One might recall the internet’s ramp up of excitement, hullaballoo, and pranks back when the date from 1985’s Back to the Future (October 21, 2015) was approaching. The fighting game community gets to celebrate a similar albeit much less known happening today (February 1) as this very date was printed in Super Smash Bros. Melee manual.
Melee, as surprising as it may seem, is set to celebrate its 23rd birthday this year, but why was there reference to a particular day that was then nearly a quarter century in the future?
Before the days of Xbox achievements and PlayStation trophies, Nintendo was offering its players similar such appreciations for progressing through games.
On page 48 of the Melee manual you’ll find a Mario hat-wearing Kirby standing near a box marked “Special.” This box highlights how the game will document the day and time players achieve these hidden goals, and shows an example for beating the game’s 100 Man Melee Challenge.
Next to the example text is an example date and time: 02/01/2024 at 12:47:33. You can see a larger image of the page by clicking the thumbnail here:
Click images for larger versions
Outside of artificially Shopping this in while printing, in order for this to happen the creators of the manual seemingly would have needed to set the internal GameCube clock some two decades into the future.
It’s hard to tease out any intention behind doing something like this, unless of course we wish to venture into the more conspiratorial waters that suggest this was a hint to unlock something more in the game.
Those who still have their GameCubes and original Melee discs might spend some extra time today searching the game for any irregularities, and perhaps they might start by exploring the 100 Man Melee Challenge with Kirby.
Do you think there’s any intent behind this somewhat mysterious post, or is it just a matter of devs toying with extraneous features while putting together the Melee manual?
