Demon Sword is a tough game, which means that you're going to be seeing this a lot:

Which means that you're going to have to start the whole thing over... or does it?

Instead of just pressing Start to go back to the title screen, what if you held Down on the D-Pad and pressed B, A, B, A?

A password? And the option to continue? Awesome!

And to put in your passwords?

Go to the title screen

Hold Up on the D-Pad, press A, B, A, B

And you're back at the password entry screen!

Makes progressing so much easier.

If you're tired of the normal progression of fighters in the NES Punch-Out!! game, you can try fighting the guys completely out of order for an interesting experience.

First, start putting in this password:

Now, when you get to the zero at the end, press A + B + Select all at the same time to confirm the password. It's kind of tough to get the presses right, but if you do

You start out with all the titles, and fighting King Hippo instead of Glass Joe, and the opponents only get harder from here, too. Can you handle it?

Deadly Towers is a pretty terrible game, but that doesn't mean that we don't have any tips to make your journey a little less tedious.

So, first start a new game

and then immediately kill off your guy.

Then you get a password.

Make the first two characters EF or FE and then check your inventory screen.

Bam! Heavy artillery!

It doesn't make the game any more fun, just a whole lot easier. One for two's not too bad, I'd say.

The original Metroid game is pretty tough. You have to take your bounty hunter through the bowels of a planet to find powerups and defeat the Metroids that lie within.

But the problem is that you start out super-weak, which means that you're going to be seeing this a lot

Though you do get passwords to help maintain your progress. And just like Kid Icarus, you can put in some really easy to remember passwords for some neat effects.

For example, try putting in this password:

Is Justin Bailey a real person or is this just a quirk of the password system? I have no idea, but it's a very useful password either way.

Then you start with Samus's suit off, the Wave Beam, five energy tanks, 255 missiles (which is more than you are normally allowed to carry, it rolls back to 205 if you pick any up), and both minibosses defeated. The only thing left to do is go find the ice beam and then fight the last boss.

Plus it's super-easy to remember, which is also a plus.

The Adventures of Lolo is a game where you have to take your guy through a series of rooms in a tower to rescue his girlfriend. Each room is a puzzle that must be solved to proceed, get it wrong and

You dead.

But you get a password that keeps your place, so you can try the room you failed in over and over again until you succeed.

But what happens if you get stuck, really stuck?

Well, take a look at this sample of the level codes for the game:

Notice anything? Several of the codes are the same, they just have the 2nd and 4th letters swapped. So, you might want to go back and play with some of the codes you already have. Swapping some letters around might let you skip ahead. Although the puzzle's going to be harder, so good luck with it!

And, just for your reference, here's a list of all of the correlations (with all the codes removed, can't make it too easy for you... yet)

Level 1-2 < - > Level 3-3
Level 1-3 < - > Level 3-2
Level 1-4 < - > Level 3-1
Level 1-5 < - > Level 2-5
Level 2-1 < - > Level 2-4
Level 2-2 < - > Level 2-3
Level 3-5 < - > Level 4-1
Level 4-2 < - > Level 6-5
Level 4-3 < - > Level 6-4
Level 4-4 < - > Level 6-3
Level 4-5 < - > Level 6-2
Level 5-1 < - > Level 6-1
Level 5-2 < - > Level 5-5
Level 5-3 < - > Level 5-4
Level 7-1 < - > Level 7-2
Level 7-3 < - > Level 10-1
Level 7-4 < - > Level 9-5
Level 7-5 < - > Level 9-4
Level 8-1 < - > Level 9-3
Level 8-2 < - > Level 9-2
Level 8-3 < - > Level 9-1
Level 8-4 < - > Level 8-5
Level 10-2 < - > Level 10-3

You'll notice that this trick stops working after you hit 10-3. You're just going to have to tough it out through the end of the game, I'm afraid.

Kid Icarus holds a special place in a lot of people's hearts for some reason.

But it's a pretty unforgiving game, especially at the beginning. Take one wrong step and:

I've never actually managed to make it too far without resorting to putting in cheats. Like this one:

Once you put that one in, you're given all of the treasures that you normally spend the majority of the game getting

And you get transported to the final stage with unlimited life. You can't lose!

Unless you're playing this on the Wii Virtual Console. This secret password doesn't work on that version of the game. Just on the original NES, I'm afraid.

Generally, Castlevania games are hard. Your Belmont is just about the most unwieldy thing on the planet. He's about as nimble as a cinder block. The enemies, on the other hand, are extremely agile, powerful, and sitting in really unfair positions. And what all that means in games like Castlevania 3 is that you're going to see this a lot.

Kind of disheartening to see, really. Especially since some of the later levels are absolutely brutal and will suck up all your lives even before you get to the boss of the stage.

So, you do what anyone would do in that position, you call out for help.

Which never works, but it makes you feel better, right? Except... What's this?

Yep, you now have ten Belmonts in reserve instead of the paltry 2 that you normally get.

Awesome.

Just remember to put the name back in when you go to enter in the passwords that you're given to continue your progress.