But there was a catch. When you first booted up the game, you saw only . The rest were ghosts, greyed out behind a digital lock.

Then came the fan-made magnum opus: .

This is, of course, the legendary Konami Code. In Final Fight LNS Ultimate , it doesn't give you 30 lives. Instead, a tiny chime plays. A new menu option appears:

On the (where it says "Press Start"), enter the following using the directional pad: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A

To the untrained eye, it was just another Streets of Rage-style fan game. But to those in the know, it was a museum of Capcom’s golden era. The game boasted over —not just from Final Fight , but from Street Fighter , Captain Commando , Strider , Rival Schools , and even Slam Masters .

This is the story of how to break those locks. To unlock everyone in Final Fight LNS Ultimate , you don't buy DLC. You don't enter cheat codes. You fight. According to the game’s internal logic (and the fan wiki), there are three distinct methods: