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Context
Few games were shipped with an error so obvious and fundamental that it made reaching the end impossible for over two decades. This is the story of Elnark no Zaihou (Elkark's Treasure), the 1987 Famicom action-adventure game that nobody could complete.
The infamous Elnark no Zaihou's history begins with its publisher, Towa Chiki Corporation. Towa Chiki was primarily a Japanese toy company that tried to get into Famicom game publishing. They were a small-time, third-party outfit known for a handful of titles, including an adaptation of Garfield and a few adventure games.
Towa Chiki's games often suffered from rushed development, a legacy perfectly embodied by this game, which is arguably the most infamous.
Here we go
Elnark no Zaihou was a top-down adventure like The Legend of Zelda, known for its difficulty and cryptic progression that might be comparable to Takeshi's Challenge. But the game’s true challenge wasn't a powerful monster or a convoluted puzzle, it was a stone wall at the end of the final dungeon.
Players who managed to get to the end would inevitably arrive at an issue. There was just one problem: The developers made the final dungeon impossible. To get to a door, your meter had to be fully dark and for the next one completely light; this was almost impossible to do because you couldn't swap them on the whim.
It was not a puzzle. It was one hell of a bug. In the frantic rush to meet the deadline, the small Towa Chiki team seemingly built the final room, placed the boss, and created the ending sequence, but completely neglected to bug test this error.
It was like building a house, forgetting the front door, and then locking the keys inside. The credits were in the game, but nobody could reach them.
A solution was found
For decades, the game was dismissed as an unsolvable failure. But a retro gamer found a solution, a wall-clipping glitch. In 2001, a player found out how to beat the game, you had to use a bug that allowed you to clip through some walls, allowing you to enter the final rooms without the meters aligning.
Here is a full walktrought of the game.
Sources
Video of the guy who found the solution. In Gamewave, 4th of july 2001
Few games were shipped with an error so obvious and fundamental that it made reaching the end impossible for over two decades. This is the story of Elnark no Zaihou (Elkark's Treasure), the 1987 Famicom action-adventure game that nobody could complete.
The infamous Elnark no Zaihou's history begins with its publisher, Towa Chiki Corporation. Towa Chiki was primarily a Japanese toy company that tried to get into Famicom game publishing. They were a small-time, third-party outfit known for a handful of titles, including an adaptation of Garfield and a few adventure games.
Towa Chiki's games often suffered from rushed development, a legacy perfectly embodied by this game, which is arguably the most infamous.
Here we go
Elnark no Zaihou was a top-down adventure like The Legend of Zelda, known for its difficulty and cryptic progression that might be comparable to Takeshi's Challenge. But the game’s true challenge wasn't a powerful monster or a convoluted puzzle, it was a stone wall at the end of the final dungeon.
Players who managed to get to the end would inevitably arrive at an issue. There was just one problem: The developers made the final dungeon impossible. To get to a door, your meter had to be fully dark and for the next one completely light; this was almost impossible to do because you couldn't swap them on the whim.
It was not a puzzle. It was one hell of a bug. In the frantic rush to meet the deadline, the small Towa Chiki team seemingly built the final room, placed the boss, and created the ending sequence, but completely neglected to bug test this error.
It was like building a house, forgetting the front door, and then locking the keys inside. The credits were in the game, but nobody could reach them.
A solution was found
For decades, the game was dismissed as an unsolvable failure. But a retro gamer found a solution, a wall-clipping glitch. In 2001, a player found out how to beat the game, you had to use a bug that allowed you to clip through some walls, allowing you to enter the final rooms without the meters aligning.
Here is a full walktrought of the game.
Sources
Video of the guy who found the solution. In Gamewave, 4th of july 2001
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