Easter Eggs and 1UP Secrets in King of Monsters 2

Pasky

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So I recently cleared this game and have been playing it all week. Someone pointed out to me that on Replay Burners the player gets a 1UP on stage 1 I wasn't aware of. I knew about the timed button press 1UP's in stage 4 and 7 but had no idea about this one.

So I tried it myself and it works which got me excited. I reverse engineered the game and was able to find the routine where the check occurs to see if you're in the spot for the 1UP and there are actually 3 more in stages 2, 4, and 6.

You need to have less than 3 bars of health, be within 9x9 pixels of a specific position and neutral jump in place to uncover them.

The other thing I found was just random dumb luck. I was playing and I uncovered a hidden Santa item when I was trying to 1CC the game with Super Geon. I went back to the game in MAME and checked and I could get it every time. It was a neat easter egg the developers put in that's extremely obscure to get. You have to once again be within 9x9 pixels of a specific potion and taunt on the spot. Easiest way to taunt is to do a powerup attack and land it on the boss.. If you do it correctly you get a developer portrait (that changes depending on which character you're using) that each cause a random status effect to your character (but do no damage). Some even refill your life to full!

25 years later and still finding new things, it was really exciting uncovering this.


TL;DR I located secret 1UP's in stage 1, 2, 4, and 6 and also found easter eggs located in every stage.

Here's a video that I made demonstrating it all, I hope you guys enjoy:

 
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Kid Panda

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I was under the assumption that you had to cheese most of the game as it wouldn't let you grapple win after the first few times.
 

Pasky

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I was under the assumption that you had to cheese most of the game as it wouldn't let you grapple win after the first few times.

There's lots of strategy involved, you don't cheese the game but you do have to rely on powerup attacks since you can't really grapple. Grapples are pre-determined once they happen, the winner is already decided the moment one gets initiated the back and forth struggle is purely cosmetic lol. Also, it's random, more like which frame you get the grab determines the winner it's not like you get the first two and then will lose later ones more often, just stupid randomness. Shame cus the grabs look so cool but you have to avoid ever getting into them because they are risky.

I actually cleared this today using Super Geon which is the hardest of the 3 characters to do it with because his level 3 super has a ton of startup and his horn summon is not very useful on later bosses. I got the Geon Clear video coming soon, it's processing Youtube :D. My final score (395,740) also beats the Super Geon highscore in Gamest :D (http://stormoid.com/gamest/k.html). I can't find any other legitimate Geon clear anywhere (Nico, Youtube or other sites). Just the faked TAS shit like World of Longplays. You can find legitimate atomic guy clears everywhere because he's the easiest to beat it with.
 
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MCF 76

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Fucking A Pasky, you are hardcore as hell bro lol. Ready go see the video i like this game alot, one of my first Neo games.
 

Tanooki

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Thanks for the video and the commentary too in the thread. I'm awful at this game but also thought it was one to cheese around with too, but you clearly played it more than enough to figure it out right and find those gem eggs hiding in there too.
 

Pasky

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I actually found more this morning! Each stage has an easter egg and there's actually some beneficial ones like the stage 3 portrait for geon refills your health. I also found another hidden extend in stage 4!

I also figured out the trigger I initially thought to uncover the easter egg is actually incorrect. What needs to happen is you need to LAND a super on the boss and do your winning pose in that exact spot. So not only do you have to stand in the position but you have to actually nail the super on the boss so your character does his taunt.

Stages 1, 2, 4, and 6 have secret 1UP's. Every stage has a developer portrait easter egg.

I'll be re-doing everything to show them all off. Maybe done by this weekend, so many secrets in this game.
 
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wyo

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Cool stuff, nice work Pasky!
 

Pasky

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Ok so, there are developer easter eggs located in every single stage and I found 2 more 1UP items located in stage 4 and 6. I revised the first post and made a new video (it should be done processing within 15 minutes of this post) showing all the secret 1UP's, all the developer easter eggs and even threw in the timing bonus 1UP's a lot of people don't know about.

I made a lua script in mame to display the 9x9 areas in the video and put a cursor on the player so it's easier for people to find it themselves if they choose to do so.

It was really exciting finding this stuff 25 years after the game was released. The developer easter eggs are so obscurely hidden with the conditions to uncover them.

Anyways, I updated the first post with the new info and video, hope everyone else finds it as fascinating as I did.
 

Pasky

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Is that related to infinite score issue?

No. I believe that's due to enemy summons during boss fights? Even then im not sure how that would work with there being a timer.

Also what the fuck? Do you even read? There's even a TL;DR in the first post
 

NeoSneth

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i think you're the only person to really put this much effort into the game. On the whole, it's disregarded because of the non-technical grapples and gameplay. I was always 99% certain the grapples were complete bullshit, but there was always some hope that someone would find the trick. Except.....there is no trick to it. I never even think to play this version becauseof that BS.

Congrats at least. Some Retro blog should totally feature this.
 
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Pasky

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i think you're the only person to really put this much effort into the game. On the whole, it's disregarded because of the non-technical grapples and gameplay. I was always 99% certain the grapples were complete bullshit, but there was always some hope that someone would find the trick. Except.....there is no trick to it. I never even think to play this version becauseof that BS.

Congrats at least. Some Retro blog should totally feature this.

Totally understandable, the game advertises itself as a wrestling game and you're basically forced to not play that way to complete it. I absolutely love it though despite its flaws.
 

andsuchisdeath

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Congrats at least. Some Retro blog should totally feature this.

Pfft "some retro blog".

My question is, have these easter eggs been known in Japanese game centers for years?

Italian members of this forum (Gemant?), do you have the answers?
 
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Pasky

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Pfft "some retro blog".

My question is though, have they known this trick in Japanese game centers for years?

Italian members of this forum, do you have the answer.

I'm certain some of the 1UP's were known, and I'm certain people have gotten the easter eggs by accident as I got the level 7 easter egg by accident but I doubt they knew how, my theory is some were known and some weren't. I also believe no one probably knew the trigger to activate the easter eggs, I know some of the Japanese knew the trigger for the 1UP's as is shown in the replay burner replay where they get the one on Stage 1, but again I don't think they knew of the others or at least not all of them.
 

Raguy

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On this link, you can see 1UP here :

http://www.giantbomb.com/g-mantle/3005-26108/images/

2469243-kingofthemonsters2.jpg
 

Pasky

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Hmmm, I'll take a look.

EDIT:
Is that the SNES version? I'm pretty certain that doesn't exist on the Neo Geo version unless it requires some other sort of trigger, the jumping routine isn't used on stage 3, 5 or 7. Maybe a proto or review copy?

That or possibly a rare drop from a question mark box when the bosses die?

EDIT EDIT:

I checked the Prototype rom, there's no jump handler for a 1UP on stage 7 either.
 
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Raguy

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It is neo geo version, just take your time, you 'll find this 1UP.:)

kingofthemonsters2.jpg
 

Pasky

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It is neo geo version, just take your time, you 'll find this 1UP.:)

kingofthemonsters2.jpg

Here's the odd thing about that 1UP. Every single 1UP (and the developer portraits also) in the game copies your X coordinate and uses it when it spawns. That one is away from the player which makes me think it isn't a triggered 1UP. I don't know if a 1UP can come from one of the question mark boxes you get after beating some of the bosses during the boss rush, but I think if anything, that's where that 1UP came from. I'll check out the item boxes whenever I get time.
 

Montatez

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Dude. Pasky. Yes this is awesome. One of my favorite neo series. I love playing it and love all this stuff! Thank you for this truly man. The grapple thing always pissed me off.

Too bad I am not that good at this game. I have tried over the years but to no avail. The Genesis version I could play well when it came out but never could get the learning curve of this one.

Again. Thanks. Your the real American hero.
hasbrogijoe.jpg
 

SuperGun

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This is indeed really cool to see. Let me ask you, since you've looked over the game code for flags & markers, could you search for something for me? I've asked the crew over at TCRF but they either ignore or never even respond.

We're trying to locate the remnance of the original title screen. (be it still embedded in the proto rom build and/or the final rom build. The title screen was Roman numeral style and with the main & sub titles reversed.

It would be great to have a crisp emulated pic of this for my website.
 

Pasky

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This is indeed really cool to see. Let me ask you, since you've looked over the game code for flags & markers, could you search for something for me? I've asked the crew over at TCRF but they either ignore or never even respond.

We're trying to locate the remnance of the original title screen. (be it still embedded in the proto rom build and/or the final rom build. The title screen was Roman numeral style and with the main & sub titles reversed.

It would be great to have a crisp emulated pic of this for my website.

Unfortunately graphics aren't my fortay, I wouldn't know how to go about looking for that. I'm pretty well versed in 68K assembly and used the MAME debugger to reverse engineer the triggers and others things to find this. Sorry.
 
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