Easter egg

A photo of a cat is hidden in a shack of Pokémon Stadium 2.

An Easter egg is a hidden surprise or trick. They are small surprises programmers add to the game for players to uncover, much like chocolate eggs in a real-life Easter egg hunt. Many Easter eggs are purely for entertainment. Some examples include hidden names or faces of programmers, references to other games, or messages for the player.

Easter eggs should not be confused with glitches, cheats, or techniques. Many do not alter gameplay at all, and are added on purpose.

List

Super Smash Bros.

• Blast line warning: In Mushroom Kingdom, if one pauses and turns the camera all the way to the right or left, a black wall that says "DANGER" on it can be seen, which is appropriate as those areas are past the side blast lines. This also appears in Ultimate, with the prohibition sign instead.

Super Smash Bros. Melee

The menu shifts if the C-Stick is rotated.

• Blast line warning: The new Mushroom Kingdom stage shares the offscreen "DANGER" signs as the previous version.
• Barrel Cannon message: On the bottom of the Barrel Cannon trophy is the message "2L84Me". When spoken, it sounds like "too late for me", referring to the usual KO after being shot from a barrel.
• Sleepy time: An Easter egg exclusive to Event 39: Jigglypuff Live!, sleepy time will occur when the large screen in the background of Pokémon Stadium is centered on the player's Jigglypuff, and the player uses Jigglypuff's Sing attack. All three of the other Jigglypuffs will fall asleep, regardless of the distance from the player's Jigglypuff, for much longer than usual.
• Yoshi's Island reflection: Metal Mario's trophy has a reflection of the Yoshi's Island stage on its surface.
• Ganondorf's glowing eyes: Ganondorf's Trophies, when viewed under certain lighting, have glowing eyes.
• Ceres Space Colony reflection: The Metroid trophy in Melee has a reflection on its shell of part of the Metroid hatchling's tank in the Ceres lab in Super Metroid. This implies that the trophy is representing the Metroid hatchling.
• Fox and Falco's Smash Taunt: Fox and Falco's Smash Taunt can be activated by pressing down on the directional pad for exactly one frame in Melee or pressing down taunt for exactly one frame in Brawl while playing as either character on the Venom or Corneria stages. A similar effect happens when Fox, Falco, or Wolf performs the trick on the Lylat Cruise stage in Brawl. As Corneria stage return in later appearances, Venom stage return in Ultimate, and Lylat Cruise return in Wii U and Ultimate, the easter egg is still intact.
• Onett Message Board: In Onett, the "Onett Message Board" can be seen if the player stands just to the right of the blue house, pauses and zooms out. It reads "Caution: A black van driven by this guy (seen in the picture right of the message) has been spotted racing recklessly through town. Be careful!". This is a reference to the Runaway Five's clumsy driving in EarthBound (which are a stage hazard in the stage). This also appears in Brawl, for Wii U, and Ultimate.
• Ball of rice: Using a hacked camera, a rice ball can be seen behind a bush on the Onett stage in Melee. It is unknown whether this is a secret or an oversight, although it is probably the former, because the rice ball remains intact in the stage's incarnation in Brawl.
• Rotating C-Stick: When on the menu screens, rotating the C-Stick in different directions will change the camera angle of the screen.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

• DS Lite: In Trophy Hoard mode, a black DS Lite can be seen in a present box on the left, in the background with presents.
• Cat photo: In the Ice stage of Pokémon Stadium 2, there is a poster of a white kitten inside of the shack in the middle. It was thought to be Masahiro Sakurai's cat, before being proven false on Twitter. A calendar can also be seen on the door, but it's harder to see. The cat photo remains intact in Wii U and Ultimate.
• Super Mario Bros. 3 song: The Coin Heaven/World 5 (Sky)/Warp Zone song of Super Mario Bros. 3 can be heard if one plays the music Peach dances to when she uses her Final Smash in slow motion.
• R.O.B.'s base: In R.O.B.'s grey Palette swap (which is designed to look like his design out of Japan), the words on his base change from "Family Computer Robot" to "R.O.B. - Robotic Operating Buddy", which is the name that was used for the robot outside of Japan. Additionally, R.O.B. features an on/off switch on his back. It is still intact in R.O.B.'s subsequent appearances.
• Mr. Saturn texture: If one looks closely, there is a sprite of Mr. Saturn hidden in the textures of the Metroid Assist Trophy in Brawl. It is unknown why it was placed there.
• Snake's Smash Taunt: Using a method on Shadow Moses Island similar to the Star Fox secret taunt, Solid Snake can contact his support team via codec and get information regarding his opponents.
• Flower abbreviation: On the ground in Smashville, there is a batch of flowers that seems to form the letters SB. This is likely because that is the abbreviation of "Smash Bros.".
• Smash soda: The soda can in Distant Planet has the Smash Bros. logo on it.
• Wanted posters: In Delfino Plaza, some 'wanted' posters can be seen using a hacked camera.
• Boo texture: In Luigi's Mansion, the underside of the bed in the top-left room has a Boo texture. This should normally not be seen, so a hacked camera is required to view it. Likely, a texture hasn't been specifically applied for the underside of the bed, so it just used a random texture that happened to include a Boo face. It might also be a reference to how Boos hid in furniture in Luigi's Mansion, or to the childhood fear of a "monster under the bed."
• Rotating C-Stick: The Easter egg from rotating the C-Stick in Melee returns in Brawl.
• Personalized victory poses: When certain characters from the Star Fox universe face each other in battle, their victory poses will often include a personalized message aimed at the other fighter. These are detailed at this page.

Super Smash Bros. 4

• Doc Louis in battle: Doc Louis can be heard giving words of advice to Little Mac while he's taunting, Doc Louis says these phrases:
  • Up taunt: "Hit 'em, baby!"
  • Side taunt: "Let 'em have it Mac!"
  • Down taunt: "Show 'em what you got, Mac-baby!"
• Personalized victory poses: The Easter egg returns from Brawl, and extends to when characters from Fire Emblem and Kid Icarus fight each other as well as Star Fox characters. For further detail, see List of victory poses (SSB4).
• Palutena's Guidance: On Palutena's Temple in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, in a similar fashion to both the Star Fox's and Snake's Smash Taunt, Pit, Palutena, Viridi, Dark Pit (only in his conversation), and Chrom (only in Robin's conversation) will engage in conversation when Pit is up against opponents.
• Orbital Gate Assault Taunt: While this stage has smash taunts like previous Star Fox stages, these conversations are only activated when no one is a Star Fox character. If every player holds either of the Z buttons when this stage is selected, the conversations are activated.
• Alfonzo's Train: If one is playing as either Toon Link and/or Link, and has chosen the level Spirit Train, Alfonzo will replace Toon Link as the conductor. This also the case in Ultimate, in addition to Young Link.
  • In a similar manner, King Dedede will not appear in the background of Dream Land 64 if he is currently in the match.
• Nintendo Headquarters: The dollar bills used in Coin Battle have an image of Nintendo's headquarters in Kyoto, Japan on them.
• Working Clocks: The clocks in the background of Town and City and on the floor of Umbra Clock Tower show the time depending on the time set on the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U console.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

• Nintendo 64 building: In the city area of the Light Realm, a building which resembles the Nintendo 64 logo can be seen near the fence on the right. In addition, several other buildings resemble consoles or controllers made by Nintendo, including a Nintendo 64, a GameCube, a Wii, a Wii Mini, a Wii Remote, a Game Boy, a Game Boy Micro, a Nintendo DS, a Famicom, and a Super NES Mouse. The same area also features Diskun.
• Codec Conversations: Alongside Snake, the Codec Conservations return as well. They only work on Shadow Moses Island, and act in a similar fashion to the Star Fox Smash Taunt and Palutena's Guidance. However, no new codecs were recorded for Ultimate, and only work on characters that were playable in Brawl. This causes several errors of the characters refering to the game being played as Brawl when it is not.
• Palutena's Guidance: Returning from Smash 4, Pit’s unique taunt makes an appearance in Ultimate. Unlike the Codec Conversations, new conservations were recorded for the characters returning from Super Smash Bros. for Wii U that originally did not receive one, and every character not in the base roster of Smash 4 (with the exception of all DLC characters in Fighters Pass Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, who instead use the generic conversation that the Smash 4 DLC characters had).
• Secret Message on The Great Plateau Tower: After the pillar is destroyed and the soft platform appears, Sheikah text can be seen that spells out "Smash Bros." A similar Easter egg can be found on Temple.
• Permanent Splattershot ink on Moray Towers: When using Splattershot on Moray Towers, the ink from the Splattershot will stay on the stage permanently.
• Brick Road: In Magicant, zooming inside Dungeon Man reveals Brick Road, Dungeon Man's original form.
• Personalized victory poses: The returning Kid Icarus and Fire Emblem characters retain their personalized victory pose lines, while the Star Fox characters are given with re-recorded personalized victory pose lines. If Chrom wins against Lucina (his daughter), he might say, "Our bond is stronger than steel." in any of his victory poses, while female Robin can say "How can you protect Chrom if you cannot protect yourself?" if she wins against Lucina. Also, if Simon is facing against characters who use darkness (Ganondorf, Dark Samus, Ridley), but are not neccesarily villain characters (Dark Pit, Bayonetta), he may simply say, "To darkness!" instead of "I vanquish the darkness!" in one of his victory poses. Sephiroth can also say, "I will never be a memory." in Japanese if he beats Cloud. This applies to all three of his victory poses.
• Working Clocks: The clocks in the returning stages Town and City and Umbra Clock Tower again show the time depending on the time set on the Nintendo Switch console.
• Piece of Heart: There is a hidden Piece of Heart on Great Bay where it would be located in Majora's Mask.

See also

• Wikipedia's article about Easter eggs