The letters you collect can sometimes give hints on how to rescue other characters; one such hint is a letter titled "The Girl" which says the following:
"Don't worry, I put her cage in a safe place. If you ever need to find her, just climb up high above the wooden bridge near Denham. And don't try doing that wall-jump move of yours to get to her - you'll fall and break your neck!"
While not signed, if you do go to the bridge in Denham and make your way up, you can rescue Bandage Girl from the Super Meat Boy series, implying that the letter was written by Dr. Fetus and sent to Meat Boy, who is known for wall jumping in his series.
The appearance of Noshis in the R/T version of the Tokyo Blur course is likely a reference to the Japanese film franchise "Godzilla" and its respective genre Kaiju, which feature giant monsters usually depicted attacking major cities.
Three Rabbids from the Raving Rabbids series, a Ubisoft property, are guest characters exclusive to the Wii version of the game. One is a generic Raving Rabbid, a new Rabbid variant named Ninja Rabbid that is a parody of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the last, named Splinter Rabbid, is a Rabbid variant from the first two Raving Rabbids games who is a parody of Sam Fisher, the protagonist of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell series, another Ubisoft property.
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In the ending cutscene in the Japanese version, Gruntilda's skull was replaced with a sack that resembles her clothing. This change was most likely made to comply with political outcry in Japan over the 1997 Kobe child murders, during which a 14 year-old boy murdered two fellow students on separate occasions, the first victim having been beheaded. The cryptic nature of these crimes garnered enough attention in Japanese media and politics to cause the National Diet to reduce the age of criminal responsibility in Japan from 16 to 14 years old in the year 2000, the same year Banjo-Tooie was released. Despite this change, Gruntilda's eyeball can still be seen falling out of the bag in the censored version.
Revealed in concept art by former Retro Studios employee Sammy Hall, Retro Studios actually worked on two major projects for Nintendo using two of their biggest IPs before Nintendo cancelled them for unknown reasons.
One of them was a project in the Mario series centered around the supporting character Boo. Little is known about the project outside of the Concept art, but hints released with the concept art tease that it would have been released for one of Nintendo's handhelds (such as the DS) as well as there being things in the game referred to as "possession powers" and "Broomies".
The other game, rumored to be centered around the character of Sheik from The Legend of Zelda series, was more elaborate. Hints leaked by Hall and released with the concept art suggest that it would of been about, and centered around, the origin of the Master Sword in the Bad Timeline and would feature "the last Sheik" as it's main character. The game would have also seen the Dark Gerudo tribe engaging in their decade-long birth to Ganon. The project was describe as an "Action/RPG".
A pre-release screenshot shows an unused American bus modeled after buses owned by Coach USA, and was most likely scrapped to avoid copyright issues with that company.
A pre-release screenshot of the game shows that the buses that appear in the European tracks were originally designed with a different livery that resembles the livery used by buses owned by Stagecoach Group in the United Kingdom. This design was changed for the final release of Burnout, most likely to avoid copyright issues with Stagecoach Group.
There is a glitch whenever Jak walks in front of a mirror that causes a slightly different model of Jak with dark grey horns to appear alongside the "reflected" second model of the room, initially suggesting that Jak was used as a test model for shaping Dark Jak's horns. However, a 2003 promotional contest advertisement hosted by Cartoon Network's programming block Toonami features a higher resolution model of Jak with white horns instead, suggesting that the model sent to Cartoon Network still had the horns on them and they just altered the model for the advertisement, or that Jak was originally supposed to have visible horns like Dark Jak.
The plot of the Adventure Mode: World of Light, in which Kirby is the sole survivor of a cataclysmic invasion and must rescue the other fighters, was actually series director Masahiro Sakurai's original vision for the plot of Super Smash Bros. Brawl's Adventure Mode: The Subspace Emissary.
This early storyline was mentioned during a 2008 Iwata Asks interview: "I had envisioned a more serious tone for the story. Something with some misfortune like a single character escaping total annihilation of his squadron and then fighting back while rounding up his allies."
It should be noted however that Spoiler:this early storyline would be implemented somewhat closer to the end of The Subspace Emissary anyway when Tabuu decimates every fighter turning them back into trophies, while Kirby, Luigi and Ness are revived in separate locations thanks to the three Dedede Brooches.
In the Dreamcast version, despite having only been released in Japan, the entire English localization is present in the game, even retaining the English title "Puyo Pop Fever", and can be toggled from the Options menu. This hints at a possible Western release of the Dreamcast version that never materialized due to the discontinuation of the console by the time the game was released elsewhere, making it the last Dreamcast game developed by Sonic Team, as well as the last first-party Sega title released on the platform. The Dreamcast version is also the only version of the game to use sprites instead of 3D models.
The name of the main boss Kronika may be a reference to Chronos, the personification of time in pre-Socratic philosophy, often mistaken with the ruler of the Titans in Greek Mythology, Cronus. While this is a recurring historical and philosophical mistake, this might have inspired the idea that Kronika is a Titan, much like Cronus. Additionally, the word "Kronika" is a Czech and Slovenian cognate which translated to English means "Chronicle".
In the ninth level of Chapter 2 "Beauty and the Electric Tentacle", a Beauty Goo is stuck on a large Goo line. If you can make the Beauty Goo roll backwards off of the line, she will fall down an invisible pathway with very strong airflow and explode in an invisible tube. The Goos will fall down onto ground below the boundary line, and a torch-lit wall can be seen with a mysterious drawing of a Goo ball connected in a bond by three lines and two formulas written near it. A sign can also be found below that reads:
Spoiler:"It's so simple." - the original Sign Painter
The formulas on the wall appear to be for the force of Gravity (Fg = m*g) and the Spring force (Fs=k*x) of one Goo bond. Assuming there is a damping term (Fd = d*v), the system the elastic physics of one Goo bond operates under would be a damped simple harmonic oscillator.
There is an achievement for finding this Easter egg in the Steam and Games for Windows – Live versions of the game called "Subversive Traveler".
The development of the first Donkey Kong game was outsourced by Nintendo to Ikegami Tsushinki, a company who is believed but not confirmed to have previously worked with Nintendo on several of their early ventures into arcade games. They produced and sold to Nintendo somewhere between 8,000 and 20,000 printed circuit boards for Donkey Kong, and it is believed that Nintendo went on to copy an additional 80,000 boards from this batch without Ikegami's permission. Despite the sale, no formal contract was known to have been signed between the two companies, meaning Ikegami owned the source code to Donkey Kong as they had created it and never sent it over to Nintendo.
In order to create a sequel on the coattails of the success of the first game, Nintendo employed subcontractor Iwasaki Giken to reverse-engineer Donkey Kong so Nintendo’s staff could develop the game's sequel, Donkey Kong Jr. Should this narrative be verifiably true, this would make Donkey Kong Jr. Nintendo's first "in-house" video game created by themselves without any assistance from outside development companies. Ikegami viewed this use of the source code as blatant copyright infringement, and sued Nintendo in 1983 for ¥580,000,000 (around $91,935,800). A trial in 1990 ruled that Nintendo did not own the source code to the original Donkey Kong, and the parties settled out of court that year for an undisclosed amount.
The game faced controversy around its release, as it was reported that Ubisoft initially recalled copies of the game in the UK due to a line that was considered offensive. Ubisoft refuted this however, stating the title wasn't being recalled. The game was later re-released in the UK with a PEGI 12 rating.
The Toy Time Galaxy theme in Super Mario Galaxy and the Supermassive Galaxy theme in Super Mario Galaxy 2 may both be based on "Mario Syndrome", an alternative dance remix of the Super Mario Bros. overworld theme by Japanese act Bonus 21 that was released as a 12" and cassette single in 1986. Both themes feature similar instrumentation and compositional choices as "Mario Syndrome", though foregoes the 1986 song's dance elements.
At the start of the game, Brandi Broke is pregnant with her third child and the last conceived with her late husband Skip. However, due to Skip's genetic file being unlinked, the baby will take Brandi's genetics, and will always be male, essentially always making him an opposite sex clone of his mother. Linking Skip so that he is properly linked before the baby is born will result in the baby being born with the genetics of Brandi and Skip, and the chance of it being female.
There is an error with her memories in that she gave birth to their second child Beau after Skip died, yet her third child is recognized by the game as his. Since Brandi could not have gotten pregnant with the third child when she was already pregnant with Beau, Skip could not be the father unless he somehow impregnated her post-mortem. This, however, contradicts a picture in the family album that shows Brandi about to give birth to Beau with both Skip and their first child Dustin present.
During the 7th episode of the EA Community Team Cast, series executive producer and general manager Lyndsay Pearson claimed that the memory contradictions were an oversight, and that the "cloning" technique was used because the data for Brandi's pregnancy kept getting lost.
The mini-fridge in Travis' room at Motel "NO MORE HEROES" can be used to heal him, even though it's impossible to lose health outside of ranking matches and assassination gigs and Travis' health is always restored after completing or failing a gig. Both the game and its instruction manual still point out this feature regardless. This suggests that there were either plans for enemies to appear in the overworld of Santa Destroy that could harm Travis outside of his missions, or it was implemented purely for creative effect.
In the Game Modifiers menu, one of the cheat options is called "Awesomeness Detection". Its description states that it "Lets Harmonix know that you are awesome!", and Harmonix claimed that high-level players should play the game with this option turned on without actually revealing what it does, causing confused players to speculate on what it did. The Official Harmonix Podcast eventually confessed in 2010 that it did nothing.
Co-director Neil Druckmann snuck in several Easter eggs which directly referenced The Secret of Monkey Island, including the likeness of its main protagonist Guybrush Threepwood. Naughty Dog later received permission from The Walt Disney Company to leave these references in the game.
In Chapter 11, a slightly burned portrait resembling Guybrush can be found that Nathan and Sam will comment on, not recognizing him among the other pirate founders of Libertalia they do know. This is hinted at further during the sigils puzzle in the same chapter, one of which is that of a monkey. A statue of the Guybrush figure can be found among statues of the founders during Chapter 12, with Nathan again conveniently forgetting his name. Spoiler:A more intact version of the painting can be found later in Chapter 15, but with the word "THIEF" painted overtop its subject as are the rest of the portraits found near it, and a barely legible plaque underneath revealing his name to be "Guy Wood". In Chapter 18 while in Thomas Tew's mansion, Nathan and Elena stumble upon a dinner table surrounded by the corpses of the founders. Guy Wood's corpse appears among the rest, with a monkey sigil found close to him on the table.
Two more references to The Secret of Monkey Island can be found in the game's dialogue, including one moment where Nathan comments "That is the second biggest cistern I've ever seen." This references a running gag from the series where Guybrush would commonly remark that something is the second biggest version of that thing that he's seen. The second piece of dialogue refers to Monkey Island itself with the line "Big, skull-shaped island? What?"
The letters you collect can sometimes give hints on how to rescue other characters; one such hint is a letter titled "The Girl" which says the following:
Three Rabbids from the Raving Rabbids series, a Ubisoft property, are guest characters exclusive to the Wii version of the game. One is a generic Raving Rabbid, a new Rabbid variant named Ninja Rabbid that is a parody of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the last, named Splinter Rabbid, is a Rabbid variant from the first two Raving Rabbids games who is a parody of Sam Fisher, the protagonist of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell series, another Ubisoft property.
Revealed in concept art by former Retro Studios employee Sammy Hall, Retro Studios actually worked on two major projects for Nintendo using two of their biggest IPs before Nintendo cancelled them for unknown reasons.
A pre-release screenshot shows an unused American bus modeled after buses owned by Coach USA, and was most likely scrapped to avoid copyright issues with that company.
A pre-release screenshot of the game shows that the buses that appear in the European tracks were originally designed with a different livery that resembles the livery used by buses owned by Stagecoach Group in the United Kingdom. This design was changed for the final release of Burnout, most likely to avoid copyright issues with Stagecoach Group.
There is a glitch whenever Jak walks in front of a mirror that causes a slightly different model of Jak with dark grey horns to appear alongside the "reflected" second model of the room, initially suggesting that Jak was used as a test model for shaping Dark Jak's horns. However, a 2003 promotional contest advertisement hosted by Cartoon Network's programming block Toonami features a higher resolution model of Jak with white horns instead, suggesting that the model sent to Cartoon Network still had the horns on them and they just altered the model for the advertisement, or that Jak was originally supposed to have visible horns like Dark Jak.
The book that Pry Guy holds is extremely similar to the book Goombella uses to tattle on opponents in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.
In the ninth level of Chapter 2 "Beauty and the Electric Tentacle", a Beauty Goo is stuck on a large Goo line. If you can make the Beauty Goo roll backwards off of the line, she will fall down an invisible pathway with very strong airflow and explode in an invisible tube. The Goos will fall down onto ground below the boundary line, and a torch-lit wall can be seen with a mysterious drawing of a Goo ball connected in a bond by three lines and two formulas written near it. A sign can also be found below that reads:
The Toy Time Galaxy theme in Super Mario Galaxy and the Supermassive Galaxy theme in Super Mario Galaxy 2 may both be based on "Mario Syndrome", an alternative dance remix of the Super Mario Bros. overworld theme by Japanese act Bonus 21 that was released as a 12" and cassette single in 1986. Both themes feature similar instrumentation and compositional choices as "Mario Syndrome", though foregoes the 1986 song's dance elements.
At the start of the game, Brandi Broke is pregnant with her third child and the last conceived with her late husband Skip. However, due to Skip's genetic file being unlinked, the baby will take Brandi's genetics, and will always be male, essentially always making him an opposite sex clone of his mother. Linking Skip so that he is properly linked before the baby is born will result in the baby being born with the genetics of Brandi and Skip, and the chance of it being female.
In the Game Modifiers menu, one of the cheat options is called "Awesomeness Detection". Its description states that it "Lets Harmonix know that you are awesome!", and Harmonix claimed that high-level players should play the game with this option turned on without actually revealing what it does, causing confused players to speculate on what it did. The Official Harmonix Podcast eventually confessed in 2010 that it did nothing.
Co-director Neil Druckmann snuck in several Easter eggs which directly referenced The Secret of Monkey Island, including the likeness of its main protagonist Guybrush Threepwood. Naughty Dog later received permission from The Walt Disney Company to leave these references in the game.