The VC Advantage: NAR's Revenge
The Internet has made it easy to find cheats for games, but we miss the tips pages from game magazines, when the discovery of a new code could inspire you to go back to an old game. These codes aren't exactly new, but oldness is the essence of the Virtual Console! We're bringing back the classic codes every week on The VC Advantage.
Until recently, the famous "JUSTIN BAILEY" password (JUSTIN BAILEY followed by a line of dashes) was assumed to be a deliberate cheat code, designed by the programmers of the American version of Metroid (the Japanese version was a Disk System game and thus didn't need passwords). However, this has turned out not to be true. It's just a random code that happened to work. The Metroid Database verified this by examining the code in their Metroid Password Generator, and finding that the effects are a function of the individual symbols used-- that it works like any other Metroid password rather than as a cheat code. It just happens to have the cool effects it does.
NAR PASSWORD (NARPAS SWORD0 000000 000000), however, is the real deal. It doesn't work in the same way as the generated passwords, meaning that it is an intentionally-created code. It is also totally awesome.
NAR PASSWORD, presumably created by the Nintendo of America employee responsible for the Metroid password system, starts you off with infinite energy and missiles, and all weapons, except the Wave Beam. It completely nerfs the game, which, in the case of a surprisingly difficult game like Metroid, is not necessarily awful. With all the weapons, you can go straight to the minibosses and kill them, then head to Tourian and Mother Brain.
After you've done that, you can give the Password Generator a shot. Or, should you feel like going the easy way, but doing that the hard way, you can compose your own password. Should you be playing with a turbo controller on a real NES, you can try completely random passwords!
