Under the microscope: NCAA Basketball Final Four 97 (PlayStation)

Also: World League Basketball

How many video games include a marriage proposal? At least one! Plug in a second controller and use it to enter this sequence at the main menu of NCAA Basketball Final Four 97:

Select, Start, Triangle, Up, 
X, Square, Up, X, 
Left, Up, X

A new PUZZLE item will appear:

If you select it, you’ll get a question:

Melissa, will you marry me? Love, Scott

If you answer Yes, I will, you’ll get this message:

And they lived happily ever after...

And if you answer No, I won’t, you’ll get this one:

Error, please try again

Left: She will! Right: Error.

Heartwarming!

I found this by noticing this ?? PUZZLE ?? item in the list of strings for the main menu:

80068944 "?? PUZZLE ??"
80068954 "SECRET"
8006895c "EXHIBITION GAME"
8006896c "CONTINUE SEASON / TOURNAMENT"
8006898c "START NEW SEASON"
800689a0 "START NEW TOURNAMENT"
800689b8 "TEAM INFORMATION"
800689cc "OPTIONS"

Then I did my usual memory snapshot diff trick to figure out which memory addresses hold controller input. That led me to the function at 80076398, which reads button presses from controller 2. It compares your button presses to the sequence at 8009add4. This uses the standard PlayStation mapping for buttons:

8009add4 0001 0000  # Select
8009add8 0008 0000  # Start
8009addc 1000 0000  # Triangle
8009ade0 0010 0000  # Up

8009ade4 4000 0000  # X
8009ade8 8000 0000  # Square
8009adec 0010 0000  # Up
8009adf0 4000 0000  # X

8009adf4 0080 0000  # Left
8009adf8 0010 0000  # Up
8009adfc 4000 0000  # X

If you match it, the counter at 800d2000 increases. If that counter reaches 11, the new menu item is activated.

Hmm, but what about the SECRET string just below the ?? PUZZLE ?? one? The same function checks controller 2’s button presses against another sequence:

Select, Start, Square, Circle, 
Triangle, Triangle, Circle, Right, 
Left, X

If you enter that, a different new item pops up:

This SECRET menu has:

• Half length

• An I-L-L / I-N-I toggle (the Fighting Illini?)

• Big Head Mode

• Roll Credits

I’m not sure what the I-L-L / I-N-I thing does, but Big Head Mode sure does what you’d expect:

Players with big heads

As does Roll Credits. The Scott from the marriage proposal above seems to be Scott Corley, lead programmer:

Scott Corley’s credit

I hope it worked out for Scott and Melissa!

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World League Basketball

I said above that “at least one” video game has a marriage proposal in it. I should have said “at least two,” because the exact same one is in another game from the same development studio as NCAA Basketball Final Four 97.

World League Basketball uses the same button codes as above. Enter them to make the same ?? PUZZLE ?? and SECRET options appear.

The marriage proposal screen has the same options and text, as does the secret menu screen. Big Head mode works the same way:

The credits are different. Scott Corley isn’t listed in the staff roll, but the team behind NCAA Final Four ‘97 gets a special thanks:

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Outro

I sent a note about these Easter eggs to Scott Corley. He said that he had recently pulled out the game to show the marriage proposal to his son. But he’d forgotten the code and couldn’t make it work! He and Melissa did indeed live happily ever after.

I found a few more video game marriage proposals: Mortal Kombat 1, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Klax. Are there others than I’m missing?

For many more adventures in reverse engineering retro game Easter eggs, see my archive. And to get the next article as soon as it comes out, subscribe to Rings of Saturn here on Substack. More soon!

Logo by Ashlyn Anstee