28 years later, players discover a secret 2-player mode in an iconic 90’s game

On August 9, 2022By Garmin Philip

For 28 years, Super Punch-Out!! was considered a single player experience. Now a key combination has been found with which you can play the cult game for two.

What kind of game is this? Great punch out!! is a boxed game released for the Super Nintendo in 1994. In the game you compete in boxing matches against NPC opponents and look at the partially transparent back of the character you embodied. It differs in view from numerous successful beat ’em ups such as Street Fighter and Fatal Fury.

The goal of Super Punch-Out!! is to knock out the CPU opponent within 3 minutes. If the opponent is still standing after the timer has elapsed or is successfully getting up again, the round is lost.

However, you can also win in the cult title with a technical knock-out by emptying the opponent’s life bar 3x within the fight time and sending him to the ground.

Keyboard shortcut allows fight against second player

What is this 2 player mode? In the newly discovered 2 player mode of Super Punch-Out!! the second player slips into the role of the adversary normally embodied by the CPU.

As IGN writer Kat Bailey puts it Twitter wrote, it should even be possible to start the 2-player mode on the Nintendo Switch. Player 2 should also be able to execute the opposing fighter’s special moves.

How do you start the 2 player mode? You start 2-player mode by pressing a special key combination on the second controller. A player caught up reddit the process of how you start the mode together in an orderly manner. He gives the following instructions:

starts the game up to the instruction “Press START” (title screen), but do not press “START” yet
On the title screen, hold down the Y+R buttons on controller 2
then press A or START on controller 1
Choose a fighter
On the next screen: Hold down the B+Y buttons on controller 2, then press START on controller 1

Real 2 player mode or just a test?

Why was the mode secret? The 2 player mode is probably not a real 2 player mode and was probably never planned as such. Developers used to add cheat codes to their games using keyboard shortcuts or text entry fields in order to (better) test different functions and game mechanics.

This is how Super Punch-Out!! likely to serve the purpose of allowing a developer to test attack combos and the like without the CPU doing any interfering actions. In this case, the CPU opponent would have been replaced by a second developer for test purposes.

Since some of the key combinations have to be executed on the second controller and there is no reason to press several keys at the same time on the second controller while playing a single player, probably nobody came across the mode by accident.

How was the mode found? The Unlisted Cheats Twitter account is actively looking for cheat combinations in old video games that developers have incorporated into their titles that have not yet been discovered.

Of course, these combinations are very different from cheats that multiplayer games like CoD: Warzone and Destiny 2 suffer from.

Anti-Cheat from CoD Warzone has been trolling cheaters for months – they are now fighting back on a new map

During the routine work of Unlisted Cheats, he discovered various key combinations in Super Punch-Out!!, one of which launches the 2-player mode. Another should probably start a sound test.