THE KONAMI CODE

The Konami Code, known in Japan as the Konami Command (コナミコマンド, Konami Komando), is a cheat code that appears in many Konami video games, although the code also appears in some non-Konami games. The code was first used in the 1986 release of Gradius for the Nintendo Entertainment System but was made famous in North America in the NES version of Contra, for which it was also dubbed the "30 Lives Code". While pausing the game or during the title screen, the player could press the following sequence of buttons (followed by the start button) on the game controller:

↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A

In many popular representations of the code, to run the code ↵ Enter, Start, or Select is added at the end of the sequence.

Variations

The original version of the cheat code was designed for the NES controller. The exact sequence varies from game to game, and has been adapted to fit the button layouts of different video game consoles. Mostly the A and B buttons. For example: any PlayStation controller, which uses shapes instead of letters, would be ", ." In mobile phone games by Konami, they are substituted with 5 7 3 on the numerical pad, which is the goroawase pronunciation for "konami."

History

The result of entering the Konami code on Facebook within Mozilla Firefox

The Konami Code was created by Kazuhisa Hashimoto, who was developing the home port of the 1985 arcade game Gradius, a scrolling shooter released on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986. Finding the game too difficult to play through during testing, he created a cheat code which gives the player a full set of power-ups, which are normally attained gradually throughout the game. The code has continued to be present in Gradius sequels and spin-offs, including the SNES version of Gradius III, which actually destroys the player's ship upon entering the original code (however, substituting ← and → with the L and R triggers of the SNES controller powers up the ship), all the way through the most recent iteration of the series, Gradius V on the PlayStation 2, where the PS2's X and O buttons fill in for B and A, respectively.

The popularity of the Konami Code increased with the release of the 1988 NES version of Contra. Due to the game's difficulty, many Contra players became reliant on the cheat code, which increased the player's lives from 3 to 30 (9 to 90 including continues), to finish the game.

The code has been subsequently re-used in a large number of other games, and has found a place in popular culture as a reference to the third generation of video game consoles. For example, entering the code is the one of two standard ways to put a Palm webOS device (such as the Palm Pre or Palm Pixi) into "developer mode", and the code is also present as an Easter egg on a number of websites.

The Konami Code was the basis of a remix of the 2008 song "30 Lives" by The Motion Sick. The song went on to be featured in contemporary versions of Konami's Dance Dance RevolutionThe Konami Code, known in Japan as the Konami Command (コナミコマンド, Konami Komando), is a cheat code that appears in many Konami video games, although the code also appears in some non-Konami games. The code was first used in the 1986 release of Gradius for the Nintendo Entertainment System but was made famous in North America in the NES version of Contra, for which it was also dubbed the "30 Lives Code". While pausing the game or during the title screen, the player could press the following sequence of buttons (followed by the start button) on the game controller:

↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A

In many popular representations of the code, to run the code ↵ Enter, Start, or Select is added at the end of the sequence.

Variations

The original version of the cheat code was designed for the NES controller. The exact sequence varies from game to game, and has been adapted to fit the button layouts of different video game consoles. Mostly the A and B buttons. For example: any PlayStation controller, which uses shapes instead of letters, would be ", ." In mobile phone games by Konami, they are substituted with 5 7 3 on the numerical pad, which is the goroawase pronunciation for "konami."

History



The result of entering the Konami code on Facebook within Mozilla Firefox

The Konami Code was created by Kazuhisa Hashimoto, who was developing the home port of the 1985 arcade game Gradius, a scrolling shooter released on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986. Finding the game too difficult to play through during testing, he created a cheat code which gives the player a full set of power-ups, which are normally attained gradually throughout the game. The code has continued to be present in Gradius sequels and spin-offs, including the SNES version of Gradius III, which actually destroys the player's ship upon entering the original code (however, substituting ← and → with the L and R triggers of the SNES controller powers up the ship), all the way through the most recent iteration of the series, Gradius V on the PlayStation 2, where the PS2's X and O buttons fill in for B and A, respectively.

The popularity of the Konami Code increased with the release of the 1988 NES version of Contra. Due to the game's difficulty, many Contra players became reliant on the cheat code, which increased the player's lives from 3 to 30 (9 to 90 including continues), to finish the game.

The code has been subsequently re-used in a large number of other games, and has found a place in popular culture as a reference to the third generation of video game consoles. For example, entering the code is the one of two standard ways to put a Palm webOS device (such as the Palm Pre or Palm Pixi) into "developer mode", and the code is also present as an Easter egg on a number of websites.

The Konami Code was the basis of a remix of the 2008 song "30 Lives" by The Motion Sick. The song went on to be featured in contemporary versions of Konami's Dance Dance Revolution dance video game series. dance video game series.