You don’t look a day over 30 lives.
On this very day in 1986, a piece of code was accidentally left in the Famicom (NES) version of Konami’s Gradius that allowed anyone to completely juice up their spaceship by pressing up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, then A on the controller. And so began the legendary “Konami Code”, which really caught on in the West as a way to get 30 lives in Contra.
And in celebration of the cheat code’s 40th anniversary, Konami has opened a commemorative webpage on the official site for its Project Zircon. The largely user-built world of this Web3 game platform is still under development, but is expected to include the Konami Code somehow as it grows.
Also, in honor of the Guinness World Record holder for most famous cheat code, a line of T-shirts is being sold through Amazon’s Merch on Demand service, which prints each shirt as it’s ordered.
The girl pictured on some of those shirts is Nami-chan, The Konami Maniac. Through her web manga made by Shota Hattori, she shares her love of all things Konami from old to new, including the burgeoning Project Zircon. Hattori is also the current artist behind the long-running Nippen no Miko-chan, the mascot for the Japanese penmanship society, Nippen. Her manga can also be found online as she continues to fight the good fight for proper penmanship in the digital era.
▼ Both Nami and Miko will be joining the celebration of the Konami Code in a special edition manga.
【紹介マンガ】 服部昇大先生が描く
— 【KONAMI】PROJECT ZIRCON公式「新作ゲームをみんなで創る」 (@Project_Zircon) April 22, 2026
「コナミマニアのナミちゃん」特別編（前編）
ファミコン版グラディウス40周年
「日ペンの美子ちゃん」とのコラボが実現！
永遠の17歳「美子ちゃん」が1984年の当時を語る！
公式Xをフォローして後編を待とう！#40周年#FCグラディウス40th#日ペンの美子ちゃん pic.twitter.com/TTowWyNMuZ
But that’s not all. Konami will also be releasing the music from six Gradius and Gradius-adjacent games on all major streaming and download platforms, as well as many not-so-major Japanese ones.
I’m going to explain these titles, and I apologize in advance if this causes headaches or nausea. The first game is the Famicom version of the original Gradius game, not to be confused with the original arcade game, which was called Nemesis outside of Japan. The soundtrack for Nemesis is also available, but not the one I just mentioned. The Game Boy game based on Gradius was also called Nemesis, both in Japan and abroad. Music from Nemesis II is also available, but this is not the game made for the MSX home computer in 1987. It’s the sequel to the Game Boy version, which was called Gradius: The Interstellar Assault outside of Japan.
Are you still with me? Good, because we’re only halfway through. There’s also the music from Gradius II, which shouldn’t be mistaken for the sequel to Gradius, because that’s actually Salamander, which is known as Life Force outside of Japan. The music from that is available too, though. Finally, there’s also the soundtrack to Gradius III for the Super Famicom, the fourth mainline title and sixth game of its kind made.
It’s a bit of a shame that up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a is more associated with Gradius than Contra in Japan, because that game had some really badass music. Maybe, we can get it when the code’s 50th anniversary rolls around.
In the meantime, why not celebrate today by blowing into a cartridge of your favorite Konami classic and letting the muscle memory of your fingers take over for some added bonuses?
Source: Project Zircon/↑↑↓↓←→←→BA 40th Anniversary, PR Times
Images: PR Times
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