Pro Tip of the Day

Since I didn't have much access to the Genesis library in its heyday, I missed out on a lot of games, like Zool. So now, when I do get a chance to play them, I make sure that I tip the scales to my favor any chance I get.

So, in Zool, I pause the game, and hold in the Start button. Then press Down, Up, Left, Left, A, Right, Down (which kind of spells out the word 'Dullard'). The screen will light up halfway through the code, like it's been un-paused, but it won't be. Finish out the code an you get a bonus life! And, you can do this as many times as you want to stock up!

Easy!

The original Sonic the Hedgehog game, like pretty much all the games in the series, starts out pretty easy and then ramps up the difficulty to a ridiculous level pretty quickly. So it might be nice if you could practice those advanced stages, right?

Well, then good news!

If you go to the title screen

And press Up, Down, Left, Right on Controller 1, you'll hear a sound like you've collected a Ring. Then hold down the A button and press Start. Done right, you'll be presented with a Stage Select screen!

Letting you start pretty much anywhere you want.

Just be aware that if you start at the last stage and finish it, you won't see the true ending. You need to play through enough of the game to collect the Chaos Emeralds for that.

Vectorman came out late enough in the lifecycle of the Genesis that I had pretty well moved on to other things, so I didn't get to play it very much outside of the demo machines in the store, which means that I didn't get very much playtime with it.

Which is why when I do decide to play it, after I start getting frustrated at it I pause the game

And then on Controller 1 press: C, A, Left, Left, A, C, A, B. Which kind of spells "CALL A CAB". And when I un-pause the game

Vectorman turns into what looks like a giant Mouse Pointer! He can now go anywhere and when he crosses paths with minor enemies, they explode!

But, when I got to the boss of the area, I had to fight him the old-fashioned way

So there's still some skill involved here.

The first level of Toejam & Earl seems pretty straightforward, right? Just a small island in the middle of an endless sea to get you introduced to the game, right?

But, say you progress far enough into the game that you get something that lets you travel across the surface of the water, like Icarus Wings

Then you could brave the endless expanse of water and travel Southwest until you make landfall

The island has a couple of presents on it, which is nice, but it also has a hole in it. So you obviously want to jump in

And when you do, you're greeted with a tiny island with a Lemonade Stand, a Hot Tub, and a Hula Dancer

For a nice, relaxing time, and a health refill.

And as a bonus, once you're done here, when you jump off the island you're transported back to the highest level you got to on your adventure. Extra bonus!

Flicky is a pretty cute game with a simple premise: you lead baby birds away from cats.

But what if you want to play and start on a level other than the first one? Well, you'd be in luck.

If you start the game, and when the screen full of instructions pops up

Hold Up on the Cross Pad + A Button + C Button, and while holding all of those press Start.

Done right, a screen with the phrase "ROUND 1" will appear

Which you can manipulate to say any number up to "ROUND 36"

Where Flicky gets tricky.

Good luck!

In several of the Castlevania games you'll find that the developers threw in remixed versions of some songs from prior titles, which is fine, lots of those songs were pretty good.

But occasionally they're a little harder to find than others. Like in Castlevania: Bloodlines.

You have to first go to the Options Screen

And play Song #5 and Sound Effect #073 (and leave those two selected as you exit the screen)

Then, start the game and progress until you get the "4th powerup" for your guy (an orb for John and a book for Eric)

Once you do, you'll be greeted with a song from a classic Castlevania game! But probably not the one you're thinking of. The song that's played is from the opening stage of Castlevania III, titled, shockingly, "Beginning".

Don't have a Genesis and a copy of this game handy? You're in luck! The remix can be downloaded here

I'm pretty sure you all know about the 'All Your Base' thing. It's old and played out at this point, so I'm really not going to get too far into it here.

So I'd like to draw your attention to another game that I might not have the chops to become the next 'All Your Base', but is still loaded with weird typos and mistranslations:

Beast Wrestler is a game about big ol' monsters that you have to make wrestle each other in some kind of bizarro wrestling match. The hook, I guess, is that at certain points you can take monsters that you've defeated and combine them with your current monster to make one that is possibly stronger than before. In fact, the game can explain it better than I can:

Which seems pretty straightforward... until your monster sustains heavy damage, that is

Then you're taken to my favorite typo in the whole game

A screen where they have misspelled the word 'two'.

I still crack a grin every time.

Toward the beginning of James Pond 2, you'll find a group of collectibles laid out as such:

Not too exciting, right?

But!

If you collect them in this order:

Cake
Hammer
Earth
Apple
Tap (at least, I'm pretty sure it's a Tap... like a spigot)

(the first letters of which conveniently spells out the word 'CHEAT'), you become invincible... for several minutes, in fact. I was able to clear out two whole areas and part of a third before it wore off. Just don't get too complacent, it will wear off without much of a warning.

Make no mistake, Kid Chameleon is long, difficult, and hates you. But if you've played enough of it and you want to check out what the last boss is like, then I have some good news.

First, make your way to the end of Blue Lake Woods 2 (the second stage of the game) and you'll see these P blocks over the flag.

Hop on top of them and make your way to the last one just over the flag. While there, press Down + Right + Jump + 'Special' all at the same time. Done right the stage will end and you'll have an express ticket to Plethora, the final boss

He's pretty tough to defeat, but if you run out of continues, it's pretty easy to get back and try it again.

Good luck!

This one's kind of fun.

In Golden Axe 2, if you go to the Options screen and set the type of magic to Special

Then play the game normally until you come to a boss. When the music changes, hold in the A button (or whatever button you have designated for Magic

Don't let it go until the battle's over and the screen transitions to black. Then, when you go to the bonus stage, don't press any buttons at all.

It'll kind of look like the bonus stage will go on forever until you thwack the enemies walking around, but it will eventually end.

When you start the next stage, your character will immediately unleash a magical attack

After which, you'll see that your stockpile of magic books has suddenly grown enormous!

If you use more than your character's normal maximum, you can occasionally use other characters' spells

But, if you use too many, the game will freeze, so staying within your characters' limits is probably for the best.