If you're a diehard Legend of Zelda fan, you've probably across the legend of Chris Houlihan in the past.
This is the now famous story about how a young boy ended up winning a Final Fantasy competition in an issue of Nintendo Power and was later immortalised in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, in the form of a special "fail safe" room, which players could access through a variety of methods.
Over the years, there has been a lot of speculation regarding the identity of Chris Houlihan and whether he even existed, with countless game journalists, YouTubers, and Zelda fans doing their best to try and track down him down to learn more about his story and hear his account first-hand. In the past, though, no one had been successful in tracking Houlihan down, with most simply hitting a dead end and giving up the search.
Earlier this week, however, a YouTuber/Astronomer named Kevin Hainline published a video that hoped to debunk the mystery surrounding Houlihan once and for all, stating that he had actually met Houlihan through his mum and that he had proof in the form of a letter that the person he met was the real deal.
In this video, Hainline started out by providing an abridged version of Houlihan's story and why he has finally decided to share his story about meeting the contest winner now, stating: "Chris Houlihan is real. His name is in The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past because his father won the Warmech challenge, a special bonus contest in the September-October 1990 issue of Nintendo Power.
"I’ve noticed again and again that people keep making websites and YouTube videos about Chris Houlihan and they generally come to the conclusion that he’s fictional, with no evidence to back this claim up. These folks are wrong. I’ve met him."
He then went on to relate the story of how he met Houlihan at a party, documented his quest for proof that this Chris Houlihan was the very same one as the person who had been immortalised in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and explained that he eventually got his hands on a picture of a letter reportedly sent to Houlihan from the Nintendo Power editor that was convincing enough for him.
In this letter, which was shown onscreen, the Nintendo Power editor Scott Pelland told Houlihan at the time that his first name had been immortalised in the 1990 NES game Nintendo World Cup, but that Nintendo of America had decided "that was not nearly enough".
As a result, it considered adding his name to Super Metroid and Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters, but "the only characters available" to name were "hideous ogres", so instead it was considering adding his full name to A Link To The Past, or failing that, Lunar Chase (a cancelled North American localization of Argonaut Software's Game Boy title X) or an in-development Super Mario World sequel for the NES (which have some have taken to mean the NES version of Yoshi's Cookie)
To try and sway those who might think he was lying, Hainline also stated that he had reached out to Pelland to try and confirm if the letter was authentic, with the former Nintendo Power editor reportedly telling him, "I think the note is authentic, though I don't have a recollection of it" and that "the facts regarding Chris, his dad, and the contest...seem correct".
Watching the video, it all sounds pretty convincing and it's definitely something we'd like to believe, but we have still seen some skepticism about it online, with our tips inbox being full of people who have asked us to investigate further.
As a result, we've reached out to Pelland to try and independently confirm the contents of the video, just for peace of mind, and will update this article with his comments once we hear back.