I wasn't aware of this at all, but this is very possible. It would be good if magazine said that no one win that FF contest,and if someone win, they would release his/her name,if they did similar thing with other contestants.
I... actually think I entered this contest as a kid. I definitely found the Warmech, with help from the Nintendo Power strategy guide (which I used to play through the whole game), and I have a distinct memory of snapping a photo of it when I did, which I can't imagine I would've done if it weren't for the sake of this contest. I can't say with 100% certainty that I definitively entered this contest, but I'm like 70-80% sure I did. And I sure as hell didn't win it, which means somebody else must've!
@@GoeTeeks Yeah, again, I don't remember with 100% certainty if I even entered it at all; I only recall snapping the photo. So it's possible I was too late, or my entry was lost in the mail, or I simply snapped the photo for posterity and didn't even bother entering the contest, etc. I do know, though, that I owned Final Fantasy on day one, and beat it extremely quickly, and I do very specifically recall seeing the contest mentioned in Nintendo Power and feeling like I had plenty of time to enter it. So my point in replying wasn't necessarily to offer up definitive proof that GTV's theory is incorrect; rather, to offer an opposing view, and use what little I recall of my own personal childhood experience as an anecdote to support it. I find the idea that no one managed to enter the contest in time rather... implausible, as Final Fantasy was a huuuuuge deal at the time (Nintendo saw to that!), and everyone I knew bought it right away and played through it from beginning to end within a month of owning it. The idea that not a single one of us -- or the no doubt countless others like us -- would've bothered entering this contest seems really unlikely, especially when Nintendo themselves told people how to trigger battle with Warmech in that strategy guide that all Nintendo Power subscribers got, meaning all anyone had to do was get to that bridge and walk back and forth over it a few times until the RNG rolled the dice in their favor. For me, I recall it took about 20 or so battles before the Warmech showed up -- no big deal at all!
I think the theory of Chris Houlihan being a random name (friend, loved one, pulled out of a hat, etc) of someone from the translation team makes a lot more sense instead of a winner from a contest that Nintendo Power never followed up with. They were all about the publicity from their contests, and as you pointed out contests that couldn't have winners tended to just be dropped and never spoken of again.
I mean, we did find Nathan Ryan Runk, the guy who won the Nintendo Power contest to appear in the movie *_"The Mask II"_* ... uh, to make a long story short, he cashed out.
Wait, mexican video game magazine Club Nintendo talked about this room and showed how to get in it since the esrly 90s. I can look for a pdf of the magazine if you want.
I was about to comment that, however they didn't explain how to get into the room because that's the thing, there's no formula nor conditions to be met. The whole thing was unfolded through several issues of the magazine during 1992-93 , explaining first that they thought it was just another rumor, but after receiving more letters with the same comments about that room from several different people they went "straight to Nintendo" and ask them directly, It was then when they explain that whole contest and Chris Houlihan being the winner of it. Finally they make a contest out of it and offer an original print of one of the Magazine covers to the first person to submit a VHS tape with video evidence of that room. It was submitted a few issues later through that year and they made a small mention with a screen shot of the room.
Chris Houlihan is still immortalized within the Randomizer racing community. If you are ever running a race and need early Zora money, you will often find people using this glitch. The commentators will usually say that the racer is "Doing a Houlihan" to get some early rupees.
This theory actually makes so much sense. If Chris did win an actual contest then you'd think Nintendo Power would have mentioned it back in the day. But, damn! That shock ending was not expected! 😬
Your theory is perfectly plausible. People sometimes just want to believe in extraordinary things. When the truth is just something mundane, they just cannot accept it.
Thanks for agreeing! I was wondering what the reaction was going to be but a few people have commented about the same as you. The thing is, in all my searches on this topic no one said something like “maybe Chris didn’t win this” etc. I thought I’d wake up to a burning pitchfork army 😂 but instead there’s now a ton of conversations with real thought in them. That’s awesome because it’s the best way to share ideas and you don’t see it much on RU-vid anymore. Thanks for watching ⚔️
@@GTV-Japan Oh absolutely I did. The only thing I must say though is legend of Zelda 2 is definitely the greatest of all times. I hope that was sarcasm 🤣. (All jokes aside Zelda 2 for real is my favorite.)😌
The FAQs that originally had the Houlihan room came from GAMEWIZ. I was the person who first discovered a repeatable method of entering the room from the lightworld and got a job with Gamewiz as a result. The Doc was originally a game counselor at nintendo power and left in the early 90s to start hos own organization. It ran out of compuserve prodigy and AOL during the mid to late 90s. We put out TONS AND TONS of faqs, most written by people with a name startinf woth GWC or GWS. I was GWS Zoma. We also worked with thr GGCCC the game genie code creators club to distribute gg codes that people came up with. Sadly Dr. Gamewiz passed away of pancreatic cancer in 1999. He ended every email with Good Gaming! Boolah!
@@GTV-Japan Gamewiz would have been 92 years old today! He was a lofe dropout that became obsessed with video games in the 80s and even trained other game counselors. He had manuals on how to beat every nes video game there was, and branched out to create a little video game empire in his corner of the universe. All the old boarda got wiped away in 2002 when AOL shut their servers down. He was a super cool guy. I was only 15 and I was a staff member with him writing emails and answering faqs and hosting big chats. It was so much fun. Also - to fill in blanks. There was an internal contest among nintendo power staff to find a reliable entrance into the houlihan room bit nobody every succeeded. I found the room on accident in 93 and called NP (206-885-7529) and had a cpl cool convos and even got a letter from one of the counselors telling me about their contest! by 95 gamewiz had left NP and was running his own company. By then id found the sanctuary start method and told gamewiz about it when I started hanging out there but he didnt believe me until he replicated it! I guess that won a lot of respect from him cause he gave me a job after reaching back out to me to let me know it worked. Those were the days! RIP Gamewiz! BTW its third hand knowledge, but he confirmed to me that the Houlihan room was in fact from the warmech challenge. it wss common knowledge amongst the NP game counselors of that time.
The contest backstory always made Nintendo seem like kind of a dick for putting the winner's name in a secret-ish glitch room as opposed to the regular game.
I actually remember participating in this contest! I had the game and Nintendo Power. I found the Warmech (specifically looking for it) and took a really crappy Polaroid of my small TV screen and mailed it in. I was a kid, so no idea if I actually mailed it in on time. Of course I never heard anything back. My name *is* Chris H, but not Houlihan. Thanks for the episode! 🙂
How distinct from "Houlihan" is your last name? Maybe it was mistaken by it considering a kid's (usually poor) handwriting? Or even, being a kid, you just signed "Chris H" or "Chris"? Who knows, maybe you *are* the Winner (and perhaps the sole _valid_ entrant), but Nintendo could not contact you because of this! It would explain the (unusually) little PR around it. Have you ever thought there's a chance this room is named after YOU? ;-)
I discovered the Chris Houlihan room in 1995, purely by accident. It was the result of me getting damage-boosted into a hole that would normally lead me into a fairy fountain near the graveyard.
@@GTV-Japan Not really. I had borrowed the cartridge from a friend at school, and completely forgot to share that info when I returned it. Plus, I didn't get my first ever internet access point until much later that year (still '95), and even then it was dial-up and very much limited, and I had no idea if there were discussion newsgroups about Zelda games at that point. However, I do recall discussions about the Chris Houlihan room popping up at a Zelda fan site called Zelda Headquarters, a few years later. I'd bought the SNES cartridge at that point. And this was around the time Ocarina first launched, late 1998 or so. I wasn't able to recreate the way I originally encountered the room (I hadn't figured it was an anti-crash load, and kept revisiting the fairy room instead), but the site did provide an alternate strategy to finding it, which involved a lot of pegasus dashing around the castle, using the Link's uncle sewer passage as the way in.
Still a pretty cool story! Without the knowledge of the contest and it being a glitch and everything, I’m sure people didn’t know what to make of it. And since it’s hard to recreate probably forgot about it if they didn’t make an effort to record it
I mean once you realize that Chris is such a common name and Houlihan sounds like Hooligan, the whole name does seem like a placeholder or a pseudonym.
“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” - President Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom - Even President Wilson knew about a hundred years ago, that Nintendo would hide the truth.
Of course! You recommend I use the “Kono bangumi” voice wayyy back in 2016 and now it’s the one thing people mention more than anything on the channel. I owe you a lot.
I don't think the younger generation appreciates how often we were asked to take analog photographs of our TV screens, that you wouldn't know came out all messed up until after it was developed. Not just Nintendo Power, but even Activision with their patches years prior. The struggle was real.
And cost money and parental headaches! I was always promised the last shot off a roll if I needed to be developed and who knows if I was lucky enough to have a high score on standby at that exact moment?!
This theory isn‘t bad, but there‘s one detail that bothers me: If this is a failsafe room on the map, a place where you‘ll end up when the game bugs or glitches, why leave that name on there? People were bound to get there because nothing ever is bug free. Changing the name is like five seconds for the programmers. For the same reason the question would be why they even added a name in the first place AFTER the Japanese version came without it. There‘s no mention of Chris Houlihan in the Japanese version (neither in the German one by the way), yet this room acts as a failsafe there, too, doesn‘t it? That doesn‘t make too much sense for me. I can come up with three theories: 1. Some kid won the challenge, but gave a false name when he/she sent in the photo, for whatever reasons. I‘ve seen people do that. Girls who didn’t want to be publically affiliated with gaming wasn’t that rare back then for example. So Nintendo didn‘t have a way to get in touch with him/her, couldn‘t announce a winner, yet went ahead to put the name in the US version. 2. One of the programmers in the US added the name to immortalize a dying friend. That would explain why nobody can find a trace of him/her. 3. The programmers WANTED to create a mystery.
@@cristianmastrocicco4552 I know. I didn’t want to go into the finer details with this. To localize them, at least a bit of coding has to be done. Also, I don‘t think localizing was done like hackers do, editing the ROM content with a hex editor, but in a more proper way, editing strings and recompile. Additionally, lots of games have more changes than just the text. And to come back to Zelda: IF this room really was intended to be the room for the contestant winner and to be found in the game instead of the „crash room“ that too would have needed some programming, right?
The name Houlihan in Pinyin (Chinese) rendered as: Hou - Time/Length of Time/Afterwards/Back Li - Distance from Han - Man A well chosen name by Nintendo indicating they knew exactly what they were doing by creating a "man to be discovered later". Or not discovered as the case is.
I did stumble across this room as a kid with my PAL copy of the game, but I assumed Chris Houlihan was one of the programmers or something as Nintendo Power never existed here (We had TOTAL!, then later, Nintendo Magazine System) so the competition was never held here either. But I had a good look trying to find him a few years ago too, no joy obviously. Also looked up Justin Bailey, no Joy either, but found Thor Aackerlund and ended up being good friends with him! :)
Thor was from my hometown. When I found out he won the NES championships there was a little bit of pride knowing one of the best game players I knew of at the time was a local guy.
I secretly hated Thor for being better than me. In my mind I was the best gamer on earth! I was eliminated in the penultimate round of nwc in Pittsburgh, never got over it...
Seriously, I had to change my dislike to a like once I realized it wasn't a real commercial and he was making fun of the grifters...Shit's getting out of control.
That is legit why I can't stand most speed runners, twitch video game streamers, and a lot of gamer youtubers. I upload videos too. But I'm not here for the money. Just for entertainment and preserving stuff.
Awesome! Me too. I think you can make money and that itself is not always a bad thing. But when it becomes the sole focus, the channel is never the same. It’s over and it’s essentially a living commercial that never ends
I found the Warmech on my very first playthrough back in the day. Never knew it was actually a rarity until many years later, nor did I know about the contest nor the Houlinan room. I just remember it being a tough fight.
Wow! Nice! Yea I kind of forgot but I went back and played through there and the bridge is filled with enemies not just warmechs so it’s seriously extra tough. Imagine if they had made the rules of the contest that you had to defeat one! Then truly no one would have won. Thanks for watching as always brother ⚔️
Dude, I also got Final Fantasy in 1990. But I DID run into WarMech, on my first play through! I had no idea what was going on, it wiped my party out. I didn't have Nintendo Power, so I had no idea it was rare. I tried telling my friends about WarMech, but they never believed me.
Oh man that must have been nuts! The thing is on the bridge there are lots of other enemies too. It’s seriously the hardest part of the game! It could have been you in the room!! Neo Asura’s secret room! Sorry it never happened
That's ok... I also have had FF1 since it was released on NES... Imagine getting the ship and then encountering GARLAND while at sea.... No idea what made the glitch happen...
Man, what a great video, great humor (didn't get the joke on the sponsors segment until I read the comments!), great nostalgia, and a very plausible theory. You just won a new subscriber, your sponsor must be proud!
Another possibility occurred to me-it could be that the player’s parents didn’t want the real name used (out of privacy or some other concern), and the winner was a minor at the time, so Nintendo either made something up or used an alternate name to honor their request.
Possible! However the contest rules say your likeness will be used so if that’s the case they used a fake name in the entry. And honestly if that was the only way to enter and win, as a kid I wouldn’t even want to if I can’t prove it’s really me. Thanks for watching
He won the contest, bragged about it with his friends, they beat him to a pulp out of either jealousy or pure teenager evil, killed him, scatered his body parts around, and promissed to never talk about it, ever again.
Mexican Club Nintendo magazine did mention Chris Houlihan back in the 90's in one of its issues due to a reader reporting to have found his secret room in Zelda III and being curious about who this guy was. The version of CH being the winner of a Nintendo Power contest was already known back then by CN's devoted readers. I didn't see the room myself though until around 2012 while emulating Zelda III but didn't know what the contest CH allegedly won was about up until now. Somehow it was amazing to realize on my own the room was real after having read about it all those years ago!
I own a few numbers of an Italian Nintendo-related magazine. In one of my numbers there are two pages where the writers talk about this "Rumor in The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past", describing Chris Houlihan's room in great detail and including a photo of the secret room. I didn't care much about it, but a few years later, on internet, I found more and more informations about it. I think nobody won the Final Fantasy contest, since ALTTP released 2 years later. Besides, you can clearly read "You can get your name to appear in a NES game!". That's a good hint, in my opinion
I believe that chris is just a random name. No one really won and they just put a random name into the room to not give the feeling that the contest was a scam
It’s possible! Not for me because 1- the big lots camera I had didn’t take good pictures of the tv and I didn’t get FF1 until Xmas which I did show off in another video. I’m sure you saw it :D
Back In the 90's, the mexican magazine Club Nintendo mentioned C.H's room. A reader sent a photo of the room, that he'd found by chance. They just said it was a contest by Nintendo Power and C.H. was the name of the winner.
Yes that’s true! When this video was new many said that. Which then led me to create a biography on Gus Rodriguez after so many told me how great of a guy he was
Well maybe but I’d like to think you’d remember entering. I remember writing them letters. Not getting a response. Anyway my goal was to start a dialogue and this comment section is great. Thanks for sharing your opinion ⚔️
I have had another theory. Chris Houlihan was an uncredited game tester who found the glitch and presented the fail safe room idea. If you think about it, have we seen a fail safe room prior to A Link to the Past?
@@syntaxerror9994 No, not necessarily. Remember that localization doesn't begin after a Japanese release. There is beta testing in other territories well before release dates. There is proof of that with the English beta screenshots of ALttP. They may not have given him credit in the Japanese version because you know, gaijin reasons...
I damn near skipped that gag advertisement at the beginning because I thought it was real. I’ve developed an involuntary reflex to mash the “+15sec” skip button whenever I hear the words “but first, a word from our sponsor”, so I’m so glad I saw the title card. Nice job mocking the “retro gaming RU-vidr” stereotype too.
Thanks Matt! A baked in sponsor is something I’d never do but I have lots of material to work with from everyone over at the screenwave retrogaming complex 😂
That seems like a very plausible explanation. It was a place holder room and name and no one won so they abandoned it. Especially since you have to glitch to get into it. If it was legit, it might have just been hidden behind a wall or somewhere alot more obvious. Great video!!
This theory is extremely interesting and definitely plausible. If Chris Houlihan did come out publicly he would be a legend. Great Theory! I'm convinced!!!
Thanks. Going thru these comments 4 people so far agree. Though wouldn’t it be funny if this video made Chris come out of hiding?! 😂 thanks for watching
I think I recall that in the "Player's Pulse" section of the Nintendo Power magazine during the mid-90's, maybe late-90's, someone asked about that contest, and Nintendo Power replied that it was Chris Houlihan in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and explained a method to reach it, which I think was something like this: Save your game in the Light World, restart it at the Sanctuary, then dash west one screen, south one screen, and east one screen to reach Hyrule Castle without bumping into anything. Then race towards the bush leading to the passage where you first find your uncle at the start of the game, and dash into that bush and fall in the hole. If you do so fast enough, you enter Chris Houlihan's room. I'm sure my wording isn't exactly accurate, and I'll be darned if I can recall exactly which issue of NP it was in. I wonder if maybe I should try digging through my NP collection to try and find it...
@@GTV-Japan Aha, that narrows it down significantly! So, I quickly went and dug out those issues and found them! From volume 105, page 9, under "Juan: Dinosaur Hunter": "In 1992, NP contest winner Chris Houlihan secured his place in gaming history by having his name featured in a hidden area in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past." Then, at the start of volume 107's Player's Pulse, on page 6, Alexis Quinter wrote: "This is really bugging me! You had a little section titled "Juan the Dinosaur Hunter" on page 9 in Volume 105 that mentioned a hidden area in the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past that featured the name of a 1992 contest winner (Chris Houlihan). Where the heck is the thing? I've played the game at least 50 times through, but I can't find the hidden name! I think you should tell all your readers where it's hidden so we can put our minds to rest and get on with dreaming about Zelda 64." NP's reply: "Save your game in the Light World, then restart the game in the Sanctuary. Using the A button, dash to the bush that you had to uproot to enter Hyrule Castle. However, instead of lifting the bush when you reach it, quickly dash into the hole. If you're quick enough, you'll stumble into Chris Houlihan's secret room. But before you start dreaming about Zelda 64, keep in mind that this trick doesn't always work."
The opening was absolutely hilarious. As for the main topic of the video I've always kind of believed the proposed theory, it was a place holder name considering the circumstances behind how you access the room. I'm pretty sure if all went as planned Nintendo Power would have had a full page spread of how to find it and one of their four question interviews with Chris.
Thanks I’m glad you have a sense of humor 😂 I was nervous putting this out because people get touchy but I said the hell with it and I think it’s for the better. This idea came from people requesting I look into this and see what I think about it. I tried for about 2 years off and on looking for info but eventually just said that the only avenue no one ever took is to say Chris isn’t real or something wrong happened with the contest. But really it is worth talking about that Nintendo did have a golden opportunity here but never jumped on it. So what’s up? Maybe this video will get so popular they’ll be forced to admit something. Thanks for watching ⚔️
Yeah. I wonder when. There’s a few people who’d know for sure, they’ve never said anything about it! If Howard or Gail would just be open about it, we’d all know!! Thanks for watching ⚔️
I'd thought for a while that the room was set up to be accessed "legitimately" in game, but then had the access removed and was switched to a failsafe later down the line. And I guess if no-one actually won the competition it would make sense to have the room cut and, with the limited memory space of the 90s, repurposed. Might be worth digging through the Nintendo leak from earlier in the year to see when it was implemented.
That’s a good idea. I figured if IF something was in there we’d know by now. Actually I wrote this in January but really for 15 years nothing has ever been added to the story. Thanks for watching ⚔️
Funny how you post this as I start playing A Link To The Past. This is certainly an interesting theory. I love gaming mysteries like this. It’s always fun to think about. Have a good one!
I always have esp on exactly what you’re playing! Yea it’s a mystery. It’s good to have these things. Makes life more fun. Thanks for watching as always ⚔️
I know it's not related to the video, but man, you guys got the best sponsorship deal in this video xDD For real though, the Chris Houlihan mystery has amazed me for years. I still cannot believe it's never been truly found, but this theory actually has some believable credence to it.
Hey I’m glad you liked it. It turns out a lot of people agree with this point. I was surprised by that. I thought I’d be told 100 times over I’m wrong. Thanks for watching ⚔️
I also had the same theory as you. Well... unlike you, I didn't have all those clues to back it up, it was more like a hunch. It was "too secret" and Nintendo were very public when pretending they were your friends via contests and things like that so, why isn't there any evidence this guy existed? I'm glad to know there are more people who had the same theory as me. Also, loved the "promo" video. It's even better than the Paytreon one you did in a previous video.
Thanks. Actually I wrote this and that other video in 2019. I wanted it to be kind of like a story arc and have that video be the opening a d this be the ending. It didn’t happen how I envisioned but the two are meant to be connected. That one was like the debut, “starting” a channel and in the finale I died haha. Look back at the first image and you’ll see Game Genius made good on his promise and copied me, then got popular 😂 as for The Theory, I stand by it. But in researching this I found no one else came to that conclusion so it had to be the way to go presentation wise. Thanks for watching ⚔️
“Proving a negative is impossible” if someone from the dev team confirmed that no one won the contest, wouldn’t that prove it? I don’t think he used that fallacy correctly
1) I poked a hole through my phone trying to answer that ad for Paid. Monies, please. 2) Wow, actually that makes a ton of sense. Justin Bailey wasn’t a real person either. 3) Congratulations on Nintendo’s new speed bump.
Still one of my favorite channels bro - And this episode rocked! I did not know about Chris H but man what a cool story. Loved that video still if you holding Final Fantasy too
This video already cracking me up lol. Like your theory. You out here exposing Nintendo's seedy unberbelly and dark lies. They gonna send Luigi after you with his death stare. :P
1990 was 30 years ago. No one who was in marketing at the time would still be employed there, so no matter how many times you call, you won’t get ahold of someone with that knowledge. And they likely didn’t digitize any of their old files... a silly contest winner 30 years ago just doesn’t matter to anyone.
Because it’s a hidden gem, you’ll have to buy access to a pay-tree-on post where I’ll announce when I put a copy up on ePay so you can snipe it first. It is about as rare as revenge of the bird king after all. 😂 thanks for watching ⚔️
Glad you brought this up. I've had this same theory in my head for a while now. Also love the play on You Can't Do That On Television at the beginning.
It was actually far worse. See, Chris was 15 at the time of the contest when he won and was well into training to be a serious competitor in the sport of curling. He trained everyday after school with his team mates who all wanted to earn a coveted spot on the Canadian curling team for the '92 Winter Olympics. Chris was especially eager since another item on his rather lengthy to do list was to visit France, a country he felt a deep connection with, being Canadian and all. For 2 years, Chris and his team practiced at a local recreation center in Edmonton. His school athletics commission was extremely impressed with his ability to seemingly control where the stone landed, almost as if he was using telekinesis just as much as his brush to stop the stone on the button nearly 65% of the time, seemingly able to even change the trajectory of a bad slide. He was a natural. He had gained quite a lot of attention from his skills, earning a sponsorship to the Olympic trials. Unfortunately, one of his team mates, Jerry Franco, who had trained those long hours with Chris was not given an invitation to try out. It was also unfortunate that Jerry's uncontrollable temperament lead to one of the grizzliest murders in both Edmonton's history and Canadian history. Chris never made it to the tryouts and at the '92 Olympics, Canada could only manage to tie with the United States for a bronze medal, adding literal insult of failing to at last capture a long desired gold in curling to an already painful injury of losing one of their most talented curlers. Edmonton officials, at the behest of the Houlihan family later successfully petitioned the Canadian government to bury the infamy their beloved family member had attracted due to the tragedy, which included persuading Nintendo and, by extension, Nintendo Power to quietly ignore the contest that Chris had won just a few months prior. Nintendo obviously agreed but still felt obligated to uphold their promise to immortalize Chris, thus giving him his prize in the form of the error handler room found in the final North American release of LTTP. In early 2003, word of the room and it's tragic unintentional epitaph were rumored to have triggered Chris' surviving family to sue Nintendo, but those close to the family said they preferred this to be his legacy rather than the victim of jealousy that humiliated the entire country.
I think Chris Houlihan is real, and he was referenced in Nintendo Power Vol. 105. In Nintendo Power Vol. 16, September 1990, the War Mech challenge was announced. In Vol. 17, October 1990, the location of the WarMech was given on page 73. That gives prospective players a week or two to get to this exact spot and make their recording. In Nintendo Power Vol. 105, February 1998, they reference Chris Houlihan as a "NP contest winner" whose name is in Link to the Past on page 9.
No joke, I was 6 1/2 when I started playing Final Fantasy, I remember the challenge and sent in 5 pictures of a WarMech. Chris had to be a son or a nephew of a Nintendo Power Magazine editor. My mom signed me up for my first issue and I received it until it went out of print and I’ve gone through EVERY ISSUE… no mention of Chris anywhere, that’s why I think all of us got gipped because they thought we wouldn’t find the WarMech in time and just decided to name the room after the editor or a writer for the magazine’s nephew… my 2 cents
BREAKING NEWS: Marios Held Hostage! Crazy D-Gen-X individual causes major uproar with the big "N"! A strange man, claiming to be a great and old friend of "GTV" (You-Tube channel) has taken Mario and Luigi Hostage, and says he will not release them until his dear friend returns. The hostage taker, aka "Justin Bailey", says he is a die-hard video game fan and friend of GTV host named Mr. ***** ********* and said he was very serious, going as far to "plant bombs at the headquarters of "N", although he did remark he was "saddened the bombs did not seem to be growing even after planting, good soil, and plenty of water as is frequent in the Redmond area, with good sun some days." Regardless, Mr. Bailey has said that if GTV's ***** wasn't released before the end of the month, then N would loose its favorite mascots. "I want my best friend back! He was covering a real story!" he pleaded holding some grains of salt over Princess Peach, who he claims is actually the forgotten 'Princess Toadstool ' in a example of how the "N" corporation likes to make people vanish when it wants to. "She's probably flushed down a pipe somewhere to make room for this IMPOSTER!!" Bailey threatened, with lots of salt. Further adding, "I'll start broadcasting from the N-Tower soon. It will say 'The Legend of Zelda but it will be 'Golvellius: Valley of Doom!' no more Zelda and much more Rena!!!" Okay, kinda had to cut that last bit short but stay tuned here folks as we dive deeper into this mystery and see if we can peacefully resolve it.
@@GTV-Japan GTV?! My old friend, your really okay?! I was.. (realizes Kayfabe situation) ... wait!! Who Art Thou?? The real codename GTV is never so cold. No praise for thy creative 8-bit call-backs to a 'Shilling Legendary Work'?? This reply could be a bot or other magical ruse by the big "N"... I will NOT be deceived so easily!! 'Peoria', Illinois? As we know that is the state where 'normal' is. And GTV is the farthest thing from it. In the best of ways. I shall see how 'real' you are once I force the Super Mario Bros. movie to play on endless loop on your channel... MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! ;)
@@GTV-Japan That's good to hear. And I'd like to believe you. But I need to make sure. After all, the very fate of your channel is in peril. I shall therefore go on a Mystic Quest. A Final Fantasy if you will, of epic proportions to discover the truth!! That newspaper article must NOT see the light of day!! It must have been from an alternate dimension. Okay... gotta be totally anti-n here. Marios are out... lemme check to make sure, yeah, no yoshi's or racoon tails, and mushrooms... (cough) yuck. Didn't know they did shrooms. Thought "N" was all about child-friendly. Then again, so was Michael Jackson. And we all know about how that turned out. Okay, got a Strider Sword, Golvellius gave me this anti-magic Mirror Shield, some magic aqua boots just because you never know... and while Rena says she's good at magic I better get some backup. Any Otaku NEEDS a Waifu and a Mech or something similar! (Dials cell phone) "Yes? Rika? I need your sister... yes, Nei from Phantasy Star 2. No.. NO its for real this time. It's not a tag-team event like usual. Yes, your just as pretty. Now can you please put your sister on. No.. NO not turn her on... this is REAL and keep it clean!! I'm live on youtube!! Okay.. okay.. yes, I'll bring back something as a trophy. Now please.. ok, hi Nei!! How are you, hon? No, this isn't the usual cosplay. I need the REAL Nei... I've got a set of Diamond Claws, not Bars, all ready for you. Yes, yes, of course your wear the first heroine to die. Everyone keeps saying it that other girl from FF7.. You remember how I cried for you. Yes, wear the purple outfit. Good now?? Alright, love you, see you soon. Bye." Whew... actual Waifu's. Amiright? (lol) "Wait.. if I bring my Robo-tech Valkyrie they'll probably expect it. So... hmm, something they won't expect. Heh heh heh!" One more call, I'll be quick... (cell phone beeps) "Hey. Big G... yeah, you busy? Because I need you in America. Yes, I know you've been busy filming. Yeah, I know you haven't been back to Tokyo but come on, its 2020, hasn't the world suffered enough? Yes.. okay, if you do this, I'll call Mothra and set something up, but your going to have to take it from there, okay?? I'm not a pimp... okay, see you soon. Yup... aw, you big softie!! Yeah, great backup strategy just in case. Man, you really have this storm in and destroy stuff down to a "G"... (chuckle) okay man. I'll see you then. Just keep it on the DL for now. Okay, bye." Anyway, sorry about that... okay, I've got the girl, the sword, the magic, the shield, and the boss... and a few little tricks I've got here just in case. Nei will meet me at the gate. My hair is dyed blue for Nei. And we will literally dig into that mysterious speed bump. Hang in there, GTV!! We're going to save you AND your channel AND bring a new type of unique, long term, story-telling ARG magic, or... something, whatever this is... to the world!! A true Christmas story of giving and friendship!! Or maybe not.. but this is the only way I can give. And it's the season of giving. So... maybe?? Tune in to this thread folks. Be sure to subscribe, sub, donate, give, share, turn on notifications, paypal or patreon IF... IF... your a normal youtuber... GTV is NOT a normal You Tuber as his Shilling legends should have made clear. No. You come back because you WANT to and show your support the best you can. Be original. Do something like this!! Anyway, I got to plan my strategy and go before these "N" storm-troopers get in. Stay tuned and if you like this. Give it a thumbs up. Takes no money or schilling. Just shows you like it. Or don't. Bye!
Haha sounds like a hi-qual fan fiction! Rather than write some self serving autobiography like everyone else I say let’s do this! Also there are tons of callbacks to older episodes. Can you find them all?
It's entirely possible he was never made aware he had won the contest. It's possible he never found the easter because it was so hard to access when the game came out. Also who is to say he ever played a Link to the Past, the contest was for Final Fantasy! He might not have been a Zelda fan. With all if this the odds of him being aware of this easter egg or even caring are very low.
Well I do often wonder how much overlap FF fans and Zelda fans there actually is. Not counting Zelda 2, which is an awesome game but nothing like the other 2
I think it fascinating how Chris Hoolihan and the Warmech contest have constantly been conflated, despite there not being any confirmed source on the association between the two. Also, if it's worth noting, Zelda 3 launched in 1991 on its Japanese release, would they have even had time to add a name to that specific game in that short localization window? Unrelated, but that intro was a fire hazard with how scathing it was xD
I’m glad you like my irreverent gaming humor! I’m not sure about the gap between japan and the USA but it was about 4/5 months and it takes at least 3 months to manufacture so it must have been done fast. Probably all was done after October 1990. This is about the 10th comment agreeing with the premise of the video and I was surprised. I thought I’d get a lot of hate for not going along with the narrative. Thanks for watching ⚔️
I never knew about this as a kid. In fact this is the first place I heard of it. Still a fun video to watch. I guess because I never owned a super nintendo and was mostly an arcade kid at that time.
Great detective work and and very interesting theory. How about this one? What if Chris H was an older gamer? Maybe in his 30s or 40s and wanted no part of his picture taken or made public for fear of being ridiculed for appearing in a "kids" magazine. Back then video games and more specifically console games were primarily played by kids in the West, so that would make him quite an older person in this day and age and possibly has passed or isnt really dealing with technology in the way we all are. Just a thought!
It’s a possibility but on the ZU forum I showed, but not that post, someone actually did an obituary search and found not a single person named Chris Houlihan. Though that maybe isn’t the final answer on the matter.
My friendsfriend’s little brother in high schools name was Chris Houlihan but that would be a heck of a coincidence and he would have been 6 at the time
No I’m actually from Pittsburgh! That’s a call back to an old video I did a long time ago where I found out the first copies of the Atari 2600 Pac-Man went on sale in Madison Wisconsin. Which is true! In the story I made a fake headline and used that as the newspaper name. So I thought why not connect the two. Thanks for watching ⚔️
@@GTV-Japan That version of the site is probably long gone. Happens all the time with 90s sites. Thanks for making this video, by the way. Really enjoyed it!
I went to school with a kid named Chris Houlihan. He had a brother named Adam and a sister named Mandy. They were very poor, even by my neighborhood standards. But they were big on rpg games, because his dad worked at funcoland, an old games reseller. He died in the early 2000s. Drugs were involved. Might be the same kid.
This room has always fascinated me. I accidentally entered it somehow in the first couple years after the game's release and was never able to replicate it. It was a relief to find out that my memory wasn't playing tricks on me once documentation started appearing on the internet. I always wonder how many other kids accidentally entered the room before it was widely known.
Yeah I remember going into it as a kid but I thought that room was always there by default since I would run into it a lot by a cave near sanctuary never knew my name was glitching lol
Yes. I swear on the Bible I sent messages to Howard Phillips and Dan Owsen on Facebook and linked in! No response at all. I even paid for linked in premium or whatever to do so!
I'm extra late to the party, but I clearly remember the secret room being mentioned in an official Nintendo publication in the 90s: Club Nintendo (like Nintendo Power, but for Latam). It was in the QA section, and the kid who wrote the letter mentioned he entered the pyramid to fight Ganon "as usual", and instead of that, he got a "rupee upholstered floor" with a message mentioning "CHRIS-WHATISHISNAME". The answer given by the magazine was this boy was the winner of a contest. I'm writing this because I have the impression that this secret room was never acknowledged back in the day by Nintendo... and it's highly likely scans of that magazine exist online (it's in Spanish)
