Double Looping Dino Riki For A Hidden Surprise

[PII | 1,897]

I was playing Dino Riki tonight and discovered something I'd never seen before and never read about in any of the online literature either.  By the skin of my teeth I managed to beat the game twice in a row without using a continue.  That's the super-secret up+start to continue at the game over screen for anyone not familiar.  First time two-in-a-row, and when I got back to the title screen after finally running out of lives a few levels into the 3rd play-through I noticed that the icon of Riki had changed into an old man with glasses and facial hair.  This was a game for which I had kind of been looking forward to a cool victory screen at the end only to get the instant repeat, but it seems there is a good ending after all - Riki gets to live long enough to experience old age, which I'm guessing is pretty rare for a cave man in a world of man-eating beasts..

It could also come down to a matter of points, alternatively.  Once, previously, after looping the game a single time and proceeding a few more levels I managed a score of 1,016,390 and Riki did not change, so topping a Million is not the key, but I suppose it could be a matter of topping 1.1 or 1.25 million, for example.  Not sure.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this unexpected surprise...

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

Cool! Ui loved this game ad a kid although I never got beyond the first few levels. Do you get to play as old man Riki for the next run?

[Gloves | 11,836]

Awesome, I never knew that and I've played this game many times over. Well done! Now I'll have to do the same so I can see it in person! 

[nesmaster14 | 436]

That's pretty cool, and nice run!

[docile tapeworm | 4,204]

very cool. underrated game! 

[PII | 1,897]

@DoctorEncore 

The actual playable character did not become Old Man Riki on the 3rd loop, nor when I started a subsequent new game.  Would have been cool though if that had happened and the boot power-ups stopped working so you'd have to play the game as a slow mover only.  Previously I've played the 3rd loop albeit having used continues, and the enemies continue to get a bit faster and continue to shoot multiple projectiles in rapid succession so that the projectiles form a line as they move across the screen, both of which had happened with the 2nd loop as well.  The lines of projectiles may have been longer on the 3rd loop; not certain.  The one thing that definitely seemed new to me on the 3rd loop was when I hit the 3rd level and those rotating black spheres came after me.  A successive wave would surround Riki before the previous wave had dispersed.  I remember having been hit and reduced to Riki's basic rock weapon though so it may have happened that way simply because I was then unable to fend off the initial wave before the emergence of the successive.  

On a side note, the Rotating Black Spheres are easy enough to take care of provided Riki is equipped with either the flames or the boomerangs.  It's possible but very difficult with the tomahawks, and I don't think I've ever been able to kill them all using the rocks..

@Gloves - Much Thanks, and best of luck to you!

@nesmaster14 - Much Thanks!

@skinnygrinny - VERY underrated game, I agree..  

...Possibly my favorite SHMUP.  Having a ground-based character in a vertical-scrolling shmup is a big part of what makes it so much fun to me with ground obstacles and pits of doom in addition to the waves of $hit flying in at you.  Same reason I like Back To The Future on the NES so much.

[mbd39 | 2,029]

3 hours ago, PII said:

...Possibly my favorite SHMUP.  Having a ground-based character in a vertical-scrolling shmup is a big part of what makes it so much fun to me with ground obstacles and pits of doom in addition to the waves of $hit flying in at you.  Same reason I like Back To The Future on the NES so much.

 

Have you played Isolated Warrior? It's sort of like that, but isometric perspective.

 

[PII | 1,897]

I have!  I own a copy, but have only played it a little bit so far and made it only as far as the 3rd Level.  Super-Cool-Under-The-Radar-Obscure Game!  Very similar to Zen: Intergalactic Ninja which I've also only played a small amount of, but do not yet own a copy...

[RH | 4,970]

I had this game as a kid. I think I could only get to the third level as well, but I loved it. I might have beat it once with a Game Genie, but I'm not sure.

[PII | 1,897]

I never owned this one as a kid or played it at length, but it was one of the very first few games I ever saw/played on a NES at a friends house.  I can still remember my friend saying: "It's really hard, I've never gotten past the first level", which I've heard more than a few times since then.

[Strikezone1 | 155]

Here is my pic of when I cleared the game about a year ago. In this run I got to stage 3 of the 3rd loop, and it shows old man Riki just as it does I’m your pic. I would’ve never realized this had you not pointed it out!

[Strikezone1 | 155]

20 hours ago, mbd39 said:

Have you played Isolated Warrior? It's sort of like that, but isometric perspective.

I’ll second Isolated Warrior for sure. Great game. @PII if you like Dino Riki and Back to the future then you should definitely give IW a try.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

That's a cool catch. I've never played this game. Looks like I should give it a try!

[PII | 1,897]

Glad to see others share an interest in this game and get inspired to give it a play.  It's one of many games I've developed an interest in, in spite of its having a less than flawless reputation.  I think, mostly, it just takes a lot of repetition with those ultra-loose controls in order to go from the initial frustrating difficulty to the wild-spastic-fun it has to offer.  Only so many other NES games with such unique qualities for less than 5 bucks.  Now, maybe I'll try and see about that 3rd loop...      ...Can't help wondering if Riki will loose his hair and hobble around with a cane afterward; maybe some bifocals, lol.

[CMR | 522]

That's a really neat easter egg.  I wonder if that might actually be one of the developers though.

[PII | 1,897]

Uggh, ok, so I made it to the final boss the 2nd time around and died; big whoop.  Then I anxiously awaited the title screen hoping to gain a little more insight as to whether Riki becomes an old man as a result of a certain number of points or as a result of completing the 2nd loop.  The result: more confusion and mystery.

So I got back to the title screen and - no old Riki, so I'm thinking, "ok that indicates that it's more likely to be the successful 2nd completion."  Then I lean in to hit reset just cuz I'm wondering if the game will retain the high score or not and just before I hit it, I realize Riki is neither the old man nor the juvenile caveman in the animal skin.  Instead, he looks like a young man dressed in normal clothes.  He has no facial hair or glasses and instead of the animal skin, he's wearing what looked like a white button down shirt.  I guess I was half asleep or I'd have a pic. of it, but when I hit reset (although it retained the high score afterward), young man Riki had gone back to being kid Riki...          (........not to be confused w/Kid Niki)

Guess I'll keep runnin' it until I get it again.

 

Edited October 12, 2022 by PII

[PII | 1,897]

Maybe a correction of sorts.  Just did some screwing around on the first level of a new game, dying late in the level and this title screen came up with Riki dressed in a white shirt and suspenders - Not really sure if it's what I saw earlier or not.  I could have sworn he was wearing a button down shirt.  Well whatever it turns out to be, it looks like he advances in age at least twice, having at least 3 looks.  I'm feelin' now like if I play this game long enough I can turn him into hunched over white-haired fella with a cane...

[Sumez | 2,994]

Couldn't be bothered looping the game, so I looked into the CHR data used on the title screen. Here are various characters that I figured you could build from the graphics there:

The mouth and shoulders are attached to the same tile, so you can't, say, have Riki looking less happy with the white shirt, like you can't have him waving his arm with the caveman outfit.

Edited July 9, 2020 by Sumez

[RH | 4,970]

I'm gonna say that Old Man Riki isn't an old man.  My guess is that after the second loop, it's now a dev easter egg.  I mean, look at that guy.  That's a dev!

I can't believe no one has looped this game at least twice and seen this yet.  Here we are nearly 30 years later finding more of these secrets in games.  Anyone happen to have a contact with anyone from the company?  This would make a nice little article on someones blog, if they could contact someone at the company who worked on this game.

[Gloves | 11,836]

5 minutes ago, RH said:

I'm gonna say that Old Man Riki isn't an old man.  My guess is that after the second loop, it's now a dev easter egg.  I mean, look at that guy.  That's a dev!

I can't believe no one has looped this game at least twice and seen this yet.  Here we are nearly 30 years later finding more of these secrets in games.  Anyone happen to have a contact with anyone from the company?  This would make a nice little article on someones blog, if they could contact someone at the company who worked on this game.

I promise you others have looped it twice; just nobody went out of their way to make a thread anywhere about it.

[RH | 4,970]

1 minute ago, Gloves said:

I promise you others have looped it twice; just nobody went out of their way to make a thread anywhere about it.

No I get that.  What I really mean is  that certainly\ after so many collective double-loops, someone by now should have noticed the new sprite on the title screen.

I get it that when you play a game again and again, for some parts like starting a game you start pushing buttons on auto-pilot, but also when a screen you've seen 1000 times changes, your mind often catches that something is different.  I'm just surprised this hasn't been noted or documented until now.  As a percent, few people who have played this game have accomplished this but in 30 years, plenty of people have probably unlocked this easter egg and just never saw it (and documented it) until recently.

[PII | 1,897]

2 hours ago, RH said:

I get it that when you play a game again and again, for some parts like starting a game you start pushing buttons on auto-pilot, but also when a screen you've seen 1000 times changes, your mind often catches that something is different.  I'm just surprised this hasn't been noted or documented until now.  As a percent, few people who have played this game have accomplished this but in 30 years, plenty of people have probably unlocked this easter egg and just never saw it (and documented it) until recently.

This is a good point.  Never-the-less, the human capacity to miss what is in plain sight is simply staggering and at times shocking or even disturbing.  Here's a couple of interesting videos on the subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=95&v=IGQmdoK_ZfY&feature=emb_logo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=96&v=FWSxSQsspiQ&feature=emb_logo

And human memory can be a very strange factor as well.  Case in point, I could have sworn it was a button-down shirt, but i guess it was suspenders all along.

@Sumez

That's a useful tactic.  How exactly does one go about accessing CHR Data?

[Sumez | 2,994]

2 hours ago, RH said:

after so many collective double-loops, someone by now should have noticed the new sprite on the title screen.

There's a probably a good chance no one cared?

I do enjoy little details like that in a game. Rainbow Islands (which people may have realised by now that I adore) adds a star to the title screen of the arcade game after successfully completing it with the good ending, but it disappears when the game is reset. It looks like it will probably add more stars for each completion, but I've never had the pleasure of ever seeing more than one.

As for DIno Riki, it's not really a notable game. It's probably a bit of an underrated one, but in general it's just not one people tend to talk about much. Even though it's a Hudson release I never even heard about it until a few years ago, but I figured it was worth importing.

Edited July 9, 2020 by Sumez

[Sumez | 2,994]

Just now, PII said:

That's a useful tactic.  How exactly does one go about accessing CHR Data?

I just fired up an emulator XD So nothing advanced. I was prepared to hack around looking for what the game could potentially produce, but it was all just there.