Unfortunately, misinformation has always been very common in the world. Social media is often blamed for this, but even before it existed, bad information was everywhere. People who played video games at the time can attest to that. After all, so many video game secrets from those days ended up being bogus.
You would hear about an Easter egg from the internet or from a friend and try to replicate it. Even if you failed, you probably just assumed you did it wrong. In reality, these things were usually just myths that people made up. Here are some classic examples.
Ghost Of CJ's Mama
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Beverly Johnson, aka CJ's mother, dies before the events of San Andreas. In fact, her death is the reason CJ returns to San Andreas. So she's important to the plot even though she never appears in the game, or is she?
For many years it was rumored that if you entered the Johnson household at night, you could sometimes find her hovering there like a ghost. Some would say that you will have to go to her on a certain day, at a certain time or during a certain part of the year. In fact, there is no ghost in the game.
Nude Raider
Tomb Raider
Lara Croft from Tomb Raider is widely regarded as one of the best video game heroines or heroines ever. She was also one of the first gaming sex symbols. That's why a lot of people in the 90s got excited when rumors spread that you could make her strip.
There have been several different theories as to how you can achieve this. Most people believed that you had to enter a code or follow a specific sequence of buttons. None of these ideas worked because you couldn't actually get her to take her clothes off.
Save Aerith
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy 7 has one of the saddest deaths in gaming history as your companion Aerith is killed by Sephiroth. It's a very heart-wrenching moment that many players back then wished they could undo. This is probably why there were rumors that you could actually revive Aerith in some way.
One theory was that you had to maximize the underwater material, which would allow you to reach a new area in which to revive her. An alternative theory was that your dialogue choices during the game affected whether she lived or died. However, all this is false. The fact is, you have to let Aerith go.
Ermac
Mortal Kombat
Ermac is a character that Mortal Kombat fans are very familiar with these days, having appeared in several entries in the series. However, its existence is a nod to a famous myth related to the original Mortal Kombat. Without getting too technical, the original title featured a screen that gave you some stats, like how many times you beat certain characters. At the end of the list was the word “ERMACS”, which means “error macro” and was used to log code errors.
Since it was stated after the stats of Reptile, who was a hidden character, people speculated that Ermac was the name of another hidden warrior. Some fans even insisted that they fought him and he was the red ninja. That wasn't true, but Ermac was eventually added to the series in MK3 as a great reference.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
The map in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is very large and full of secrets. There is a lot to find, especially in the countryside and forests. One example is the large, dark figure known as Bigfoot.
Like Bigfoot in the real world, there has always been disagreement about GTA's existence. Some believe it, others don't. However, at this point it has been confirmed that it does not actually exist in San Andreas. It is not yet clear where this rumor first originated.
Herobrine
Minecraft
Minecraft has been around for a long time, as has the myth of Herobrine. He is a character that looks almost exactly like Steve from Minecraft, except he has white eyes. It was believed that he would enter your game and start destroying your world.
This urban legend started in 2010 from a post on 4chan. From then on, people will be looking for and keeping an eye out for Herobrine in their Minecraft worlds. Yet he didn't really exist outside of mods. Fans now know the truth and Herobrine is more of a meme, but at one time people believed he was real.
Sheng Long
Street Fighter 2
Bad translations were common in old video games, but most of them sounded funny and didn't create complete mythos. One of them was from Street Fighter 2. In one of Ryu's victory quotes, he said, “You have to beat Sheng Long to have a chance.” “Sheng Long” is a mistranslation of “Shoryuken”, which is the name of Ryu's famous dragon strike.
Fans thought that Sheng Long was the name of the secret fighter. This myth gained particular attention when a magazine known as Electronic Gaming Monthly included a Sheng Long unlock guide as an April Fool's joke.
Find Mew under the truck
Pokemon Red AND Blue
While there are plenty of great Pokemon to catch in the games, one of the most sought after is Mew. Not only is it an adorable little creature, it's one of the most powerful in the canon. So fans were naturally excited to hear that Mew could be found under a mysterious truck in the first game.
You could only get to the truck by crossing a body of water, which meant you needed the Surf power. Unfortunately, you only got this ability after you lost access to the area where the truck was. So you needed to find a solution. Therefore, it was very difficult to reach the vehicle and Mew was not under it anyway.
