SNES Games
SNES GamesSee the Main Page for information on
button representations.
Batle Cars
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Title Screen Codes: ^, v, L, R, [Select]- Enables Mystery Mode (overhead Micro-Machines-esque view) in Options menu.L, R, ^- Drive Boss Car (when you get to the second race in each area, you will be driving the local boss's car)Hint: In the first few areas, your primary objective in the qualifying lap should be to kill other racers for cash. In the first area, other cars only take 1 disk to kill, and for the next few areas they only take 2 disks. After that, not only do the cars get much tougher, you'll have enough trouble making the lap in the given time that you won't want to bother taking the extra time for violence.Hint: Once you enter the higher level boss rounds, don't take time to blow up racers unless they're making a point of getting right in your way (in which case you'll lose more time trying to pass them nicely than just eliminating them).Hint: Every boss has his/her quirks. If you don't beat a boss on your first try, take a few rounds to look at the boss' driving pattern, including areas where he/she slows down, turns around (yes, at least one boss turns and stopps to wait for you, usually to get you to crash into him and make like a pinball in a tight turn) or even just gets into a position where a well aimed shot would have significant effect (such as forcing the boss to miss a turn/merge point).Final Fantasy 4 (2 U.S.)
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Item Replication: This is a truely cheap trick once you get far enough in the game. To replicate any item that a given character can equip, enter a battle, use the item command to unequip the item (make sure you select a blank inventory space before you select the equipped weapon/item or the glitch won't work) and end the battle. Go into the equip option from the sub-menu to re-equip the chosen character. Whatever weapon (aside from arrows, unless you only equip one single arrow) you equip on the character will be duplicated in the character's hand! Unequip the double-weapon (you don't get any attack bonus for holding two in the same hand) and re-equip it. One of the weapons will go to your hand, the other will be in your inventory. Try this with the Excalibur sword; it makes a beast throwing dart (7000+ damage)! (unverified) Secret Call Spells: There is an infinitely low probability that you will get these call spells in the game if you aren't trying to find them. If you try to find them, good luck. You still have a very small chance.- IMP: Fight imp type monsters over and over and over... Eventually you might earn this call.
- BOMB: Fight BALLOON or GRENADE groups over and over and over... This should be a bit more powerful than IMP.
- MAGE: Fight MAGEs and MAGE types over and over and over...
- ROC: This call is one you aren't supposed to get. It was removed from the game before it came to the U.S. If you have the right game genie code, however (don't ask me, I don't even have an SNES game genie), you can get this call by fighting ROC BABYs and COCATRICs until you get lucky.
Despite the cost given on the screen, the SYLPH call costs absolutely nothing to cast! Quick Level Gain: Once you get to the underworld and the cave of summoned monsters, try to find a CONJUROR. If you are still fairly weak, find one that calls ROCK MOTHs, if you are in for a bigger challenge, fand one that calls HUGE NAGAs. If you can knock out the monsters in one hit, you will be able to kill at least 20 in 10 minutes, and even that will put your experience through the roof (at least with HUGE NAGAs). After a lengthy battle that I ended due to boredom, I got experience and gold in the higher 5-digits. Try this trick with weaker summoners earlier in the game! (unverified) There are a number of "secret" items in the game as well. I don't know all of them, but here are a few:- CRYSTAL ring: fight a BEHEMOTH over and over and over...
- GLASS helmet: fight pairs of EVILMASKs for a while
- SILENCE rod: fight a CONJUROR until you get really lucky
- ZEUS gauntlet: fight skeleton type monsters for an eternity
- RUNEAXE axe: fight pairs of MACGIANT or REDGIANT for a few ages
- DRAGON whip: fight BLUE D.s for a good long while
- MEDUSA sword: fight BLACKLIZs for hours
- ADMANT armor: Find a PINK tail to give to the guy in the mine
- PINK tail: fight the rare PINKPUFFs in the small room off to the right near the end of Lunar B5. If you fight enough of them, you could earn a PINK tail. I've heard the ADMANT armor is worth the work!
Hint: Please don't drain the undead. It isn't fun. Trust me. Item of Interest: Late in the game it is possible to get a black chocobo in the small chocobo forest just southwest of Baron. I'm not sure exactly when the chocobo arrives, but it could be useful during the middle of the game. If anyone can tell me exactly when the black chocobo shows up, I will give them credit on this page. If anyone out there knows any Game Genie codes to "unlock" parts of the game lost in translation (ROC call, misc. items, Dark Cecil's Dark Wave special attack, etc.), I would greatly appreciate having them to post here. I will give anyone who contributes information full credit on the page.Final Fantasy 6 (3 U.S.)
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You can sometimes get interesting glitches to occur by having Relm use 'Sketch'
on an enemy with a powerful or instant death attack, and then letting Gogo
mimic Relm. If Relm kills the enemy she was mimicing, there's a good chance
that Gogo, trying to mimic a dead enemy, will create a glitch. If your
characters turn into random blocks, hold L & R to run away, and immediately
save the game and restart (the game can get unstable and crash after the
glitch). You will find large quantities of odd items (especially DIRKs)
in your inventory that can be sold for many GP or kept for equipping or
throwing.WARNING: Before using this code, equip any precious item on one of your
characters (to keep Relm's fake mustache, equip it on Gogo while he has
been customized with the Sketch technique). When you gain all the glitch
items, some normal items will be lost. I lost my Moogle Charm and my Fake
Mustache that way, both key one-of-a-kind items.Kirby Super Star
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Spring Breeze is essentially a reduced version of the original Kirby's Dreamland easy mode, only with ability-copy allowed. It shouldn't give you much trouble. DynaBlade is longer than Spring Breeze, but not tremendously more difficult. There are in fact two hidden ability gallery stages, contrary to the manual's hint. One is off of stage 2. Use Mirror/Smirror to hit the bomb block on the second floor of the first room inside the castle to reveal a door leading to the switch. The other off of stage 4, I believe in the hidden TAC/copy power room to the left of where you start in the lava block area. Great Cave Offensive is long and tedious, but fun. To get all treasures, keep your eyes peeled for drop-thru floors (e.g. waterfall block in second area of bird/jet palace), hidden doorways (e.g. in candle-lit rooms of castle towers) and places where you need a helper to progress (e.g. underwater fuse and post-under-hanging-platform, both in castle). Some day I should write a full treasure list... Revenge of MetaKnight is an interesting game. All stages are timed, if somewhat leniently, so just keep moving. If you die, time resets to an extent. The trickiest part of the game is the series of doors/switches in one of the later stages. Drop through the floor to backtrack and try again if you miss any, dashing and thrown weapons can help greatly. I'm not sure what happens if you actually defeat MetaKnight in the escape phase, the easiest approach is just to hop on Wheelie and dash tot he end of the stage, remembering you can infinitely multi-jump if youaccidentally misjump a wall or pit. Milky Way Wishes is arguably the most entertaining game of the bunch. Find the hidden ability icons and you can use any generic power in the game whenever you want. Contrary to the manual and in-game guide, some powers can be obtained by swallowing enemies, but these are limited to the one-shot powers- Mic, Crash, Cook, Sleep and Paint. Also, remember you can't change abilities in boss rooms, so your first encounter with a boss is often your best opportunity to beat him.Power icons are located:
Floria:
- [Ice] At the very start of the stage, in winter.
- [Fighter] In the hollow after the first tree either in summer when the water is gone or in winter when the water is frozen.
- [Cutter] Under the second tree in summer.
Aquatiss:
- [Parasol] In the middle of the first area, hit a submerged bomb block and follow the smoke to where it opens a door above water.
- [Sword] In the third area (nighttime background, water surrounding a small palace structure), take the door in the middle of the palace structure, work your way past the spikes and Blade Knights, and defeat the sub-boss for the power. Use Parasol v+Y to break the blocks leading down. It might be a good idea to save the tomato for after the sub-boss.
- [Beam] In the penultimate underwater maze, take the branches down, right, down, right, and up to reach the icon.
Skyhigh:
- [Jet] Break the star block in the ceiling of the windy passage in the first area (use Fighter's uppercut, Parasol, Beam or Sword's midair spin) and fly to the door.
- [Wheel] Shortly after the Jet room, use Jet to light the fuse on the ground. Use one charge dash to go from the fuse to the top of the slope to its right and one charge dash off the top of the slope to clear the remaining enemies and reach the cannon. The cannon blasts you to the Wheel room.
- [Wing] In the 'maze' following the first area, take the right door in the first room to a room with mountains in the background, the center door there to a room with springtime landscape in the background, and the left door there to a room with a starry background. The center door here with three large stars above it leads to the ability. The right door from the mountain room, incedentally, leads to the gate to the boss.
Hotbeat:
- [Fire] In the first area, hit the bomb block on the ceiling in the middle of the 'S' bend (Wing works well). Retrieve the lollipop from the top of the 'S,' backtrack, and fly up through the lava released by the bomb to the door. If you used Jet to get up, it will be easy to blast up through the following vertical room to the door with the icon.
- [Suplex] In the second portion of the stage, use a Fighter uppercut to break through the stone blocks above the one patch of grass in the area. Beat the sub boss behind the door for the icon.
Cavios:
- [Bomb] Defeat Poppy Bros Sr. in the upper-middle region of the first cave area.
- [Hammer] Defeat Bonkers in the middle-right region of the first area.
- [Stone] Destroy the bomb block above where you start in the second (blue) cave. Swim up through the opening and hit the switch on the right to open the door you probably saw to the right of where you started.
Mecheye:
- [YoYo] In the third (metal maze) area, take the upper path and use Wing to fly to the upper door of the windy room. The icon is in a room at the bottom of the elevator (get on, and just hold v, trying to make sure any helper you have doesn't get stuck above the elevator or it will move back up on its own).
- [Plasma] Take the elevator in the fourth area all the way to the top and fight the sub-boss on the left for the icon. Incedentally, use a moderate-level Plasma charge shot to hit the bomb block to the right of the elevator at this level and collect 3 1ups.
Halfmoon:
- [Mirror] In the third (starry) area, keep to the bottom of the screen until you spot a single star block in a pit. Drop down to it and remove it with some ability that allows a quick arial recovery- the door to the ability is directly below, but there is no ground underneath it!
- [Ninja] In the fourth (windy) area, a little over half way to the top, hit one of the bomb blocks to open the way to the obvious door.
?:
- [Copy] There is a green star / diamond above the cloud planet Skyhigh. You can land on it. The ability icon is in the final room of the short TAC- and bomb-infested level. Be careful, because the room has no floor!
Some boss projectiles have associated powers.- Cook's eggs grant Bird ability (at least to Helper contact...).
- Many falling rocks grant Stone ability.
- The Chameleon boss' paint balls grant Paint ability, a rare one-shot more or less equivalent to Crash.
Some abilities have moves which are difficult to discover without reading the in-game help screens. A few of the more interesting ones are:- [Fire] You can direct Kirby's and Leo's fire breath with the D-pad. ^ or v will raise or lower its average angle slightly, but if you hold the direction opposite your facing for a few seconds the breath will decrease in range and increase in intensity until you become engulfed in a bonfire which does serious damage to any enemy on contact.
- [Fire] If you press Y in midair, you turn briefly into a wheel of fire with little combat value. However, if you press Y just before landing a jump, that fire wheel will roll along the ground at a good clip for about a screen's length.
- [YoYo] Press v, Y+^ (Y first, then add ^) as Kirby or Gim to do an impressive headstand to vertical spin-launch maneuver the game dubs a 'Gazer Spiral.'
- [Hammer] Kirby's the only one who can do this, but if you dash and press A (not Y!), you'll do a normal dash+Y spin, but then release your hammer. You'll lose Hammer power, but if the hammer hits anything, it does major damage. Most sub-bosses will lose at least half their life, Poppy Sr. can even be killed in one hit.
- [Sword] It's not too hard to find, but that spin move you do underwater can be triggered in midair by pressing Y in a dash-jump.
- [Plasma] Once you have a charge, just getting near an enemy is enough to deal moderate damage.
- [Bomb] Tap Y when adjacent to an enemy to plant a bomb on it. Dash and press Y to throw a bom straight forwards.
- [Jet] Jump when at full charge to carry the charge elsewhere. Press B in midair when fully charged to rocket upwards. Press Y in the middle of a horizontal dash to halt, releasing a strong, short-range 'Jet Cracker.'
Use guard (L or R) often. While most attacks can be avoided other ways, guarding nullifies direct hits from almost any attack in the game, which is especially useful in boss fights. Parasol is one of the more undervalued Kirby abilities. Sword and Hammer seem better for close attack, but Parasol can hold its own in single hits, has strong dash and air+v attacks, and is unexpectedly useful underwater. Know when to restore your Helper, when to recycle your Helper and when to let your Helper die. Contact with a generic-ability enemy will restore a dying Helper automatically. Contact with an ability item (press A to release Kirby's) will restore a Helper at any point, but costs Kirby an ability. Kirby's 'Suppin Beam' (press A without an ability) will turn a Helper into an ability item which can then be eaten and kept or turned into a new full-health Helper, but you'll have to risk losing any ability Kirby has to recycle a Helper in this way. Sometimes Kirby's ability is valuable enough that it's best just to go it alone if your Helper can't save himself.Mega Man X
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To get the haiduken/hadoken/white-fireball: Collect all the heart tanks, sub tanks and armor capsules. Go to Armor Armadillo's stage. Stock up on lives by killing the black bats (not the standard bats) at
the bottom of the first hill. At the end of the stage, climb the cliff before the boss door and pick
up the power up on top. Jump into the pit (or kill yourself some other way). Repeat from step 4. After about 6 times the power up will be replaced by a capsule. To use the haiduken, hit v, v>, >+[fire] when your life is full
to kill any Sigma boss in 1 hit. The haiduken does NOT save into the password.Super Mario Kart
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Pre-shrunk Characters: In Grand Prix mode, you can shrink any racer on the selection screen by hitting Y and A. Small characters have slower speed but better handling than large characters. If a large character runs over a small character, however, the small guy will turn into a pancake and lose about 5 seconds in the recovery. Special Cup: It is possible to race any special cup track in time trials. Simply move the cursor to Mushroom Cup on the selection screen and hit L, R, L, R, L, L, R, R, A. You will now have a Special Cup track set that will be accessable until you force-clear all the data in the cartridge.Super Metroid
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Read the entry on NES Metroid: many of the general hints work for both games (bombs, 'dead end' rooms, etc.). Bomb Trick: Charge up your beam (charge beam required), roll into a ball, holding v on the press that brought you into the rolling-ball position. Release your charge and 5 bombs will be launched forcefully from Samus' body. The longer you hold v, the harder the bomb launch will be. Bomb/Life trick: Any time Samus is at less than 50 health with at least 11 of each special explosive (missile, super missile, super bomb), roll into a ball, hold v, L and R, and place a super bomb. All Samus' extra missiles will be converted into life energy (helpful for bosses that just refuse to give you health points in their misc. projectiles).Special Weapons: Select super bombs, and equip charge beam and only one other beam. Charge the beam to full, and you'll activate a special weapon (and lose one super bomb):- Spazer: Vertical beams fly out, encircle Samus once, and fly off in various directions.
- Ice: 4 ice stars form a rotating shield around Samus for a good few seconds before flying off diagonally (if an ice star hits an enemy at any time, it has the effect of an ice beam shot).
- Wave: 4 purple orbs orbit Samus before flying off randomly around the screen.
- Spazer: Four large green balls spin around Samus in an increasing orbit until they leave the screen.
If you spin through an enemy that can be damaged with the regular beam while carrying a charge, it will have the same effect as a screw attack, although you'll lose your charge. Alternately, a spin jump while Samus is blue from a power dash will allow you to pass through most enemies unscathed. The wall jump can be executed by spinning into a wall, turning away from the wall (while still right next to it) and jumping, in that order (very quickly, of course, but the inputs must be consecutive, not simultaneous). The bi-facial (2 walls) wall jump is the most common type, but if you're good, you can do a mono-facial (repeated 1 wall) jump just as easily. The rocket charge is much easier than the wall jump, and can be executed by bringing Samus to a full power-dash (blue) run, and crouching. Samus will come to a stop and flash white for a few seconds. If Samus jumps from a crouch (v, then [jump], not v + [jump]), she'll flash orange for half a second (during which time you can tap or hold the direction you want her to fly in, default being straight up) and then blast off. This move allows Samus to fly through most enemies and obstacles, but it drains her life about as fast as entering a heat zone without Varia. If you return to the room you originally found the bomb in (way back at the beginning of the game), you'll find the only 4 peaceful inhabitants of Zebes (the three little aliens from the wall-jump pit and the green ostrich that gave you a demo of the rocket jump) trapped. Blast down the wall of the room to set them free, and you'll see their ship flying off the planet in the ending! Tales of Phantasia
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I must say this promises to be one of the best, or at least most refreshing SNES RPGs out there. It never made US release, but DeJap has done a terriffic translation job, and a prepatched ROM of his translation is available at vimm.net.
This is one of the first write-ups I'm doing for a game that virtually no readers will have obtained with manual, so for starters here's a little control info:By default:
- A = accept/investigate
- B = cancel; hold to run in towns/dungeons with Jet Boots accessory
- X = menu
- Y = rarely used
The battles are something else entirely. For combat the game switches to a side-view active-combat mode containing all your characters plopped around/among the enemy. You control the main character, Cless, and the rest of your party acts based on the AI you have them set to ('tactics' in the main or battle menu). Learning battle controls constitutes likely the steepest part of the learning curve for the game.
In battle:
A = slash: run to nearest enemy, slash, run back to where you started
^+A = stab: run to nearest enemy, stab, run back to where you started
B = skill A*: run to appropriate execution range, use appropriate skill, run back
^+B = skill B*: run to appropriate execution range, use appropriate skill, run back
X = menu: displays a row of boxes- Magic, Formation, Tactics and Item. Formation and Tactics act like the similarly named options in the main menu, Magic lets you select a party member to command a spell/skill from, and Item allows you to select an item to use from your inventory.
Y = retarget*: change the enemy your attacks are directed against, in Semi-Auto or Manual targeting mode
L = shift left: shift Cless left in the party formation, to get at enemies to the left of the party; hold while pressing < to run off the left side of the screen
R = shift left: shift Cless right in the party formation, to get at enemies to the right of the party; hold while pressing > to run off the right side of the screen
[Start] = pause
*How to use skills: Once you learn a skill (you start with none, and either learn skills as you gain levels or buy/receive them from NPCs), open the main menu (X on any screen but battle), select 'Skills', then 'Cless'. You should see a screen with 4 initially blank slots labeled Short Range A & B and Long Range A & B. Moving the cursor to one of these slots brings up a list on the right of what skills you can equip there. Point to a slot, press A/[accept], point to a skill, and press A/[accept] to equip it. 'A' skills will be used by pressing B in battle, 'B' skills will be used by pressing ^+B in battle. Whether a Short or Long Range skill is executed depends on the enemy you have targeted. In Semi-Auto or Manual targeting modes, press Y in battle to change the target of your attack. An arrow will appear by the new target along with a letter, 'S' or 'L', for Short or Long Range (as determined by your distance from the target). The skill you execute will be the one corresponding to your button input and the target's range.
Battle hint #1: Be ready. Enemies can start attacking you as soon as the battle screen shows up, even during the scrill-across field preview. Battle hint #2: Using items in battle takes time, so your 'Item' menu option will be unselectable for a few seconds after your last item use. Some items, such as Life Bottles, take longer to use than others. Battle hint #3: Set your party members' AI to the last option before 'Don't Use Magic.' They'll still use quite enough, but won't run out of TP constantly nuking small fry. Battle hint #4: To hit high flying enemies with normal attacks you need to get a running start from at least close to Long Range. When setting skills, you'll likely notice % Learned info. You get 1% for each time you execute a skill, regardless of whether you hit anything. As the game eventually states, learning a skill to 100% allows you to equip combination skills which you learn later on. In the 'Race the Kid' minigame, there are only two big things to remember if you want to win. First, practice your timing. If you get stuck behind the kid off the start, there are only a few places to get ahead of him again, and a lot of places to get stuck behind him. Second, don't run into things. You move at about the same speed as the kid when you're Jet Booting, and he takes a less efficient route than anything you'll sanely try, but if you spend any time not moving at all he'll pass you within a couple seconds. It also helps to loop through the yellow square between laps. Going in and out horizontally is slower from a control pad standpoint and gives you a greater chance of running into the kid and losing time than going in horizontally and looping out vertically. The first truely obnoxious boss you encounter in the game, at east in my experience, is Gnome. In general you can keep hammering bosses with skills, ideally getting them in a corner and unleashing repeated rapid/multi-hit attacks. For Gnome, however, you must wait through an arbitrarily long barrage of missiles, then follow his shadows as they converge, keeping perhaps one character width away. Time things just right to smack him when he pops up. If you're really skilled you can even pull off a Tiger Teeth for more damage and frequently a chance to get in a few more hits while he's stunned or simply more exposed.Yoshi's Island
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On the map screen, hit X X Y B A to bring up a menu of 1-2 player battle
games. Win watermellons easilly by using the above code, going into the watermellon
contest, and doing the following:Get a melon
Lure the computer into hiding behind the lower-left area of "stacked wood"
Stand to the left of the lower-middle watermellon pot and face the pot to lure the computer out.
AS SOON AS YOU SEE THE COMPUTER COME OUT, TURN, FIRE AND JUMP
Repeat last three steps until you win
You can get easy one-ups in stage 4-1, Go Go Mario, by advancing to the
top of the big hill and the shyguy pipe. Fill your eggs, knock out any annoying
flowers, refill, pick up a shell, stand on the pipe after the shyguy pipe,
release the shell towards the shyguy pipe and fire an egg. Shyguys will
start appearing and getting hit by the shell. in a few seconds every hit
will be a 1up. Late in the game you will encounter a Salvo-clone in a room of a castle. This guy can be taken out in very short order by using a watermellon item (each seed hits a few times).
Hit flashing shyguys (any projectile will do, seeds work well) for coins.Zelda
A Link to the Past
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Fish Trick: You can get a ton of cash and a nearly complete refil of your stats by picking up a fish in the light world and taking it to the odd man in the village (the same guy who sells you one of the bottles). Throw the fish in his direction and he will take it and give you about 100 rupees, at least one magic decanter (large) and some life. Silver Bee: in the fairy cave adjacent to the cave with the ice wand, try to ram the fairy statue with the pegasus boots. When hit, a sparkling silver bee will come out. This "Good Bee", when caught, will attack for at least twice as long as a regular bee when released. Fun With Heavy Stuff: Attacking enemies with heavy thrown objects (just about anything other than a bush) is a good way to get rid of stronger enemies. These thrown objects are projectile, so you don't have to get in close, and in most cases they do more damage than a standard sword hit. Frozen enemies can also be fun. Not only are they heavy, but they're re-usable too! Hint: if you find anything that looks unusual, try using every item in your inventory on it. There are a number of interesting secrets in the game. Although there are a few things that you just can't do anything with (the octopus pattern in the desert, and the hole just south of the Waterfall of Wishing come to mind), many other areas hold useful, interesting, or just plain weird (ever tried magic powder on the green shocking guys?) secrets. Trivia: The common chicken is very possibly the strongest enemy in the game (and if you don't think a chicken counts as an enemy, try hitting it with your sword about 20 times!).