So someone on IRC mentioned the ending(s) to Zero Wing and …

ending #2 is some very thin credits

ending #3 is reportedly the "true ending", at least on the European release. The Japanese version has 35 endings.

This one is... more serious? a little?

The other 32 endings are translated here, by @ClydeMandelin:
https://t.co/BN33w7zP2B

functionally all the japanese endings work like this. you get CONGRATULATIONS and then CATS says something to you.
usually something silly, or possibly the debug menu cheat code

The way the game selects the ending is apparently there's a "loop counter" which records how many times you've beaten the game. It's initialized to the difficulty, so if you're playing on easy it starts on ending 1, normal is ending 2, hard is ending 3.

so to get to ending 4, you either have to beat the game on hard mode and then beat it again without resetting the console, or beat it 4 times on easy mode.

or you use the cheat code to get to the test menu which lets you pick arbitrary endings.

The only problem is that you learn the cheat code from ending #35

fun fact: THE EXISTENCE of that cheat code was discovered in 2014. (the game is from 1991)

it wasn't until later that someone figured out how to use it

the problem is that the game uses "west" to mean "right", which is... confusing.

To use the code, you start the game, then pause it with start, and enter:
C↑B↓A←→BCC→←→A↓ and hit Start

as is often the case, TCRF has a bunch of info:
https://t.co/mUOCFgfwyV

it's really disappointing that the european release didn't get the extra endings.
admittedly just translating the intro apparently almost killed the translators... 32 more endings worth of text would have been a disaster.

so there's a weird thing with how the game controls endings:
so the way it's been explained is that there's endings 1-3 which are the "normal" endings, then endings 4-35 which are the joke endings, which are only in the japanese version, right?

but here's the thing: if you take the japanese cart and plug it into a european megadrive or US genesis, you can enter the code and you'll only get endings 1-3.

It gates you based on the firmware language! only Japanese Megadrives get the endings 4-35.

I thought at first this just meant that the japanese and european roms were the same, and it just picks language based on the rom language, but NOPE!
if you load up the japanese ROM with firmware set to US or Europe, you still get a Japanese intro.

so now I'm wondering... what happens if you load up the european ROM and set your firmware to Japan?
Maybe everyone was wrong and those endings #4 to #35 ARE in the european version, but people thought they weren't because of the firmware gate?

and the answer is... NOPE!

Even with the firmware set to Japan, the European version limits you to endings 1-3.

anyway, other fun thing:
a lot of the popularity of the whole "All Your Base" meme comes from a song, and later a flash animation.
That song is called INVASION OF THE GABBER ROBOTS
https://t.co/tEAkfp05G9

and it's by a band called The Laziest Men on Mars

which is a reference... to the only movie where Santa is threatened with explosive decompression!
That's right, the 1964 classic SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS!