The marriage proposal that's hidden in two 1990s PlayStation games

Summary

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, XA new PUZZLE item will appear:If you select it, you’ll get a question:Melissa, will you marry me? Love, ScottIf 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 againLeft: 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 # XIf 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, XIf you enter that, a different new item pops up:This SECRET menu has:I’m not sure what the I-L-L / I-N-I thing does, but Big Head Mode sure does what you’d expect:As does Roll Credits. The Scott from the marriage proposal abov...