I always thought it had to do with that. Eventually I either called Campbell enough or just did every codec number until I called her. But when I found out it was on the back of game case, along with all the Pycho Mantis secrets, blew my mind. Still a Great Game! :)
@LonelySpaceDetective Жыл бұрын
IIRC that wasn't meant to be copy protection or anything. That was just Kojima being insane, as he is.
@SAPProd Жыл бұрын
As a fan of Sierra On-Line and LucasArts Adventure games that came with the physical manuals containing copyright codes and the lack of online…anything in the NES era, I think it was a cool gimmick that may have deterred renting a game that didn’t have the manual, but didn’t necessarily encourage sales. Plus Nintendo Power likely ruined it in a Classified Information article.
@hiatsu2k878 Жыл бұрын
😊😊
@stevenbenson9976 Жыл бұрын
I would suspect that if you called the Nintendo girlie they'd tell you the code as well
@suprememasteroftheuniverse Жыл бұрын
So you still didn't understand that this is just CLICKBAIT. Very disrespectful.
@trfozty Жыл бұрын
We're glad to have ya around brother 😁
@romanhlohowskyj Жыл бұрын
I'm ninety-nine percent sure that Nintendo Power posted the code. I had Nintendo Power for years as a kid and I'm pretty certain that it was in there
@hectortd4 Жыл бұрын
My mom bought me the NES Top loader version along with this game at Toys R Us. I can't remember if it was bundled or seperate but I do remember opening the sealed copy of the game and play the game all the way to the frequency part. My copy did NOT come with this note for some reason and I couldn't get past this. It was until almost 15 years later that I found out it was supposed to come with this letter but I didn't own it anymore along with the NES. Sad days for me for sure but I did enjoy it's library with so many classics. Thanks for the video MVG!
@undrhil Жыл бұрын
I wonder if it was a return and the person simply didn't package the letter back in when they brought it back? He wouldn't be the first time that Toys R Us did something like that... Probably why they are no longer around LOL
@silkwesir1444 Жыл бұрын
@@undrhil The likes of Amazon are why they are no longer around, and those are actually worse when it comes to customer service.
@bebe8090 Жыл бұрын
@@undrhil I've had Walmart sell me sealed games with no disc in them. My guess was that someone took out the disc, shrink wrapped it again, and returned it. So something like that is certainly believeable. Thank you friend.
@hectortd4 Жыл бұрын
@@undrhil It wasn't You could tell it was never opened until I did.
@freddyvidz Жыл бұрын
I had a top loader in those days
@BrianRRenfro Жыл бұрын
I remember renting it and they wrote on the cart something along the lines of, "When asked for code from letter, enter 747." It was the straight up easiest copy protection I had ever seen! I was mainly a PC gamer even by then and laughed my ass off it this!
@harveywallbanger3123 Жыл бұрын
I rented it for a weekend and got jack squat. In school the next Monday, some kids heard me complaining and squared me away. Of course it was too late by then.
@XatolosWired Жыл бұрын
One thing to keep in mind with Star Tropics is the time it's from. In the 80s, if you were to fly across the Pacific, (Japan to the USA), you would be flying on a 747 jet. So in the game, you would need a "747" to make a long ocean journey, just like Nintendo employees would be doing to take the long ocean journey to the USA.
@mistertagomago7974 Жыл бұрын
Thats interesting!
@2WhiteAndNerdy Жыл бұрын
That's EXACTLY why I still remember it to this day! 747s were THE coolest passenger aircraft at the time.
@ChristopherBurtraw Жыл бұрын
@@2WhiteAndNerdy "at the time" eh?
@ChristopherBurtraw Жыл бұрын
I too believe that this is the inspiration for the code, the Japanese carriers have a particularly rich history with the 747.
@linuxstreamer8910 Жыл бұрын
so the boeing 747 that is a great easter egg
@LordIvul Жыл бұрын
I really doubt it was an anti-piracy or anti-rental scheme. The game was based on popular western adventure stories and I think Nintendo provided the player with a letter to plant a sense of discovery and excitement. It's rare to open a game and have a letter inside correlated directly into the story and I can imagine that finding out that the letter has a hidden message would fuel that sense of discovery even more and immerse player into the game. I'd compare it with how Bravely Default on 3DS opens with player having to point 3DS camera onto the manual to start the opening sequence, again, making the experience more immersive (although Bravely Default did have a fail safe in case the player didn't have the manual).
@cyphaborg6598 Жыл бұрын
It's pretty cool they did this as a part of the adventure.
@mistertagomago7974 Жыл бұрын
This is what I think. Also odd the game had a puzzle that required outside knowlege to complete. The piano thing.
@MechMK1 Жыл бұрын
I tend to agree. If it was an anti-rental feature, it could easily be circumvented by someone writing "747 MHz" on the cartridge.
@silkwesir1444 Жыл бұрын
I wonder how many people had lost the letter by the time they come across the part of the game vhere you need it...
@HylianFox3 Жыл бұрын
@@mistertagomago7974 Oh man, getting past the piano was one of my biggest triumphs as a kid. Of course, my mom helped me by pointing out the parrot's message was a reference to the musical scale...
@daneast Жыл бұрын
I grew up in that era, and it's still amazing to think of a time when communication was so limited you couldn't just go out to social media and ask questions about things like that.
@knightofthelivingdrones2646 Жыл бұрын
I know right. I tried to make the notorious jump in TMNT on the NES for a whole weekend. I accidentally walked right over it and was mad. Social media would have been nice. I always thought that games were masterpieces when they were made. I would take it as a personal failure not to figure things out. I learned that games can be junk.
@flipmode916 Жыл бұрын
I would say a gimmick. Most of us that were in the age group when this came out, we had magazines (assuming the code was put there) and schoolyard talk. We all helped each other with secrets, tips and tricks for just about every game. If one of us had the code, everyone had the code.
@Rodville Жыл бұрын
In my opinion it was an attempt to stop rentals. Nintendo sued and won against Blockbuster for copyright violations for photocopying the instruction books after they lost for Blockbuster renting games. That's why Blockbuster had to rewrite the book in their own words and photocopy that.
@romanhlohowskyj Жыл бұрын
I still think it was a neat way to make the game more immersive
@flipmode916 Жыл бұрын
@Rodville I can see that point for sure and considering Nintendo (and Sega) were vying for the top. Nintendo even had the lawsuit against game genie (and many other suits). But considering this game game out in 1990 and their last game came out in 1994. Not that I played every game in between those dates, but there was ample opportunity to do this to many games in that period
@Epic_C Жыл бұрын
Those were the days. The NES and SNES days was such a magical time, and the developers, regardless of what their other intentions may have been, did it in a way to simply be fun. It just felt neat with little things like this growing up.
@Dark_Jaguar Жыл бұрын
A few of us also had internet access and a few places online (on BBS and newsgroups) to find answers at the time this game came out.
@HylianFox3 Жыл бұрын
I actually got this game when it released and had the letter and everything. I really miss when games would do stuff like this, that involved using a real-world object to advance. It made the game feel so much bigger than just something you played on the TV. And StarTropics desperately needs a revival. It's criminal that Nintendo allows it to languish in obscurity.
@jfast8256 Жыл бұрын
I don't miss it. It's basically the only nintendo game I owned that I didn't beat. I beat dragon warrior, final fantasy I, and star tropic II, but I couldn't get the stupid submarine to move in star tropics I. That stupid code was more infuriating to me than being half way done with final fantasy and my little brother deleting my save.
@Roxor128 Жыл бұрын
It's kind of fun, but also annoying. I keep the book that came with The Island of Dr Brain in my bookcase because there's no way I am going to remember those navigation coordinates for the first puzzle, when the game picks from a couple of dozen and I easily go a year between playing it in DOSBox (used to be in native DOS when it was new). Used to look up the periodic table for the material analysis puzzle when I was younger, but by the time I finished school I'd gotten good enough at chemistry that I could solve it off the top of my head on the hardest difficulty.
@huldu Жыл бұрын
I remember this game. We rented it and it was just the cartridge. The store which rented it out said nothing, they probably didn't know or didn't care. I don't think you ever got anything beside the cartridge and the black sleeve(if even that) when you rented a nes game back then. I must have thought the game was broken or that I missed something. It was so long ago!
@jeremyf9124 Жыл бұрын
NES games were often rented in clear plastic boxes then. Some had aftermarket instructions attached to the ‘door’ of the box. The instructions had the Permastruct brand.
@HelpTheWretched Жыл бұрын
The local video store when I was a kid had a strange deal. Game rentals were just $1, but if you wanted the manual, it was an extra $2 deposit.
@jeremyf9124 Жыл бұрын
Good deal. Game rentals were $3 in my area. I’m sure many manuals weren’t returned, so they started the deposit idea. In my area, stores included the manuals for a few years. They eventually gave up on that, so you had the Permastruct manual or nothing.
@SmashJT Жыл бұрын
Fascinating story behind this game. I've heard of the letter needing to be dipped in water, but never considered the anti-piracy or rental market reasoning. Thanks, MVG!
@RenegadeX28 Жыл бұрын
I was mind blown when my friend told me about the letter with Startropics. It definitely worked during that time since the internet didn't exist. If this happened today, the code would have been all over the internet lol.
@Operational117 Жыл бұрын
Not just that, but if this was not an anti-piracy/anti-rental measure, then it could simply be implemented directly into gameplay, meaning that people _could_ spread the answer, but it would be seen as a spoiler and not a godsend.
@thecastiel69 Жыл бұрын
MISTAKES WERE MADE
@johncurrey2387 Жыл бұрын
Huh?
@erikzerbian3016 Жыл бұрын
Prepare for disappointment
@Ad-skip Жыл бұрын
The doctor said the same thing when I was born
@ryballs4569 Жыл бұрын
@Ginieknot sure how it applies to this one though, I thought they did a pretty good job
@xs1l3n7x Жыл бұрын
The phrase is kinda of a trademark of MVG… love it.
@Pixelmusement Жыл бұрын
I was one of those people who wrote "747 MHz" on my physical cart for the game, especially since my copy was second-hand and didn't come with the manual, letter, etc. :P
@whythecows Жыл бұрын
I played Star Tropics II a bunch as a kid, but didn't get to play the first one until I was grown. That music brings back fond memories.
@timm_3r Жыл бұрын
It's as creative as Meryl telling Snake to check the back of the cd case for a codec frequency. It fits the immersion of the adventure and it is a rather simple input so I'm gonna chalk this up as fun design.
@willmistretta Жыл бұрын
The fact that StarTropics was never intended be released in Japan is the clincher for me. Game rentals were illegal in Japan, so there was no need to include anti-rental measures in games made with Japanese audiences in mind (i.e. almost all other Nintendo games). The fact that the game's backstory mentions Seattle makes me think that 747 is a reference to Boeing, one of the biggest employers here and a close neighbor of Nintendo of America.
@nrq Жыл бұрын
Just wanted to add a short explanation why the CRC approach from Star Tropics 2 would've worked against disk based copiers MVG mentioned in the video: NES/Famicom itself only supported a limited amount of memory, to gain access to more memory a mapper chip would've been used. Copiers (or better RAM adapters, like the Venus Turbo GD) back in the days that loaded cartridge based games into RAM from FDS disks would've emulated a limited amount of mappers out of the box, to support mappers the device wouldn't support the game would've needed to be hacked. That hack to change the game to a memory mapping scheme supported by the RAM adapter would've been detected by the CRC check.
@jimmyhirr5773 Жыл бұрын
Oh, that's clever. StarTropics was one of two games that used the MMC6 mapper (the other was the original StarTropics). So it's likely that a pirate would have to alter the code to make it compatible with whatever mappers they had, whether they be clones of more popular mappers or pirate originals.
@romanhlohowskyj Жыл бұрын
I absolutely love startropics on my original Nintendo. When I was a kid I played that game so much. Also I think that dipping the letter in water to reveal the code was a really neat way to add more immersion.
@erikhicks07 Жыл бұрын
I wonder if the cost of including these physical anti-piracy items with the games defeated the purpose of trying to avoid losing money due to piracy?
@livinlicious Жыл бұрын
Probably not the paper anti-piracy. Paper is cheap. The real "cost" of anti-piracy is a bit more complicated. Its the immaterial loss of consumer trust. When through anti-piracy legitimate users are bothered to use their products at all. A good example would be securom, that was notorious for never working right. So it was very possible to insert your real CD and cant even play the game because of some obscure error, that only happens on your maschine. In general the PC anti-piracy was way more notorious for being really malicious. The anti-piracy on consoles was often more benign, since the console itself was a form of close-garden anti-piracy method.
@Definitely_a_Fox Жыл бұрын
My assumption is that these items cost publishers pennies per sale. They'd probably have to lose an unimaginable amount of money due to piracy before the cost of items such as code wheels and extra info printed in manuals would even start to matter.
@DPedroBoh Жыл бұрын
I would guess the manufacturing itself was pretty costly, much more than including these paper and plastic stuff, but it's just a guess. While cartridge making was a big industry which makes manufacturing cheaper, making non standard DRM stuff wasnt so i dont really know.
@sandakureva Жыл бұрын
Nah, most of it is probably due to the ubiquity of cameras, photocopiers, and the ability to post images on the net.
@justanobody0 Жыл бұрын
mass printing a piece of paper probably cost a penny or whatever relatively small compared to the cost of a game, and in a way, because of the way it is done, was kind of an interactive element for the consumer. Some kids probably had a good time putting the paper in water and seeing the invisible ink the zoda's revenge one doesn't include a code wheel or anything, just some code within the game, so it added nothing to manufacturing costs, just the time of the programmer and when you are putting code that renders the game unplayable, there is the risk that if you implement it wrong, that you could render legitimate games unplayable. I'm not an expert on the rom on these cartridges, but in general life things degrade. (like VHS, floppy disks, etc) If an older copy of Zoda's revenge has a single bit of it's title screen degrade, It would affect the checksum, and the legitimate copy of the game would fail the legitimate copy test and run the piracy code
@fionaskittle Жыл бұрын
Aaa you opened this video with my favourite code wheel! Made me smile! There's just something about the thematic alienness of the Another World code wheel that I always loved. I felt like I was solving a little alien puzzle.
@cougarhunter33 Жыл бұрын
Pool of Radiance on the C64 with the codewheel was the first game I ever cracked. I used a sector editor and changed the input screen to accept any two-digit number as the code.
@jimzamerski Жыл бұрын
One of the best NES games. It had an ending! A really great one (for the time). Reminiscent of the cinematics of Ninja Gaiden. From blips bloops and sprites… to story telling. After the credits finish, the pictures of the notable events of the game were ground breaking. Minds were blown.
@curseyoujordanshow Жыл бұрын
Don't forget the revelation that he really did have bananas in his ears!!
@jimzamerski Жыл бұрын
@@curseyoujordanshow I remember reading Nintendo power after I beat the game and realizing the pics in the ending were the hand sketches in the magazine.
@LuigiXHero Жыл бұрын
I think a good way to handle it wouldve been to also include the letter in game in your inventory and make it so you could use it against a sea tile.
@pacman10182 Жыл бұрын
"it would have been trivial for Nintendo to patch out this piece of code" yeah, it would have be trivial for them to patch Kirby's adventure to fix the input bug, but they didn't do that either
@JMDSPhotography Жыл бұрын
What great content, MVG. I honestly didn't know this was a thing!! 👌🏻
@rcmaniac25 Жыл бұрын
That's kinda nifty. I kinda love that even in the virtual versions, they had a digital manual that did a little animation of a sheet of paper being dipped into a bucket of water. It feels the same as, real or joke, someone who never grew up with floppies says "oh, you 3D printed the save icon" when shown a floppy disk. Like, you either know or you get some shortcut to what the goal/purpose/action/thing is.
@Markimark151 Жыл бұрын
As much as Startropics used a paper with a secret code, I don’t think it was really much to stop piracy! Because there were tips in video game magazines and even rental stores used to put out a copy of the game instructions!
@justanotheryoutubechannel9 ай бұрын
I think it’s unlikely to be anti-piracy, since it’s a relatively simple code to guess even if you just brute force it. And because it’s such a simple code that never changes, any pirating group could’ve easily just created a photocopied replica of the letter and included it in the bootleg cartridge’s box/included it with the download. I think, considering how everyone who played it back in the day remembers how cool this was, it was much more likely to be a fun gimmick, which the mostly the way it’s remembered.
@Solarasthma Жыл бұрын
Metal Gear Solid had a similar gimmick, but I feel like that was more about just how weird and 4th wall breaking those games are.
@ScrapKing73 Жыл бұрын
If you can also enter 000, then it’s a full 1000 possible combinations, not just 999. :-)
@CMDRExorcist Жыл бұрын
I LOVED Star Tropics. Fortunately, the copy I got from a flea market as a kid had a copy of the code written inside the manual. Awesome bit of history!
@OtakuByNight Жыл бұрын
Happy to see this covered. I've been hoping someone would make a patch for Star Tropics 2 to remove the piracy checks for years (triggers a lot with various cheat codes) and it seems few are aware of it. Hopefully this spurs some interest in making a patch.
@Operational117 Жыл бұрын
If I can learn how to find and patch out anti-piracy measures on old games, I will certainly have a look at it. I know MVG made a video showcasing his successful attempt at breaking an anti-piracy measure, I will try and look that up for a general idea on what to look for.
@OtakuByNight Жыл бұрын
@@Operational117 I wish you luck and hope you can figure it out. Star Tropics 2 never sold very well (one of the last games on NES in the SNES era) and since it was also locked to North America, most modders out there have no clue about it's anti-piracy measures. Back in the day I played the full game legit and beat it, but these days I just want to run through it with some god cheats active, but it's always a gamble on if it will trigger the piracy checks.... sometimes yes... sometimes no. Only advice I have is save often and disable cheats when it triggers, lol.
@Operational117 Жыл бұрын
@@OtakuByNight UPDATE: I am first gonna say that since I don’t have the physical copy of the game itself (or any later-released versions, since Nintendo has completely closed off legal purchase points), I am not able to reverse-engineer it in a clean-room situation. Thus, I am not legally allowed to share any patch files that removes the copy protections. Also, even if Nintendo decided to release it on the NSO, that would not be a true legal ownership of a copy, but rather a (revocable) license to play. Also, the ROM I found (which I verified with no-intro) works in emulators as-is; no copy protection gets triggered. However, the Real-Time Corruptor (RTC Vanguard) came in clutch; I was able to modify the ROM to trigger the first copy protection measure: the blinking screen effect. After almost a week, I believe I have successfully identified (and neutered) this first copy protection measure. Once again, however, I am not working in a clean-room situation, so whatever patch file (and explanations and guides) I create can’t be shared (even though I believe statistically speaking it would be 100% identical to whatever patch file, explanation and/or guide someone in a clean-room situation would create). I believe the only way for me to achieve a clean-room situation is to legally own a copy of the game one way or another (for which I don’t) and dump the ROM myself. And even then, Nintendo’s stance towards emulators (and even dumping of copies you legally own) is still hostile.
@YukaTakeuchiFan Жыл бұрын
I've always kinda wondered a similar question regarding the NES Golgo 13 games. In both games, there are sections where you have to progress through incredibly confusing mazes on several occasions, and the game doesn't give you a map to any of them... unless you have their manuals, which show you the layouts of ALL of the mazes (or at least MOST of them; I can't remember for certain). Yeah, it was entirely possible to just bumble your way through them all, and people could technically make their own maps (though you know they didn't in that era), but the manuals were a big help.
@jimmyhirr5773 Жыл бұрын
This is probably true for a lot of games. I tried playing The Legend of Zelda without the manual and it was very difficult for me to progress.
@silkwesir1444 Жыл бұрын
Ummm... actually, "in that era" was the time where making notes or even drawing maps while playing games was somewhat normal. Today is the time where this has become unthinkable.
@HylianFox3 Жыл бұрын
@@silkwesir1444 Some of my fondest gaming memories were drawing my own Zelda maps. Good times.
@chupitolepame5357 Жыл бұрын
@@silkwesir1444 great times, I remember drawing all A Link To The Past maps on graph paper, indicating enemies and items locations
@YukaTakeuchiFan Жыл бұрын
@@silkwesir1444 Eh, I won't deny I attempted to make one for that Forest Maze in Secret of Evermore... of course, I made one single botch (or the game was messing with me; that maze is a pain in the ass and there are VERY few landmarks) and basically rendered everything beyond a certain area completely null and void, at which point it was back to the "bumble around and hope for the best" approach. To this day I have no idea how I managed to make it through. (I was slightly annoyed years later when it turned out there was a trick to the maze that involved looking for certain elements in the background; you can get through the maze in no time if you know the trick in question.) I think most of the problem was that I wasn't even in junior high at the time, and the idea that graph paper was a thing that existed hadn't even occurred to me, so I ended up taping about six pieces of paper together in an attempt to make said map. I freely admit that I prefer the "Etrian Odyssey" approach where they just give you all the tools you need to make a map inside of the game itself, with no need for outside materials. I had fun making THOSE maps, especially since they gave you a LOT of tools.
@ArtieOddity Жыл бұрын
I had Star Tropics as a kid. I chose the game based on the box art knowing nothing about it. It looked mysterious. I remember I was stuck in the submarine that needed the code from the letter, until I remembered about the letter it came with. I remember running to the bathroom filling the sink with water and sunk the letter in. I could not believe what was happening, it made the game feel magical and real. The next day, I told all the kids at school what happened. One of my favorite gaming memories. Thanks to my father that bought me the game at the store in the military base.
@Valchrist1313 Жыл бұрын
I bought the Nine Inch Nails album "Year Zero" on release day. Friends had some LSD, so I took it and put the black CD in. When it finished, I ejected a white CD covered in gold circuit-board print. My friends all though I was tripping when I pointed it out. Turns out it had a thermal coating to make it change colours. You can see the example on the album's wiki page. Calling the "United States Bureau of Morality" was freaky, too. It says to call them if you or anyone you know listened to this album. When you do, it says agents are on their way to contain you.
@chrisr024 Жыл бұрын
Who ? Mike Jones !
@Andy.Something. Жыл бұрын
That's the comment I came to look for 🤣
@hunterdavis3003 Жыл бұрын
Not Mike Hawk?
@Mr_Top_Hat_Jones Жыл бұрын
Ahhhh, you beat me to it! 😂
@teen_laqueefa Жыл бұрын
I said.....
@ImTheCrew Жыл бұрын
2006!!!
@MichaelJLambie11 ай бұрын
I remember renting this and coming up against the code. I vaguely recalled it being a type of airplane not a frequency, but that was so long ago. I had the digits 757 in my old phone number so that was one of the first random combos I tried and luckily got 747 after a few attempts. I'll never forget that code. Great to see a video with with explanation!!!🎉
@roytore5062 Жыл бұрын
I got Startropics as a six year old non English speaker. It was difficult just getting through the first village, and to the gameplay. Lost the manual, but it didn’t matter as I got stuck in the graveyard, because the game is hard AF
@afuzzycreature8387 Жыл бұрын
yeah, Star tropics are no joke difficulty also owing to the controls being iffy. ST2 is a good game with better controls.
@IsmaelLa Жыл бұрын
So, you're telling me that's why I did not go further in the game back then? OMG! Now I want to play this game again! I never saw this letter. Could be that the original owner just regarded it as another paper in the box. Man! Now this is something else. The first video that touches a specific part of my childhood! Thanks for all you do MVG.
@rurirotaru516 Жыл бұрын
God I remember this game. My family loved it and we thought the soaking the paper was ingenious. It was pretty fun. I don't care if it was an anti cheat or against blockbuster. As a kid it was like a treasure hunt for a kid.
@danandtab7463 Жыл бұрын
I didn't play Startropics until a loooong time later, but in the 90s I played this Buck Rogers game for PC that had an entire book of these things the game referenced, where if you didn't have the book, you'd get nowhere in the game. When I played Startropics later and ran into the clue, it totally reminded me of that. Thank goodness for the internet these days.
@BusyMEOW Жыл бұрын
I bought a bootleg HES (Home Entertainment System) Nintendo game from Toyworld when I was a kid, it had 6 games on it and had to have a proper NES cartridge pushed into it like the Game Genie to circumvent the lock-out chip. It was black and angled up and out so you could connect any official NES cartridge into the pins, looked odd having a game hanging out the front of the drawer and not being able to close the lid
@fattomandeibu Жыл бұрын
PAL versions of Codemasters games such as Micro Machines and Dizzy used the same method.
@toooes Жыл бұрын
Homie-S
@bankoofer Жыл бұрын
Wow, the cover/cartride art on the Startropics cartridge made me immediately want to play it. That's a beauty!
@Gojiro7 Жыл бұрын
the fact it went from a gimmick to a hidden internal check tells me it indeed was copyright protection, perhaps as a test incase more bootlegs like Tengens or wisdom trees started to spread to bootleggers of the time
@Marmbo Жыл бұрын
I rented this game and when I got to this I remember being so upset I threw the rental case and "Permastruct" instructions glued to the plastic case in the toilet. Guess what? No numbers appeared! I did however guess the code on the first or second try due to the 747 Jumbo Jet, and then left a note taped to the case that the 747 code would be needed to play.
@Spazilton1 Жыл бұрын
I remember having to soak that page in water lol
@rwdplz1 Жыл бұрын
As a little kid, it was a REALLY cool gimmick. 'StarTropics' was the only time I had to call the Nintendo Tip Line, for the part where you have to play the piano.
@curseyoujordanshow Жыл бұрын
I remember that being the only time I was thankful my parents forced me to take piano lessons!
@Mayimbeoo7 Жыл бұрын
Fascinating gimmick considering bootlegging an NES cartridge was pretty difficult in the early 90's.
@dacueba-games Жыл бұрын
It was comically easy in the late 80s. I don't know what universe you were living in.
@silkwesir1444 Жыл бұрын
@@dacueba-games The point is, you needed specialized equipment which only few people had. Most people were not even aware of the possibility.
@EmblemParade Жыл бұрын
StarTropics is such a gem. It still plays very well today. Love it!
@TheBlackbirdii Жыл бұрын
You should have mentioned 'MGS 1' on the PSX, where players had to use the frequency code from the back of the game box to contact Meryl. People who didn't have the box couldn't progress
@blunderingfool Жыл бұрын
iirc you could just badger Campbell for it or brute force it.
@JJHaughton Жыл бұрын
Metal Gear Solid also came to my mind too. At the time it just seemed like one of the many different things that Kojima did, such as the controller port swap. Maybe it was anti-piracy, maybe not 🤷🏻
@MichaelButlerC Жыл бұрын
Ooohh yeah! That's right! That was kind of cool. Perhaps kojima did it as a throwback to star tropics... Though I wouldn't be surprised if Metal Gear on the NES or MSX also did something like this.
@hegyak Жыл бұрын
Metal Gear 2 also does have the same method.
@qwertzy121212 Жыл бұрын
Only two hundred possibilities, so brute force is trivial, I did so when I rented The Twin Snakes as a teen lol
@soukai Жыл бұрын
This game was an amazing discovery for me with the classic mini NES
@mistertagomago7974 Жыл бұрын
Still one of the best games ever made.
@zophar1 Жыл бұрын
Nice shoutout to NESticle. Great content as always MVG! :)
@TruckingShooter Жыл бұрын
I know when i was a kid i rented this game several times. Loved it. Until i got to the part i needed to enter that code. Ruined my weekend 😆 i can laugh at it now but it was upsetting to a kid who growing up we couldn't afford to get many new games so it was all about occasionally renting one or going to garage sales. I wasn't able to finally finish this game until emulators and the internet years later.
@AdhamOhm Жыл бұрын
As a kid my dad's PC had Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, and every time you started it, it would make you answer a question about some plane's spec (wingspan of a Me-109, max altitude of an F4, etc). This was its form of copy protection. I lost the manual that had all the answers, but I borrowed an encyclopedia on military aircraft from the library. It had all the specs on almost every fighter plane from WWII and newer, and I was able to find and write down most of the answers from it (I had to start, close and restart the game a bunch of times to get enough questions) Ah the pre-Internet era. Sometimes I miss it, sometimes I don't.
@400KrispyKremes Жыл бұрын
For it to be Anti-Piracy it would have needed to generate a unique code for every individual game.
@Dr_Won_Hung_Lo11 ай бұрын
I remember renting this game at my local rental shop, and I specifically remember the guy ringing me out letting me know about the "code" you needed to progress past a certain point. That's was before Google, so it was nice of them letting you know about that
@alexander1989x Жыл бұрын
Since gaming rental stores were popular in US and Japan never saw a release of this game I'm inclined to believe it was an attempt at hurting the rental/piracy business.
@thecreatorofpc7929 Жыл бұрын
As soon as i saw the invisible text when you dip the letter in water. I immediately thought of TUNIC, cause doing exactly that was a secret in that game. I didn’t even really question it, cause i just thought “Video game secrets, it doesn’t need to make sense”. But it was actually a real thing, and it makes complete sense for TUNIC to have that type of puzzle now.
@randbradbury Жыл бұрын
I spent a weekend playing the game with two friends when it first came out. They were both moving away a few days later and it was our goodbye sleepover weekend. The letter gimmick was AMAZING. We couldn't believe it. The game was asking us to help, and we had a super secret code with us the whole time and didn't know it.
@r0xjo0 Жыл бұрын
When i was a kid i rented this game. The manual wasnt included. During that era, a game rental was pretty much your entire weekend, so it was pretty important to rent a good title. This one was killer. I remember i got to the test in the late afternoon Saturday. Instead of quitting i tried every. single. combination. 001... 002... 003. Hours passed. It was finally around 3 am when I cracked the code. I'll never ever forget the number 747. The weekend was saved and i beat the title the next day.
@MegaZeta Жыл бұрын
"Annoying" is the most accurate descriptor. Most of us did not keep the cardboard boxes video games came in, and we certainly didn't keep the loose paper inside, which mostly consisted of promotional flyers. And the main reason we didn't keep it is because the target audience for video games was children, and our parents did not make a habit of keeping packaging in case we needed it later to complete the video game.
@DaBraxMan Жыл бұрын
Fascinating stuff! I didn't realize Startropics was first party, and I further didn't realize it was so quirky lol. I also didn't realize Nintendo was so against video game rentals. It makes sense, of course, and it's absolutely on-brand. Thanks for an informative video!
@jimbox114 Жыл бұрын
I remember renting this game as a kid and the code was written down in the manual. The local rental store included a photo copied instruction manual with their rentals.
@BlueBarnTech Жыл бұрын
Great video. I must have never had this game as I don't remember it. I do remember the wonder of code wheels. Something was really fun about them even if it didn't do much in the end.
@thehorsefromhorsinabout Жыл бұрын
this got me as a kid because I didn't think to check the manual where my dad had written it, found it eventually and finished it, the MGS1 one got me pretty bad too as a teen.
@philtkaswahl2124 Жыл бұрын
I remember as a child getting for a birthday present the floppy disks for a combat flight simulator game-I don't even remember its name now-and excitedly waiting as I watched my mom install it on out Windows 3.1 home computer. When it finally came time to start it, though, the game demanded a certain word from a certain page of the manual. The manual that my uncle didn't include when he mailed it to us to save on space, and when we asked him for it the next time he visited he wasn't able to recall where he placed it and mentioned he'd likely thrown it away.
@erix5184 Жыл бұрын
I distinctly remember renting Star Tropics as a kid, getting to the sub, and dipping the photocopied page in water and.... Nothing happened, i couldn't go any further.
@JPLooney Жыл бұрын
Have no idea what this Channel is for, I saw "Star Tropics' which I have not seen in over 30 years and immediately clicked the video!!
@Necroyeti Жыл бұрын
The letter is cool and all but the real star here is that soundtrack. Definitely one of the coolest on the NES!
@lisadaniel6750 Жыл бұрын
It was awesome!
@chinabonebearings7359 Жыл бұрын
bro when i was a kid i used to play this with my dad and then a forgot about it till like 15 years later when i saw it on the wii store and i had to play it. was so awesome and brought back so many memories
@sharksmate Жыл бұрын
One of the games I played the most as a kid. Absolutely love this game!!
@nicholasdonohue7936 Жыл бұрын
I loved this game, one of the first ones I ever played and i've never forgotten the code. Strangely enough my mom was the one to point out the code to me because she beat the game a few years before I was old enough to game. She was really excited to show me how the code worked lol
@artstrutzenberg7197 Жыл бұрын
I remember having to call the Nintendo tip line when I rented the game. The person told me he couldn't give me the code directly, but that code was the same number as one of the more common commercial jet liners
@bluedragon219123 Жыл бұрын
In response to the Title: Why not both? Still I wouldn't want to risk ruining a piece of theManual(even though it's a separate piece), even when the game was new and in production, as the risk of that happening is low but not zero. Still Great Job! :)
@DustinRodriguez1_0 Жыл бұрын
I had bought StarTropics as a kid and I really liked the game. I vividly remember getting to the part of the game that told me to dip the letter in water and being quite surprised. I did it though and got the code (which is locked in my brain and I will know it until the day I die) and was thoroughly entertained. It definitely made for a memorable gaming experience at least.
@TheMrPackman Жыл бұрын
I rented it back in the day and could not get passed this code-check. It was heartbreaking because I loved this game
@SJReid82 Жыл бұрын
I remember renting this game back in the day, and someone had the good sense to write the code in marker inside the plastic container the store would package games in.
@mchenrynick Жыл бұрын
"The anti-piracy check at the end of Level 5 in the sequel, will throw you back to Level 2". I found out this the hard way in the day when using Game Genie codes. YOU HAVE TO COMPLETE THE REMAINDER OF LEVEL 5 WITHOUT ANY GAME GENIE CODES to progress to Level 6.
@gt4654 Жыл бұрын
When I got my copy of Monkey Island, it didn't come with a photocopy of the wheel, although I paid the guy for coppying me the game and he didn't even explain to me. When I figured it out, I used the random method and I it usually took me 12-20 minutes to guess the right answer and get into the game, which I then played non stop for 10-14 hours, because I knew I may not be able to play it next time...
@TemmiePlays11 ай бұрын
747 will forever be etched in my head bc of the sequel, Zodas Revenge. it was code used in the first game, with no hint of it in the sequel. and theu expected players to have beaten and remembered in the first game that 3 digit code.
@TemmiePlays11 ай бұрын
I need to elaborate on this. See, we _rented_ Zodas Revenge from Blockbuster, and we had no way of knowing about that frequency thing. later on we'd buy the game from a flea market, sans booklets nice. we had to call Nintendo power who actually gave us the code 🤷🏻♀️ so I'm unsure if they even knew it was supposed to be so on the hotline
@noeditbookreviews Жыл бұрын
10:07 did you say Zuma's Revenge? Shoves bananas into ears.
@mydogzty Жыл бұрын
YES this is why Im forever hnaging on for another episode/video from you! thanks
@SwapPartLLC11 ай бұрын
I remember this game. I rented it from a game rental store. It didn't come with the manual so at the part where you had to enter the code, I literally tried every single one until I got it. That was back in the early 90s and to this day, I still remember it was 747.😮
@Choralone422 Жыл бұрын
I wouldn't call the code anti piracy. More like anti rental if anything. However, back in the day the small chain of video stores I rented games from use to include a one page house made manual with their games. The one for StarTropics had the 747 code on it. Those house made manual pages were great. On games that used passwords people would share their own which was the only way I managed to beat a few games back then!
@Fr0stM00n Жыл бұрын
OMG!! My friend and I were totally stuck at that part of Star Tropics!! It was a rental and we didn’t have that code so we tried at 001, 002, and ended up giving up when we hit 700!!!! I then bit the bullet and called the Nintendo Power 900# to get that dang code! Now 747 is permanently burned into my brain!
@Odog78 Жыл бұрын
❤ for the Amiga Work bench pics.... Ah the memories....
@hfric Жыл бұрын
Same thing was in MGS1 when the back cover of the CD has the needed frequencies for the Radio signal ...
@SomeCanine5 ай бұрын
A lot of rental places just glued a piece of paper with instructions into the plastic shell casing they put the games into. If there was a code or anything, they would often put the code in there. If a code wheel is used, there's only a certain amount of combinations so they could include that.
@IroquoisPliskin868 ай бұрын
There's a similar thing in Metal Gear Solid where you need a certain radio frequency to continue the game. I remember hearing stories about rental stores printing the frequency on the rental box.
@WhatAboutZoidberg Жыл бұрын
Always fun to look back at old anti-piracy or just real life items needed for games, such a cool concept but could be really annoying if not included. Startropics is a great game, really need to grab Zoda's Revenge as well. Really fun, underappreciated games.
@jdb2002 Жыл бұрын
I heard that a person that worked for Nintendo's tipline and was the one that did Startropics got so many calls about the code, he would answer the phone with "747" rather than Hello
@wildrynogames7 ай бұрын
i played and loved Star Tropics as a kid and this is the first time I heard about this secret code bit.