This is ABC!!
(oops, I mean GTV!!)
When I played the new Metroid game, Samus Returns, it really took me back to the old
days.
Wait!
Didn't Samus already return?
Shouldn't this game be called Samus Returns Again?
Or Samus Re-returns?
Yea I know, its a remake!
Oh well, I guess its too late to change it.
But I will come back to Samus Returns by the end of this video to bring things full circle
from the First Metroid to the newest entry.
So, stick around.
The first Metroid is what I want to focus on here anyway.
It came out along side The Legend of Zelda and Kid Icarus.
All three games were BRUTAL without any guide book, maps, or really, any understanding what
to do.
But in 1987 thats just the way it was.
Here ya go junior, 3 insanely super hard games with no help, enjoy!
All 3 games in Japan had save features, but only Zelda came to the West with this intact.
Metroid and Kid Icarus came with a password function.
Ok kids, and I really do mean kids because if you were born in an era of hard drives
and cloud syncing, it might be hard to wrap your head around that games on carts used
to use batteries to save the game.
Yes actual batteries!
They were expensive and so to cut the costs of that a password system was used for a lot
of games.
Other examples include Battle of Olympus and Dragon Quest 1, in Japan.
The thing about the password system that was fun and cool was that you could manipulate
in a way.
And some games had secret passwords put in the game, which if you found them was a neat
little bonus.
For example, If you start Metroid and die, the password looks like this.
Mostly zeroes and I guess the only data here is how much time you spent playing, as that
internal clock of the game affects the ending.
But if I get the Maru item and can make Metroid crawl, then die, it changes some more.
Well, it didn't take long for those in 1987 to realize you could play around with the
password system and give yourself extra energy, new power-ups, open up new areas, or whatever
else you could find.
A lot of it was trial and error, but that was part of the fun.
When Metroid, Zelda and Kid Icarus were new, Nintendo started printing the Nintendo Fun
Club News, which later became Nintendo Power.
The scant few hints that we would be dropped every 2 months was like an oasis in the desert!
🐪 But eventually, in both Nintendo Power Issue 29, and Top Secret Passwords, there
is an ULTIMATE CODE!!!
For Metroid!
And to everyone's surprise, it was easy to remember.
Just put in JUSTIN BAILEY and go right to the end with a full arsenal and the best ending.
Wait, Metroid was a girl?!
Yea This was for many the way we learned that Samus Aran was female!
Everyone thought that was cool back then, and the proper way to see Samus' face is to
beat the game in under 2 hours.
But that was never going to happen.
So the password was the way to go.
I thought Samus was man though as the =US ending in the name Samus follows the Latin
rules of second declension for masculine nouns, but were getting wayyyy off track here!
Justin Bailey?
Who was that?
Why was a common name used as the ultimate password in Metroid?
Again, if you were born after the internet, there used to be these things called urban
legends.
Without the real life all knowing Trash Heap called Google, you had all kinds of crazy
stories floating around out there and no way to disprove them, and usually no way to prove
them either!
One rumor was simply that Justin Bailey was a programmer who stuck his name in.
Thats has been done before, like the famous Warren Robinett Easter egg in Atari's Adventure.
But Metroid was made in Japan, and had an American worked on it, I guess you could check
company payrolls and phonebooks in Redmond, Washington in 1987 to see if a Justin Bailey
was real.
If you do lemme know what you find.
The other rumor, one that still hangs in the air, around those who aren't in the know,
is that Justin Bailey is NOT a name but a phrase.
Of course in the game Samus wears a suit of armor, but with the Justin Bailey code she
wears what looks like a bathing suit.
The rumor of the day was that a Bailey was a slang word in the UK for a bathing suit
used in the 1940s.
Some variants say Australia.
And so Samus was "just in a bailey," as in she's just in a bathing suit!
I've never seen a bathing suit with long sleeves but hey, it was the 40s.
This has all the markings of an urban legend.
It's word from another country, from another time period and its slang that has fallen
into disuse.
You would need a slang dictionary of British English from the 1940s and hope the writers
decided to put in there!
You'd have better luck finding Miyamoto's legendary dictionary that has Donkey as the
word for stupid!
There is NOOOOO evidence that Bailey ever meant a word for a bathing suit in the UK
or Australia or anywhere in the 1940s.
But… the Oxford Dictionary says a Bailey means the outer wall of a castle, and its
root comes from a French word for enclosure.
Hmm!!!
There are a lot of walls in Metroid and the goal is to escape.
Maybe we all were just in a Bailey after all!
Eventually though the truth did come out.
It was actually MORE unbelievable than all gaming rumors put together.
In fact, I still can't believe it now.
Justin Bailey wasn't a person, a bating suit or anything at all, it was a random occurrence!!!
In an interview with Mental Floss, Nintendo Power senior editor George Sinfield says quote,
"The fact that 'Justin Bailey' works as a password at all, let alone one that features
a powered-up Samus, is pure coincidence and was not put into the game intentionally."
He goes on to say he "wrote the 'Classified Information' section back then and got tips
and tricks from a lot of sources, including players who sent us letters.
My guess is that someone named Justin Bailey wrote to Nintendo with the code after inputting
his own name and getting interesting results."
Now just how is that possible?!
The pass word for starting with the Ice Beam is 000000 000000 080000 0000Y8 and the password
for the Wave Beam is 000000 000000 040000 0000X8 so how do these random numbers and
letters make some things appear but an actual name makes EVERYTHING appear??!!
Its been found out that not all of the characters of each part of the password have any effect.
Possibly to make it harder for kids to crack?
So the passwords can be almost anything.
It is just pure coincidence that to us Justin Bailey means anything.
Other word combinations have been discovered such as CONTIN UE_MY_ GAMEMI NIBOSS which
starts you in the beginning with armor-less Samus and no power-ups. and you can enter
Tourian from the start.
However one password was discovered that was actually hard coded into the game.
It gives you infinite energy and missiles and every power up.
Narpas Sword, or is it Nar Password?
NAR could mean North American Release, Not a Real Password, or part of the name of Toru
Narihiro, who actually created the password system for the Western version of Metroid.
Which if true, and I'm not saying it is, would actually be the programmer credit we
all thought Justin Bailey was.
While were at it, the passwords for Kid Icarus are equally crazy with passwords like ICARUS
FIGHTS MEDUSA ANGELS and PAKING PAKING PAKING PAKING making the game much much much much
much easier.
These two games already share many elements, so its likely that the password system and
its weirdness carried over.
Anyway….. the Return of Samus and Super Metroid came and went, with battery backup.
And over time game saves became the norm, with long passwords dying out.
Sure they were fun to play around with, but a pain to put in!
Time moved on and Justin Bailey faded away.
Justin Bailey and Samus in a Leotard only exist in the Western version of Metroid.
It doesn't exist in the Japanese version.
Once you finish the game, you can't continue, due to the save system.
It HAS been included in fan made mods of Super Metroid and Return of Samus and those modders
helped Justin Bailey live on!
For a gamers of a certain age, it was a secret handshake that would tell others you were
in the know.
Justin Bailey has popped up a few times since Metroid.
The game Shadow Complex includes an achievement called "Jason Bailey" for completing the game
with a 100% rating in under 2 hours.
Its icon is a pair of white briefs.
In the Playstation 4 game Axiom Verge, Justin Bailey works as a password and will change
the outfit of the character just like Samus in Metroid.
The weirdest, most random out there reference of Justin Bailey is from the kids TV show
Magical DoReMi, where a student in the school is actually named Justin Bailey!
Surely, when I was in school, if there were a real kid named Justin Bailey, he would have
been loved by all!
So I also wondered if there were actual people named Justin Bailey.
After all that was George Sinfield's theory as to how the code was found.
Wouldn't you know there was!
Born on June 10th, 1977 Justin Bailey is a former pro basketball player from Brunswick
New Jersey!
Had we lived in the same town, we would have been classmates!
He is currently the team manager for the Sky City Breakers in New Zealand.
It isn't known if he had ever played Metroid or if he actually found about the code, but
he fits in the zone of the right place and right time to be legendary.
But that's not all!
There is another Justin Bailey!
Born in 1995, Justin Bailey is a forward for the Buffalo Sabers.
It's not known if his name was inspired by Metroid.
BUT!
In what is possibly the ultimate video gaming full circle of crazy weirdness, he is playable
in NHL 18!
That game was released on September 15th, 2017!
The same day as Samus Returns!
Well, my mind is blown!
I'm out of here!
What do you think?
Leave a comment about whenever you found out about Justin Bailey or if any of these revelations
old and new were of any surprise to you.
Then Like, subscribe, click the bell, yada yada yada, you know the drill!
On his twitter page he recently posted his player rating of 75 in NHL 18!
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