Current Events > New cheat discovered in DKC2 after 29 years >_>

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/11/29-years-later-a-new-donkey-kong-country-2-cheat-code-has-been-discovered
https://x.com/tnkt_kong/status/1853633341418873042

tl;dr: looks like a debug cheat that lets you pause and exit uncompleted levels at any time. To do it, you pause the game and hit:
-Right + Y
-Left+A
-Up + B
-Down + X

Kind of a lame cheat, but it's cool that no one ever found it until now

You'd think these games would be known inside out, but I'm glad we still have secrets to find.

Its so dope that there are still new things to find.

I always wonder how some of these go undiscovered for so long, given how many of these games have been cracked, decompiled, & rebuilt over the years.

Guide posted...

You'd think these games would be known inside out, but I'm glad we still have secrets to find.

Right? I'm shocked no one ripped the games apart and found it by now

darkbuster posted...

I always wonder how some of these go undiscovered for so long, given how many of these games have been cracked, decompiled, & rebuilt over the years.

It generally requires that you actively comb through the code to find them, something that isn't what most people are doing. Most people are just looking for something specific, and the ones that are just generically looking tend to look more at things that actually mess around with memory rather than just dangling bits of code that exist.

Couldn't you already do that?

Or was it just DKC3 that let you quit out of a level?

What's funny is the last time I heard about something like this was also in DK game...

https://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/s/JpDKarl488

pegusus123456 posted...

Couldn't you already do that?

Or was it just DKC3 that let you quit out of a level?

If you're playing a level you havent beaten yet, you can't use the pause screen to exit it. You can only use the pause screen to exit levels you've already beaten. (until this cheat was discovered in 2 at least)

All 3 games do that iirc. The cheat doesnt seem too practical, unless you're on your last life in an unbeaten level and want to farm lives or save >_>

JustaSandwich posted...

What's funny is the last time I heard about something like this was also in DK game...

https://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/s/JpDKarl488

I remember that, that was wild

Tag

NeonPhoenix posted...

If you're playing a level you havent beaten yet, you can't use the pause screen to exit it. You can only use the pause screen to exit levels you've already beaten. (until this cheat was discovered in 2 at least)

All 3 games do that iirc. The cheat doesnt seem too practical, unless you're on your last life in an unbeaten level and want to farm lives or save >_>

Ahhh, I see.

The cheat does work on completed levels too, but why use it there when you can just hit select? >_>

NeonPhoenix posted...

If you're playing a level you havent beaten yet, you can't use the pause screen to exit it. You can only use the pause screen to exit levels you've already beaten. (until this cheat was discovered in 2 at least)

All 3 games do that iirc. The cheat doesnt seem too practical, unless you're on your last life in an unbeaten level and want to farm lives or save >_>

I never knew you could replay levels.

Tsukasa1891 posted...

I never knew you could replay levels.

How? All the games have collection bonuses that require you to replay levels and find bonus rooms and DK coins lol. Plus you can always move around the map

Yeah that definitely has to be dev cheat. Cheating ass devs! Beat your own games!

Random fun fact: one of the names considered for Donkey Kong was Kong Dong :3

ellis123 posted...

It generally requires that you actively comb through the code to find them, something that isn't what most people are doing. Most people are just looking for something specific, and the ones that are just generically looking tend to look more at things that actually mess around with memory rather than just dangling bits of code that exist.

It's also really hard trying to read decompiled code. Even if the source is properly documented, in the decompiled version, everything is just register 3, memory address 0x0000430a... even the drawing routine just looks like you're moving memory around. The exact code that does this has probably been stared at for hours without anyone having the slightest clue what it does beyond eventually deciding "not what I'm looking for for (probably)".

I happen to know this because I tried to get into it myself for a short while.

This seems like a feature they realized was pretty useless which is probably why it's buried far into the code.

Damn, I didnt know that. I figured if it was decompiled, it would just magically lay out all the data to see no prob

Super_Slash posted...

This seems like a feature they realized was pretty useless which is probably why it's buried far into the code.

to me, it seems like a code for the devs to use while they tested the game. It's very unorthodox compared to the rest of the game (cuz the other cheats are entered through a menu). They probably forgot to disable it or figured no one would figure it out (or even care if they did cuz it just exits the level)

This could be a new speed run catagory.

Interesting. I had an incident happen when I was playing DKC3 as a kid that I've never been able to find any evidence of online, so I don't know if it was a fever dream but basically I found a credits warp.

Where's my karl jobst at vid

Despised posted...

Where's my karl jobst at vid

Hello you absolute legends, today a remarkable discovery was made in Donkey Kong Country 2, 29 years after it's initial release.

Cool.

C_Pain posted...

Interesting. I had an incident happen when I was playing DKC3 as a kid that I've never been able to find any evidence of online, so I don't know if it was a fever dream but basically I found a credits warp.

Can you elaborate on this more? I have a similar experience with KOTOR.

NeonPhoenix posted...

How? All the games have collection bonuses that require you to replay levels and find bonus rooms and DK coins lol. Plus you can always move around the map

I thought you could only beat a level once like in Super Mario, so I never tried to do the same level twice. I would either get the secrets and collections the first time or not at all.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/57ad0055.jpg

Super_Slash posted...

Can you elaborate on this more? I have a similar experience with KOTOR.

My recollection is pretty vague. I was pretty far into the game, maybe either in the secret world or near the final world but definitely not at the last level, I wasn't even fighting K. Rool. I don't remember what I was doing, maybe I was on the overworld, but I did something, and then it just went to the end of the game as if I had finished everything and the credits started playing.

Oooo neat

Does this mean there's still a chance we'll discover how to collect the Triforce in Zelda: OoT?

C_Pain posted...

Interesting. I had an incident happen when I was playing DKC3 as a kid that I've never been able to find any evidence of online, so I don't know if it was a fever dream but basically I found a credits warp.

It could also be an extremely obscure glitch caused by something like a specific hardware issue, or radiation hitting exactly the right memory cell at the right time, etc.

VideoboysaysCube posted...

Does this mean there's still a chance we'll discover how to collect the Triforce in Zelda: OoT?

no they already combed the code in OoT, but there can always, always, always be new glitches. smb speed runners found some new tech this year, for example.

DKC2 isn't exactly the type of game to get people to go through the code. It's not like they are decompiling into C++... you have to read assembly and know the super famicom architecture, it's, like, obscenely hard to do.

Yeah, I can see Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time getting combed multiple times cuz of their insane speedrun popularity. DKC games not so much

bump

Despised posted...

Where's my karl jobst at vid

this is not the kind of thing he covers

I only know him from exposing The Completionist >_>

Bump for the masses

NeonPhoenix posted...

Right? I'm shocked no one ripped the games apart and found it by now

Well until last decade, I think many were unaware of an ending in DuckTales which you had to exploit the reduction of your score/money total via restoring health to get the bad ending.

Basically where Scrooge lost his money and uses the treasures to restart his fortune.

Seems there's been a bunch of decade long discoveries lately.
From this year alone:
Lego game took 17 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayjhViKfr-U
FF7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=May-fRmdWNA
Castlevania
https://www.thegamer.com/castlevania-legacy-of-darkness-fan-discovers-new-konami-code-after-25-years

GiftedACIII posted...

FF7

FF7 is the game that keeps on giving. They keep finding new stuff in it like once a year.

I've heard it's because they had such a hard time with what ended up being the final build that when it finally worked, they were too scared to touch it, lol.

ReturnOfDevsman posted...

FF7 is the game that keeps on giving. They keep finding new stuff in it like once a year.

I've heard it's because they had such a hard time with what ended up being the final build that when it finally worked, they were too scared to touch it, lol.

Oh I did not know that. Wonder if the same will happen for the remakes.