A brand new Konami Code for Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness has been discovered 25 years after the game launched.
This Konami Code for 1999’s Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness on the Nintendo 64 unlocks all playable characters and their alternative costumes from the start of the game.
This new Konami Code first came to my attention thanks to Twitter user JupiterClimb, who shared a brief video of the button sequence during the Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness main menu screen.
JupiterClimb credits Castlevania homebrew developers ‘Liquid Cat’ and ‘Moises’ with the discovery and for unearthing what the code actually does.
Unlike the traditional Konami code (Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A), the sequence of buttons required to unlock the cheat in Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness requires users to input a slightly longer string of commands which effectively doubles the button presses, as seen in JupiterClimb’s Tweet below.
Tantalisingly, JupiterClimb teases that Moises has found even more codes for Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness “that might have speedrun significance” and invites excited players to “stay tuned!”
The Konami Code
The Konami Code is a legendary cheat code made its first appearance in 1986’s Gradius for the NES. The series of button inputs gained its moniker after featuring in many Konami produced titles, although the code was also appeared in plenty of games produced outside of Konami too.
Kazuhisa Hashimoto, a developer at Konami during the 1980s until his passing in 2020, originally implemented the cheat code during his work on the NES port of Gradius as he found the game too difficulty to play during testing.
Inputting the Konami Code in Gradius granted Hashimoto the full suite of ship upgrades and power ups, making the game substantially easier. While only intended to work during the development phase, the code ultimately shipped with Gradius as they feared removing the cheat from the game’s code could result in bugs within the retail version.
The Konami Code has unlocked all manner of cheats and secrets in games since its inception and can do anything from granting additional lives to provide level select options.
Castlvania: Legacy of Darkness is the latest game the Konami Code has emerged in, and now sits alongside other titles such as Contra, Metal Gear and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
The Konami Code has transcended its video game origins and now also appears as an Easter Egg in other mediums with everything from web browsers to Netflix including hidden features only found with the Konami Code.
