NintendoLegend.com ‘s Five Fine NES Series Reminder: The following choices are in no particular order, and do not reflect a “best of” list, but merely a summarized list of examples per category on the Nintendo Entertainment System. In this case, Five Fine NES Examples Of Awesome Games With Awful Titles.
Here, have some candy.
If one peers hard enough, perhaps disturbing elements can be found in any otherwise innocent-seeming piece of media. For video games, this can certainly be done, even aside from the survival horror genre titles that seek to intentionally provoke feelings of fear and tension, and even on older generations of cartridge gaming. The following are five examples of 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) console video games that, under their happy-go-lucky surface, contain aspects that may be found creepy, suspicious, unnerving, or outright disturbing.
I want to wear your skin.
Kirby’s Adventure
The pink puffball protagonist, Kirby, must adventure through several worlds of a handful of stages each as he defeats, swallows, and both absorbs and uses the powers of countless enemies. Spoiler alert: When he finally confronts what seems to be the final boss, King Dedede, it is shortly revealed that the King was never truly the villain; nay, instead, it is the malevolent Nightmare, apparently having been controlling the King the whole time. This raises a disturbing question: Did Kirby just spend the entire game ruthlessly mass-murdering the innocent citizens of Dream Land? Play it again, and notice how many of the enemies just seem to be minding their own business – before Kirby comes along and murders them. For all we know, the mini-bosses were just valiant heroes trying to defend their fair land from the sudden murderous spree of the treacherous Kirby.
NARC
This is a video game in which the player controls a law enforcement officer out to bust perps for drug-related offenses. This seems like a decent premise with a promising message, but at a closer look reveals some disturbing details. Exhibit A: Due to Nintendo’s censorship policies of the time, all actual drug references have been removed from the game, turning the criminals into anonymous guys merely jaywalking their way through their day. Exhibit B: Although more points are awarded for “busting” an enemy, they is little incentive not to just kill them all, including through the use of the trusty rocket launcher, which rips their body into a handful of pieces spinning away from the explosion’s epicenter. Exhibit C: In the game, you are forced to kill dogs to proceed. Exhibit D: Read the instruction manual. The entire booklet as an odd, slightly-off tone to it, such as when the introductory letter uses the term “justice,” quotation marks intact.
Super Mario Bros.
It has been pointed out before, but consider the premise of Super Mario Bros.: An Italian plumber from Brooklyn is transported through pipes to a Kingdom where he consumes shrooms for power and burns all the turtles in his path in order to rescue a captured princess from a deranged monster. There are far too many weird things in that sentence.
Bomberman
Then there is the premise of Bomberman which, rather than persist in zany whimsy as with Mario, is more disturbing the more thought you give to it, as though it were instead a subversive piece of dystopia-related literature: Firstly, Bomberman is a robot that is enslaved deep underground by evil beings who force him to create bombs for eternity. Secondly, this robot’s sentient mind has decided that he, instead, wishes to become human, and believes he can do so by reaching the surface of the planet, and decides to attempt such an escape by way of firebombing every beast and structure in his path. Thirdly, there is the setting of the game; oddly repetitive, in a dimension of questionable location, with spirits that roam long halls, summoned by the invocation of paradimensional doorways between its levels. That is eerie.
Little Nemo: The Dream Master
But if the soulless denizens of Hell are not creepy enough for you, welcome to the 8-bit video game called Little Nemo, which could be the subject of a genuinely unnerving horror film. Sure, most of the adventure is supposedly set within a dream sequence and the entirety is based on prior children’s media, but there are some angles to this title that cannot be ignored by rational human beings. There are the omniscient, omnipresent characters that invade dimensions and impart “help” to Nemo, primarily the Messenger in the introductory scene and the green-skinned Flip that sees him in-level. There is the plot, thick with political intrigue and murderous plotting, posing the King of Dreams against the King of Nightmares; or, at least, as far as Nemo is told. But then there is the infamous manner by which Little Nemo, the Dream Master, enlists the “help” of the creatures he encounters: He feeds them candy. They fall asleep. Then he forces himself into their skin and uses their bodily powers for his gain until discarding them.
That, dear readers, is nightmare fuel. That, my fellow humans, is the stuff of horror films and the worst kind of campfire stories. That, people, folks, fellows, is a truly horrifying idea, the vision of a young man lurking the countryside, walking up to little girls, offering them treats, in exchange for wearing their skin. That is the concept of the doppelganger, who puts you to sleep with drugged goodies in order that he may masquerade as you, stealing your identity, wearing your very face, your visage, plastered onto his own in a grotesque display.
Here, have some candy.
I want to wear your skin.
Honorable mentions: Taboo: The Sixth Sense, Friday the 13th, Zombie Nation, Death Race, Spiritual Warfare, Casino Kid, Lemmings, Pac-Man.