In Secret of Mana, magic is handled kind of oddly. Every time you meet up with an elemental, you get access to their spells and then, in short order, you find its corresponding seed that you need to seal to complete part of the main quest. Each seed that you seal raises the maximum level of the spells you can cast, which makes them stronger, but to do that gets kind of tedious. You gain levels by simply using each of the elementals, but each additional level takes progressively more uses, and the new elementals that you meet start out at level 0. And that means you've got a lot of grinding to do.

But, let's assume that you do take the time to keep them all maxed out. What does that get you, other than the strongest casters in the game?

Excellent question!

Once your characters' skills with an elemental reaches the maximum of Level 8, weird stuff starts to happen. Their casts start to behave oddly, and just plain look cooler. You'll know when the effects go off because the game pauses for dramatic effect.

This works for defensive spells, too, but they're not quite as exciting to see in picture form. I haven't really bothered to find out if the spells get any stronger or not, because I was too distracted by their pizazz. But I don't really think it matters a whole lot. I just consider it a bonus for people who took the time to keep their guys in tip-top condition.

The original Street Fighter 2 (no 'Super', 'Turbo', 'Championship', or whatever) was pretty much the launchpad of the Street Fighter series proper. It was pretty basic, you have your eight characters, each person picks one, and then you fight it out to determine who's the best button-masher.

And, just like in real life, both people couldn't pick the same character to fight in the same battle... even though this was available in the 'Championship Edition' of the game that was making the rounds in the arcades.

But what if, after seeing the Capcom logo fade in and before it fades out, you take controller one and hit Down, R, Up, L, Y, B? Do you hear a funny sound? You do?! Great!

Now, when both people try to pick the same character, they're able to, and whoever picks second gets snazzy new clothes.

Who says fighters can't be fashionable?

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.

Yeah, Earthbound's a great game and everything. Really. But, wouldn't it be awesome to be able to play the game with one hand, leaving the other free to do... other stuff?

Turns out that you totally can do that.

Just use the control pad to move (duh). You can then use the L button to check/talk to/generally interact with everything in the world. Then you can use Select to bring up your status screen,

then hit L to bring up the rest of your menus. From there you can use the control pad for navigation, L for 'confirm' and Select for 'cancel'.

Now, I'll admit that this can get a little tedious when you have to do stuff like inventory management, but it's totally possible to play this game with your left hand while your right hand is otherwise occupied (*snicker*).

While going through Ganon's tower in the Super Nintendo Legend of Zelda game, you'll notice that there's a sealed door across a pit.

It's trivial to unseal the door, just chuck a bomb across, but how do you get Link over there? There's nothing to grapple your hookshot to. There are two ways that I know of. One is to set another bomb next to you and let the explosion send you sailing over the gap, but that seems a little ham-fisted to me. A more elegant solution is to press A to start your dash, then turn to face the wall just before you actually start moving, done right, you'll smack the bricks on the walkway and bounce across the gap without actually costing you any hearts.

And since it's kind of hard to get the timing down from just my description, you can see it in action here.

In the first level of the Super NES edition of Battletoads, you have two parts where you're pelted with Hot Flaming Death From Above via a couple of volcanoes in the background. you have to keep moving in a zigzag pattern or they'll smack you right in the head. It's like they know where you're going to be.

Weird.

Well, they do know... sort of. It appears that the fireballs will take into account the direction and speed that you're going and land directly in your path. Sneaky.

But, if you get behind a chunk of scenery and run into it, you can trick the game into thinking you're running one direction or the other, but since you're not actually moving anywhere the fireballs will harmlessly explode right in front of you.

Just like that. This even works in two-player mode. Just make sure that both of you are on the same side of the scenery running the same direction. Otherwise you risk KOing your buddy... which might actually be pretty funny.

The original Bionic Commando game is kind of tough, especially when you start out. For a while it takes little more than a stiff breeze to kill your hardened combat veteran. Shoot a few enemies, though, and you notice they drop these bullet-shaped things. Collect enough of them and you get these green dots up on the top-left corner of the screen that let you take some more hits.

Now, kind of early in the game you go down this kind of long vertical shaft (*snicker*) with enemies parachuting down all around you. They come down in a pretty predictable pattern of 'just in front of you', and when shot once, they yield the precious, life-giving bullets.

If you work your way down so that you're in one of the little offshoot rooms that has an immovable barrel in it and keep running into said barrel, you'll notice that troops parachute in directly in front of you. Shoot 'em, collect the powerup with the ol' grapple arm, and repeat ad nauseum.

We're running into the barrel, by the way, so that we grapple out to the side to grab the goodie rather than diagonally up to grab the ceiling for no real reason.

Getting two or three lifepoints is probably about all you're going to want to spend time getting, since it takes progressively more bullets to get each additional point. But, hey, go all out and get all 9 if you want to. It'll make the game way easier.

Tetris Attack is a game that's all about matching up colored tiles to make them disappear before they hit the top of the screen and ruin your day. After a while the game speeds up, and your reflexes slow down (well, they seem to, anyway). Wouldn't it be great if there was some kind of way to arrest the geyser of blocks so you could think about your next move?

Other than pause, smart guy.

Right before your game ends, you'll notice that the tiles do a little panic dance just before your game ends and you off pouting in the corner. But! That's the time to strike!

Right when the tiles are doing their Dance of Doom, you need to make a clear of 4 or more tiles or a chain of at least two clears. Do that, and you'll hear a voice yell, "STOP!"

Then you'll notice the little clock-guy over there on the right. He gives you a few seconds where the stack doesn't move and you get to take a little breather. Keep the blocks just licking the top of the screen while you make combos and chains and you can extend the stop for quite some time.

Just make sure you have a clear waiting in the wings so you can reinstate the STOP! when the time runs out.

Oh, and this works on Pokémon Puzzle League, Puzzle Challenge, and Planet Puzzle League.

Super Metroid is a game full of little complexities and mysteries. For instance, let the game sit on the title screen for a couple minutes and you'll get some hints. Pretty nice of the developers to put that in, I think. The hints are pretty mundane, though, until you see this scene:

It's kind of hard to see what's going on in that picture, but the gist of it is this: Samus is low on energy, curls into a ball, sets off a Super Bomb, then gets cloaked in a mysterious light and begins regenerating health.

How do you actually do it? Great question!

First, you have to grievously injure Samus. Get her health down to below 50 with no reserve tanks. We're talking the direst of straits.

Then select your Super Bombs, making sure you have around 11 of them, and 10 Super Missiles, and 10 Regular Missiles. Highlight your Super bombs, curl into a ball (press Down). Hold L, R, and Down, then also press and hold the Fire button.

Done right, your bounty hunter will be cloaked in a mystical veil where she will somehow consume her weapons and convert them into energies. And, yeah, she'll be low on armaments, but she'll be high on life points, which is a pretty good trade-off, right?

In the US version of Final Fantasy 3 (or Final Fantasy 6 for you purists out there) you can get a cursed shield. Break the curse and you get the best shield in the game, the Paladin Shld. Pretty snazzy, eh?

Later on in the game you get another cursed item, the Cursed Ring, which is also cursed... obviously.

Logically, though, you'd assume that if you could uncurse this ring then it'd be super-awesome, too, right?

Not quite.

It doesn't matter what you do to the thing, you can wear it in a million battles, you can wear the ring by itself while you fight a thousand dinosaurs (kinky!), or you can try to fight five hundred battles by using nothing but superballs. It won't matter. The cursed ring stays cursed, and essentially worthless.

Although, you can use it to learn X-Zone if you want, so it's not a total waste.