After being worked on for two years, the original 1984 draft of the game explained by EA's founder Trip Hawkins to the retired American football coach and sportscaster John Madden was only going to feature 6 or 7 players per team on the field. When he heard this, Madden refused to put his name on the game unless it featured 11 players on both sides, stating "If it isn’t 11 on 11, it isn’t real football.” Not expecting Madden to be as involved in the game's planning as he became and needing his endorsement and involvement to ensure the game's success after two prior failed endorsements with other football players, it was delayed by an additional three years as the development team struggled to implement 11 on 11 play. This led to EA staff to start referring to John Madden Football as "Trip's Folly" due to its lengthy development, and Madden himself to start believing the game had been cancelled. The game was eventually finished after EA hired Bethesda Softworks to help work on it, although their help was limited due to a lawsuit between the two over another football game they worked on entitled Gridiron! that extended the game's development even longer, and was released in 1988.
When playing as either Krauser or HUNK in The Mercenaries game mode, their respective theme music is the Fourth and Eighth Mission Tunes from the game P.N.03, which was also developed by Capcom.
There is a slot machine based on the Capcom game Mega Man 10, several of which can be found in the Yucatan Casino. However, there is another slot machine based on Capcom's Street Fighter series (using artwork from Street Fighter IV) that went unused and can be found in the the PC version's files.
In story mode, Sticky Fingaz and Method Man can be seen playing the game itself based on the console version the physical copy is being played on: •The PlayStation 2 version will show them both playing the game with DualShock V2 controllers •The Xbox version will show them both playing the game with Xbox S controllers. •The GameCube version will show them both playing the game with Nintendo GameCube controllers.
In an interview with Xander Mobus, who voices the Announcer in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, he revealed that Nintendo, in an effort to stop character leaks, would often throw him off about which characters would be in the game or DLC by giving him "red herrings", otherwise they would give him some ridiculous names to say that would be far-fetched. He even claimed that because of the intensity of this, he didn't believe that the Duck Hunt dog and duck were in the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U versions of the game as playable characters, and assumed Nintendo was referring to the Duck Hunt cartridge being in the game instead, and thus believed it to be a fake.
This also caused a rather humorous incident following a hoax created by YouTuber Artsy Omni to promote his "Smashified" series, where after it had spread, Mobus actually did a line read for Rayman, the subject of the hoax.
According to video game researcher Liam Robertson, Rockstar Games considered porting the game to the Wii U as they were at one point creating a prototype for the system's hardware, but it was soon scrapped due to the Wii U's poor sales. In an interview with IGN, Dan Houser was asked whether the game would receive either a PC or Wii U release:
"Everything else is up for consideration, that's all I can give you. The main thing is we are not...we are a third party publisher. We're not Nintendo, we're not Sony, We're not Microsoft. We love all of them in different ways. But we can do what we want wherever there's the appropriate business opportunity and chance to find a market. If that's on Apple we put something on Apple. Wherever it might be. I think that's the fun in what we do. We see ourselves as a content company that uses technology. We don't make it; we use it to make the most fun stuff"
Former Nintendo president Reggie Fils-Aime was soon asked about the company's attempts to provide action-based games for its fan base, to which he responded:
"In the end, it is Nintendo’s responsibility to have a large installed base, to have development tools that help the developers and publishers create great content, and essentially create an environment where teams like Rockstar can bring their very best content to our platform, and if we do that hopefully the very best content throughout the entire industry will show up on Wii U."
This is the only entry in the Super Smash Bros. series that lacks an opening cutscene once it is booted, which was likely done to save space on the game cartridge.
Starting Prologue: World of Chaos and Chapter XVI: Sovereign Power while wearing the Star Mercenary costume, which resembles Fox McCloud from the Star Fox series, will turn Jeanne's jet plane into an Arwing. Wearing the costume during the former chapter will feature Jeanne wearing it as well, with a swapped color palette from green to orange. Wearing it during the latter chapter on top of turning the jet into an Arwing will replace the jet's reticle, weapons and sound effects with those from the Star Fox series including being able to fire Smart Bombs, charged shots, and replacing its Umbra Climax with the Hyper Laser. The cutscene at the end of Verse 2 will also switch the receiver sound effect with that of an Arwing's, as well as add three additional Arwings flying behind Jeanne towards Fimbulventr as a nod to the original four-pilot Star Fox team. Additionally, scanning a Fox or Falco amiibo in the Nintendo Switch version will display a message from Rodin implying that Slippy leant the Arwing to Jeanne.
Exclusive only to the Wii U and Nintendo Switch ports of the first two games in the series, several costumes were added that are based on Nintendo characters with additional features tied to them:
•Both the Mushroom Kingdom Princess and Sarasaland Princess costumes resemble the princesses Peach and Daisy from the Mario series, with Mario and Luigi charms attached to their dresses respectively. Coins will drop instead of Halos once enemies are defeated and collecting them will play the coin sound effect from the series. Attacks that summon Madama Butterfly are now replaced with Bowser's hands and feet.
•The Hero of Hyrule costume resembles Link from The Legend of Zelda series. Equipping the Shuraba with this costume will turn the current weapon into the Master Sword. Wearing the costume replaces the Halos with Rupees as well as the standard sound effects with those from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, specifically because it is series director Hideki Kamiya's favorite Zelda game. If Jeanne wears the costume, sound effects from the The Legend of Zelda can be heard instead.
•The Galactic Bounty Hunter costume resembles Samus Aran from the Metroid series. Samus's blaster cannon can be used without needing to equip a weapon skill. Furthermore, Samus' visor works differently between the two games.
•The Star Mercenary costume exclusive to Bayonetta 2 resembles Fox McCloud from the Star Fox series. Equipping the Love is Blue/All 4 One with this costume will turn the current weapon into Arwing Guns, each having charms that resemble Fox, Falco, Peppy, and Slippy. If Bayonetta dons the costume, sound effects will be replaced with those from Star Fox 64. However, if Jeanne dons the costume, sound effects from Star Fox will be heard instead.
•The Chain Chomp foot weapon, also exclusive to Bayonetta 2, can be obtained by completing all chapters on Hard difficulty. The Super Mario 64 Golden LP can be given to Rodin and he will give Bayonetta the Chain Chomp, which plays sound effects from that game. Upon performing the Umbran Dance with either Bayonetta or Jeanne will give them Mario and Luigi's caps with both letters replaced with the letter B and J, while also having fake mustaches.
Originally there were plans to have Bayek incapacitated or killed early on in the game, with his wife Aya becoming the main character of the game. This idea was scrapped for then-unknown reasons, but was later revealed by anonymous Ubisoft employees in a 2020 Bloomberg article investigating internal abuse and sexism among the company's executives.
In The Ballad of Gay Tony DLC mission, "Caught With Your Pants Down", Luis was originally supposed to meet Yusuf in Westminster to pick up his Buckingham Swift helicopter. In the final game, Luis meets Yusuf at Star Junction, and he already has the helicopter.
The DLC, "Legacy of the First Blade, Shadow Heritage", was the subject of controversy and backlash from the LGBTQ+ community. At the end of the DLC, the player character was forced to be part of a heterosexual relationship, ending with the player character having a child with another character. Many players saw this as a disservice to the LGBTQ+ community, and Ubisoft going back on their commitment of diversity and inclusion within the game. Despite allowing the player to choose their sexuality through multiple romantic encounters throughout the game, the DLC gave no option to decline the relationship, forcing players to engage in the heterosexual relationship. Furthermore, completing this unlocked an achievement titled, "Growing Up". The developers apologized and released a patch for the DLC. In the patch, the ending is still the game, and a baby is born, but the player character is allowed to clarify that they choose to do so to "further their bloodline", and not for romantic reasons. The title of the achievement was also changed to "Blood of Leonidas".
There were possibly going to be further sequels to Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse released on the NES, but due to the high sales and popularity of Konami's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES games, their development team was prioritized above all else leaving several other dev teams, including Castlevania's, to survive on the lesser profits their series generated.
When Sonic or Knuckles reaches the goal as Super Sonic/Knuckles, they revert back to their original form. The player can transform into Super Sonic/Knuckles again in a brief window of time before the Act Clear results screen appears, but this causes a glitch forcing Sonic/Knuckles to quickly revert to their original form, trapping them in midair in an endless walking cycle as the current stage's music continues to loop, and leaving you stuck without advancing to the next stage as the Act Clear results screen will not appear.
This glitch can also be performed after finishing a fight with Dr. Robotnik, when the player frees the Animals from the Capsule and then transforms into Super Sonic/Knuckles immediately after. You will still be trapped in midair, but unlike regular Acts, the Act Clear results screen will appear and allow you to advance to the next stage normally.
If the player goes to the location in the attached image, they'll find a building called the 'Sanctum Sanctorum' that belongs to one of Marvel's other super heroes, Doctor Strange.
In a Famicom Tsuushin magazine interview, the game's designer Masanori Hara stated that Lloyd & Natalie's relationship is complex. They tried to arrange it with the hope of getting to make another sequel of the series, so they didn't want to focus too much on just the robots. They also thought it would be cool for the players to watch human relationships.
Yoshi Touch & Go started off as a tech demo for the GameCube called "Balloon Trip," a side-scrolling platformer. The game later shifted to the Nintendo DS in order to focus on the touch screen, as they wanted to make a feature that would allow the player to draw paths on.
The executive producer of Dead Rising 3 Josh Bridge, stated that Blue Castle Games had to create the game from scratch by looking at videos from Dead Rising, because they could not obtain any kind of code of the game from Capcom to build the sequel from.
Before the singular story concept of Sonic fighting against Dr. Robotnik, Sonic's character development was very different. During the 2018 Game Developers Conference, game designer Hirokazu Yasuhara and character designer Naoto Ohshima revealed that the series almost had connections to World War II.
"Sonic" was originally going to be a fighter pilot who earned the nickname "hedgehog" because of how his hair stood up while flying his plane at high speeds, while the Sonic the Hedgehog design known today was merely a nose decal on the front of his plane. The details of his time in the war were then re-imagined as a children's picture book by the pilot's wife. She took the Sonic the Hedgehog design and based it on her war veteran husband, making the game a story within a story. American pilot Chuck Yeager, the first pilot to break the speed of sound, was also mentioned in Yasuhara and Ohshima's pitch summary.
Additionally, they showed off line art for a proposed dance sequence during the game, originally intending for Sonic to be a trendy dancer, but this along with the meta-story elements were scrapped during development.
In the third installment of the Untold History of Japanese Game Developers book series released in 2018, Ohshima reiterated that Sonic was going to be a human boy, but SEGA rejected the design, not wanting their mascot to be a human, and Ohshima admitted that he does not have any concept art of Sonic as a human due to his proposal just being a basic outline. Despite this rejection, the core layout of Sonic the Hedgehog's speed-based gameplay and map design was set in stone by this time.
There is a slot machine based on the Capcom game Mega Man 10, several of which can be found in the Yucatan Casino. However, there is another slot machine based on Capcom's Street Fighter series (using artwork from Street Fighter IV) that went unused and can be found in the the PC version's files.
If the player goes to the location in the attached image, they'll find a building called the 'Sanctum Sanctorum' that belongs to one of Marvel's other super heroes, Doctor Strange.
Before the singular story concept of Sonic fighting against Dr. Robotnik, Sonic's character development was very different. During the 2018 Game Developers Conference, game designer Hirokazu Yasuhara and character designer Naoto Ohshima revealed that the series almost had connections to World War II.