Forbidden Four

The "Forbidden Four" is the name given to a group of NES games in that cannot be obtained through the use of universal codes. The four games are Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros., Ice Climbers, and The Legend of Zelda. The moniker started out as the "Forbidden Five" (the fifth title being Punch-Out!!) and referred to the five NES games that at the time could only be acquired through the use of a cheating device. The accidental generation of a Punch-Out!! code by GameFAQs user darklao on August 12, 2003 provided access to that NES title until the game's code generator was cracked completely by Ryan Holtz in December that year. By using a disassembler for the GameCube's CPU, Holtz was able to examine the game's low-level code pertaining to code generation, and his findings allowed him to create an application to replicate the codes generated by the game. Furthermore, it was determined that the developers had specifically excluded the Forbidden Four from being distributed using passwords; the Forbidden Four were meant to be distributed by other means.

Trivia

 * In North America, Mario Bros. and Ice Climber were released exclusively through the use of e-Reader cards. Europe never received e-Reader support, so these games cannot be obtained in that region without an Action Replay. Japan never received the cards either, but these games were available in Doubutsu no Mori + and Doubutsu no Mori e+. For a short time, Nintendo of Japan offered to transfer equivalent save data from Nintendo 64 to GameCube, so it can be played legitimately, however, this service has since been discontinued.
 * The only games that cannot be obtained at all through normal means are Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. Doubutsu no Mori+ includes a port of the Famicom Disk System version of The Legend of Zelda, which was replaced with the NES version in the international release, implying the game was meant to be obtainable.