Video games are amazing things in that, unlike films, or books, have to be completely realized from the ground up. It’s a miracle they can even exist. What’s more is the fact that tons of games have secrets buried within. How do the fans even find them?
Some come in the form of Easter eggs like hidden paintings and some cone in the form of optional game modes. While all of these PlayStation game examples may not exactly be secret, they are, at the very least extremely weird and maybe even a bit obscure and definitely worth checking out.
10 Black Ops: F.I.V.E.
With the release of Call of Duty: World at War, Treyarch developed what would become a tradition for all of their future games: zombie mode. As quirky as it was to fight Nazi zombies, they really upped the ante with their next game: Black Ops. At the end credits, if players stuck around, they were treated to a zombie mode set in the Pentagon. Players could take on the role of JFK, Richard Nixon, Robert McNamara, or Fidel Castro in order to fight back against the zombie hordes. It’s only gotten stranger since.
9 Mortal Kombat: Motor Kombat
Mortal Kombat has taken itself pretty seriously since the ninth game seemingly rebooted the timeline. The games have been frankly better for it. However, it would be cool to see the developers get silly again and not just with the over the top fatalities. For example, in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon there was a racing game akin to Super Mario Kart aptly titled Motor Kombat. It wasn’t the best kart combat game, but it was a decent enough clone and one worthy of a secret sequel.
8 Metal Gear Solid: Guy Savage
If players turned off their PS2 and waited a few days to play again while Snake was in prison in Metal Gear Solid 3, they will be treated to a surprise next time they start. A dream sequence will commence starring someone known as Guy Savage. It’s basically a guy in a cloak fighting off enemies with two hook blades. It actually looks a lot like Kingdom Hearts only less magical. Was this a secret pilot for a Hideo Kojima game he never got to make? No one truly knows.
7 Castlevania: Pumpkin
In Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, the first good 3D game in the series, there is a pretty well-hidden character one can obtain. Pumpkin basically looks like a Sackboy from LittleBigPlanet, but with a pumpkin for a head, naturally.
It requires a lot of playtime in that the game has to be finished at least twice. Pumpkin has low health, but supernatural strength. It makes the game a real challenge, but is also pretty whimsical as well.
6 Final Fantasy: 15 Puzzle
Yes, Final Fantasy first appeared on the NES, but since the game has been ported and remade on numerous Playstation consoles, let’s count it anyway. With that out of the way let’s go for a sail. When on a boat, hitting a series of buttons will prompt a mini-game to appear. It’s a sliding block puzzle called 15 Puzzle. It is not well remembered in the pantheon of great Final Fantasy mini-games in that it is extremely basic, but a hidden game mode is a hidden game mode.
5 Kingdom Hearts: Classic Kingdom
Another Square Enix property well known for its mini-games is Kingdom Hearts. There are so many interesting ones to talk about, but let’s get into the worst, which appears in Kingdom Hearts III. There are a lot of hidden Classic Kingdom games that pay homage not just to Nintendo’s Game & Watch, but also to early Mickey Mouse cartoons. They are cool, but there are way too many. In order to get the best rewards in the game every single one of these needs to be mastered. It’s way too hard and turns something cute into something annoying and nightmarish.
4 Yakuza: MesuKing
Yakuza is another Japanese franchise that is well known for its bizarre modes and mini-games. One of the weirdest came in for the remake of the first game, Yakuza Kiwami. In the arcade among classic Sega titles is a brand new card game called MesuKing.
In it, players will collect scantily clad girls represented as different bugs. The game then is like a wrestling card RPG. Stranger still is the fact that Kazuma is taught the basics from a child in a lab coat. It’s weird, but one can’t help but admire Sega’s quirky charm.
3 Resident Evil 2: Tofu
Resident Evil was a landmark for making survival-horror games a thing. The sequel then perfected this formula while adding in a ton of replay value in the form of secret modes. The hardest to unlock is a survivor mode where players are literally a piece of Tofu running around the infested streets and sewers of Raccoon City. Why? No idea. It’s funny to watch, but definitely not worth the actual effort to unlock.
2 Samurai Warriors 2: Sugoroku
Samurai Warriors and the main series on which it is based, Dynasty Warriors, isn’t really known for having a secret, or optional modes. They are both about unlocking a wide variety of fighters in order to literally decimate thousands of soldiers. That is except for Samurai Warriors 2, which had a board game of all things in it called Sugoroku. It’s kind of like an RPG version of Monopoly and is actually based on another game, Itadaki Street. As a bonus fact, one of those games came to the West and was renamed Fortune Street for the Wii.
1 Assassin’s Creed Origins: Discovery Tour
Assassin’s Creed Origins was more like The Witcher than any Assassin’s Creed that came before it. Despite the name being a bit misleading it was a great refresh for a series that was, quite frankly, getting stale. Besides turning it into more of an RPG, Ubisoft later released an update with a mode called Discovery Tour. This allowed players to sort of take a museum-like guide through Egypt without story, or combat getting in the way. It was a solid idea but could have been implemented better.
NEXT: 10 Hardcore Games That Aren’t For Everyone
