Back in my day we unlocked characters by pressing a series of buttons in a specific order and at the right moment
this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
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Back in my day, we unlocked characters by meeting a specific list of obscure criteria, which are only possible at random times, during gameplay that are only ever hinted at through a cryptic set of clues hidden throughout the game.
We had to, because your progression was deleted except for the score on the leaderboards between rounds. We also had to put coins in to play.
Up, up, down, down........
And there was a cheat-code to unlock them all immediately, in case you got the game to play with your friends. That way you could skip grinding the single player campaign to unlock characters for multiplayer.
I really miss cheat codes. It was a special kind of fun to explore all the cheats, clip through everything, be invincible. I hate it when developers force a certain experience on me. I bought it, I should be allowed to play however I want.
Or if you were like me and just wanted to see what would happen when you turned on every cheat at once, including games that don’t have them using GameShark.
I didn’t understand how it worked at first and was worried the GameShark was going to brick my PlayStation one day because it made some of my games crash.
Wow, GameShark. Core memory unlocked. Thank you for this
Back in my day, we had to use cheat codes to unlock characters and secret levels because there wasn't actually an unlocking system.
Like, you didn't unlock Reptile in Mortal Kombat. You had to use a cheat code to play as him.
I completely forgot that doing all the bullshit for Reptile was just to fight him and get a 10 million score bonus for defeating him, not to actually play as him.
But grandpa, how did you earn a sense of pride and accomplishment if you didn’t throw real money to the business men for every little thing you do?!
It felt rewarding.
Was just playing Sonic Triple Trouble 16bit and unlocked Knuckles at the end, which not only allows you to play with him but the levels/story line is unique. Pleasant surprise!
“hey everybody, an old man is talking!”
Original tagline of C-Span
I paid sixty bucks for Cammy, Fei-Long, T-Hawk and Chun-Li.
That was after paying every time I lost and paying-to-win in a whole bunch of games.
Man, you don't want to know how much cash a single four player playthrough of TMNT could cost.
Chun Li
You mean Dee Jay? Chun Li was in the original release. Everyone else there came in the new challengers.
Yeah, obviously. I have no idea why I put Chun-Li there, what the hell. I'm not even editing it to be correct. It's such a weird brainfart it deserves to carry on existing.
maybe the community name should be ttrpgmemes
I think most people probably aren't looking at the community name. Confused me too.
And if you don’t have time to play, they add a cheat code to unlock everything.
and sometimes you didn't even have to use a cheat code, you just press a key and open a console
...so i dusted off the ol' PS2 and played me some LEGO Star Wars...
I just remembered that a couple games i played as a kid didn't have save system so they just gave codes that needed to be entered the next time to go back there in the game XD
Oof ow ouch my old bones
madden ultimate team takes this to another level by having you pay and also grind at the same time and then a year later your progress gets reset
I bought a game and paid for the dlc as part of one of the tiers. When I started the game, all the unlockables that I usually grind and pay for with game money, were unlocked as part of the tier i bought. I was so disappointed, I felt robbed of like a good 30 hours of gameplay that I no longer had to do. Just let me unlock the shit on my own, why would anyone pay to unlock everything? I just wanted the extra characters that aren’t in the base game
"We picked princess to float two and a half screens. Then we would defeat birdo, and play a slot machine which we called a one-arm bandit on account of the crank being made from the old fake arms they gave civil war amputeeeees."
But how is this an RPG meme? Surely you actually did pay, for new character supplements etc.
Medieval II: Total War didn't try to sell you Poland as DLC.