Easter egg

File:Easter Egg.png

Sakurai's cat can be seen in the ice stage of Pokémon Stadium 2.

An easter egg is a hidden surprise or trick that is like a cheat code, but without the code. They are small surprises programmers add to the game for players to uncover, much like candy eggs in a real-life Easter egg hunt. Many easter eggs are purely for entertainment. Some examples include hidden names or faces of programmers, references to other games, or messages for the player.

Easter eggs should not be confused with glitches, cheats, or techniques. Many do not alter gameplay at all, and are added on purpose.

Examples

Smash Bros. and Melee

• In Mushroom Kingdom and Mushroom: Kingdom, if one pauses and turns the camera all the way to the right or left, a black wall with a saying "DANGER" on it can be seen, which is appropriate as those areas are past the side blast lines.

Melee

• On the bottom of the Barrel Cannon trophy is the message "2L84Me". When spoken, it sounds like "too late for me," referring to the usual KO after being shot from a barrel.
• In earlier versions of Super Smash Bros. Melee, the Daisy trophy contains a mysterious 3rd eye hidden in her hair, on the back of her head. It was removed in later versions.
• An easter egg exclusive to Event 39: Jigglypuff Live!, sleepy time will occur when the large screen in the background of Pokémon Stadium is centered on the player's Jigglypuff, and the player uses Jigglypuff's Sing attack. All three of the other Jigglypuffs will fall asleep, regardless of the distance from the player's Jigglypuff, for much longer than usual.
• Metal Mario's trophy has a reflection of the Yoshi's Island stage on its surface.
• Ganondorf's Trophies, when viewed under certain lighting, have glowing eyes.
• The Metroid trophy in Melee has a reflection on its shell. It seems to be a Ceres Station lab (where the Infant Metroid was kept) from Super Metroid. This implies that the trophy is representing the Infant Metroid.

Melee and Brawl

• Fox and Falco's Smash Taunt can be activated by quickly alternating between left and right (Melee) or by quickly tapping down just once (Brawl) on the directional pad while playing as either character on the Venom or Corneria stages. A similar effect happens when Fox, Falco, or Wolf performs the trick on the Lylat Cruise stage in SSBB.
• In Eagleland: Onett, the "Onett Message Board" can be seen if the player stands just to the right of the blue house, pauses and zooms out. It reads "Caution, A black van driven by this guy (seen in the picture right of the message) has been spotted driving recklessly through town. Be careful!". This is a reference to the Runaway Five's clumsy driving.
• Using a hacked camera, a bowl of rice can be seen behind a bush on the Onett stage in SSBB. It is unknown whether this is a secret or an oversight.

Brawl

• In Trophy Hoard mode, a black DS Lite can be seen in a present box on the left, in the background with presents.
• In the Ice stage of Pokémon Stadium 2, there is a poster of a white kitten inside of the shack in the middle. It is thought to be Masahiro Sakurai's cat. Also, a calendar can be seen on the door, but it's harder to see.
• The Coin Heaven song of Super Mario Bros. 3 can be heard if one plays the music Peach dances to when she uses her Final Smash in slow motion.
• In R.O.B.'s Grey Palette swap (which is designed to look like his American design), the words on his base change from "Family Computer Robot" to "R.O.B. - Robotic Operating Buddy", which is the name that was used for the robot outside of Japan.
• In the Cardboard Box trophy, if one changes the camera angle, one can actually see Snake inside the box.
• Using a method on Shadow Moses Island similar to the Star Fox secret taunt, Solid Snake can contact his support team via codec and get information regarding his opponents.

See Also

• Wikipedia's article about Easter eggs