After all these years: In 1999, Konami released two Castlevania titles for the Nintendo 64 – Castlevania (colloquially known as Castlvania 64) and an expanded “Director’s Cut” version subtitled Legacy of Darkness. They had various cheats that players figured out over the last 25 years, but no Konami Code like so many other titles from the publisher had, or so we thought. Castlevania 64 was the first in the franchise to feature 3D gameplay. In its December 1999 expanded version, legacy of Darkness, players assumed the role of Cornell, a werewolf out to rescue his sister. There were three other playable characters, but the developers locked these mysterious characters on the menu screen to tease players. The teasing became sadistic when players discovered they had to beat the game twice to unlock all the heroes. To rub salt into their wounds, the developers didn’t even include the infamous Konami code to help them along.
To the few that may not know, the Konami Code is a well-known sequence of button presses that provides various cheats in many Konami games. It’s been around since the 1980s and is probably most famous for providing 30 lives in the game Contra. The code became so ingrained in gaming culture that even those that didn’t tattoo it on their arms can still recite it without thinking about it – up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A.
Many CLOD players undoubtedly tried getting the Konami Code to work in 1999, entering it in various parts of the menu system and during gameplay, but to no avail. It appeared that Konami ditched a cheat code for its first foray into 3D gaming – or did it? Last week, YouTuber JupiterClimb revealed a new cheat code that unlocks all Legacy of Darkness characters without the tedious process of beating the game multiple times. Ironically, the code is just the classic Konami Code with all the inputs doubled. You can watch him demonstrate it in his video (above).
When entered on the title screen, the cheat unlocks Reinhardt, Carrie, and Henry and their alternate costumes. It also enables a hard difficulty option, but that’s tricky to access because it is hidden until you make your first save with any of the characters. JupiterClimb demonstrates it by running immediately to the first white gem and saving. After that, the player can choose between Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulties when starting a new game. Otherwise, accessing hard mode requires playing as Henry, then finding the child in the forest and completing the game.
The YouTuber revealed three other codes. The first fills the player’s inventory with various items and works for all regional versions. The second gives the player 99 jewels, and the third provides maximum power for the characters’ main and sub-weapons. However, these only work on the European and Japanese versions of the game. JupiterClimb admitted that he could not take credit for discovering the cheats. A data miner going by Moises on the Castlevania 64 Discord server discovered the button sequences when digging through the game’s source code. Fellow Discord user Liquid Cat tried the codes in the game and found out what they did.
