BOOOoOoOoOoOoO!

Happy Halloween! (It's still Halloween here on the West Coast, screw you!) It seems like I've written both less than or equal too and more than four of these articles already: less than or equal to because that's the truth, and more than because I usually spend a good bit of time grabbing screenshots from my own original copies of the games on consoles they've officially been released on and adding funny quotes to them. Because I care, dammit. You're welcome.

Today is Halloween, though, and in the interest of time since there's about 40 minutes officially left in the day and I want this appropriately themed episode to launch on this most sacred of days, I'm cutting a few corners again, both in picture grabbing methods (say hi to that MobyGames watermark!) and in the length of writing. This is okay, though, as there's not much to it. Besides, today's secret can't really be shown.

What the hell am I talking about? Continue on to find out.



Ah, Mega Man 7, perhaps the most secret-filled game in the original Mega Man series. There's lots of optional stuff to find in this one, and it's all hidden fairly well but not in a completely unfair way. The one I'm focusing on today is rather simple to obtain, actually. Like many easily obtained secrets, the real trick is in knowing it even exists.

What Is It?



After beating the first four selectable robot bosses and a midboss, the second half of Dr. Wily's team appears on the stage select screen to challenge Mega Man. One of them is Shade Man (in the lower right corner above), a vampiric robot who can sap Mega Man's energy to fill his own life bar.



His stage is appropriately horror themed, with a Jack-O-Lantern miniboss in the middle of the stage, other monstrous robots, and some great moody music.

However, there's actually a hidden music track on this that may be even more appropriate . And the only clue you have that it exists is this:




Coffins popping out of the ground and releasing zombots in a Capcom game on the SNES. But...

How Do You Get It?

This doesn't work if you've already defeated Shade Man and are repeating his stage to collect items or for shits and giggles. Highlight Shade Man's portrait on the Stage Select screen, and hold B and press Start to start the stage. You'll notice the boss introduction theme will have changed a bit, indicating the code is succesful.

How Awesome Is This Secret?



Above, Shade Man's stage with the usual song playing.

Below, the secret music.



It's a remix of the graveyard music from Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts! (In case the article title didn't give it away.)

The boss intro music is also a remix of the short jingle for the map screen that is shown before you start a level in Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts.

I'm a real sucker for secret cameos. Hence my love for recent Nintendo games, which all seem to have at least one throwaway reference or two to some other big series of theirs. Back to the point, I wonder how the thought process at Capcom went with this one; at what point did someone decide this was going to be in the game? Did the zombie robots make it in as a clever nod, and then someone decided to go the extra mile and add the remix? At any rate, both elements combined result in a smile from me.

On a somewhat related note, check this out! Awesome.

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