Mystery of Zelda
Thanks to video game history and game
preservation website GamingAlexandria.
com, a small yet enduring mystery has
finally been solved. Around the time of
The Legend of Zelda’s Japanese release in
1986, Nintendo partnered with instant
ramen manufacturer Myojo Charumera
to run a competition. The prize: one of
1500 special copies of the Famicom Disk
System game, which carried a different
label from the standard retail release.
In the years since, however, rumours have
circulated that it wasn’t just the label that
was different – the game itself had subtle
changes made to it, too. After an ultra-
rare copy of the promo disk was acquired
(for $1000), Gaming Alexandria’s Dustin
Hubbard began combing through its data
to see whether there were any differencesbetween it and the
regular version of
the game – you
can read about
this detective work in full at
wfmag.cc/ramen.
It turns out that both versions are, well,
identical. It’s a disappointing anticlimax, but
the Charumera mystery was at least worth
a careful investigation – especially given
that altered, promo versions of games
were by no means unknown in mid-eighties
Japan. In 1986, ramen firm ArchiMENdes
gave away limited edition copies of
Konami’s Gradius, in which all the power-
up sprites were replaced with cartons of
noodles. Like the Zelda promo disk, these
ramen-themed Gradius carts are now
sought-after collector’s items.Prince-like
Over on Twitter, Brazilian developer
Junior Correia recently unveiled
his current work in progress: an
isometric action-adventure simply
called Escape from Prison. If the image
accompanying this piece looks a bit
like Jordan Mechner’s original Prince
of Persia, then wait until you see the
game in action: you’ll immediately
recognise the smooth animation and
the trap-filled dungeon built from
austere stone blocks. The isometric
viewpoint gives it a strikingly different
look, though, and Correia says Escape
from Prison won’t be a straight clone of
Mechner’s game, with more features
due to be added over the course of its
development. You can see it in action
at wfmag.cc/prison.
In memoriam
Some sad tidings to add to this edition’s
Backwards compatible: developer Kazuhisa
Hashimoto, most famous for the Konami
code, has passed away. The news was
broken by Yuji Takenouchi, the composer
who worked with Hashimoto at Konami in
the eighties. Although it was popularised
by the NES port of Contra, the Konami code
first appeared in the adaptation of Gradiusfor the same console, which Hashimoto
developed in 1986. Hashimoto reportedly
found the shooter so difficult that he added
a cheat code to help him play through
it – up, up, down, down, left, right, left,
right, B, A, Start – then promptly forgot to
remove the code before the finished game
was shipped. And thus, a legend was born.
Hashimoto, Wireframe salutes you.wfmag.cc \ 65Backwards compatibleRetro