It is always a delight when a crafty programmer discovers a video game cheat code years after the title’s release. Such is the case with a recent revelation that Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest has an exit-level code.
This news comes from the website Time Extension (via Polygon). After almost 30 years since the game came out (I’M OLD), programmer Alex “H4v0c21” Corley discovered the aforementioned cheat and posted his findings on the DKC Atlas Discord server earlier this week. He told Polygon, “I was casually scrolling through some disassembled code […] when I saw code that essentially did nothing but loop and waste CPU time. This is especially eye catching in the case of [Donkey Kong Country 2developer] Rareware because their code is for the most part extremely optimized. Whenever they do something like that it usually means they’re up to something interesting.” This led Corley to decode some data with controller inputs and figure out the correct button combinations.
If the player pauses the Donkey Kong Country 2 and inputs Right+Y, Left+A, Up+B, and Down+X, they can exit any stage and boot back to the overworld map. This works even if you have not completed the area yet. This is why the code is a big deal: Normally, you can exit a level by pausing and pressing Select, but only if you have beaten it already.
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You can see the exploit working in the video below:
The question is: Why is this hack in Donkey Kong Country 2 in the first place? Corley and some of his hacker buddies surmise it is a shortcut accidentally left in by Rare’s programmers. They were probably using it to avoid any softlocking scenarios. Whether gamers will use this code at the next Games Done Quick event for speedrunning purposes is anyone’s guess.
I love it when a cheat surfaces from a childhood game. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest is arguably the greatest 2D platformer of all time, so hopefully this discovery will lead to more exposure and younger fans playing the adventure. Switch Online users can play this on the SNES App to try out the code and experience a journey full of secrets and wonder.