For some, this can be a put-off. For others, it’s the main reason to play Nintendo games. Across their home console experiences or even on their handhelds, Nintendo has never shied away from the strange, and it should be celebrated in an era where video games tend to feel very similar to each other. That uniqueness is what we want to highlight with this list. So, here are 10 Times Nintendo Games Got Really Weird.
10 Mario’s Nipples - Super Mario Odyssey
Mario has nipples. While that shouldn’t be news, the fact that he doesn’t have nostrils, and his belly button may or may not be present makes this artistic edition to Mario even more strange. If Mario’s nipples were introduced in a different game, there’s a chance we don’t think this is as strange as we’re making it out to be, but since it’s in a game where players can take away the free will of almost any sentient creature in the Mushroom Kingdom, it’s very unsettling.
9 Super Mario Bros. 2
When Super Mario Bros. hit the scene in 1985, it changed everything. So much so, the platforming genre took off in a way it never had before. So, when the North American version of the second game hit the scene, players were more than weirded out with how different it was. This can be attributed to being a reskinned Doki Dori Panic, but it changed a lot of the tropes the first game in the franchise set.
Players can no longer jump on enemies to kill them, instead, they have to throw stuff at them. Mario is no longer the only player to choose, in fact, each character has different play-styles. Bowser is gone for a weird-frog-thing, and Birdo, easily the strangest Mario enemy was introduced. Not only that, but the game encourages players to explore vertically compared to horizontally.
8 Cow Milking - 1-2-Switch
When 1-2-Switch launched alongside the Nintendo Switch in 2017, it felt like this was meant to be the next Wii Sports or Nintendo Land. Clearly designed to get non-gamers interested in Nintendo’s new hardware, the game was more or less a tech demo for the JoyCons and the HD rumble feature. While some mini-games were legitimately interesting — like that really cool one where you guess the number of balls in a box — most of them were misses. The weirdest one of all was the cow milking game. In this, players must squeeze their JoyCon and pull downward, mimicking how a farmer would milk a cow, and the first player to fill their bucket wins the game.
7 Happy Mask Salesman -The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is probably the weirdest game in the open-world dungeon-diving franchise. With strange music, a creepy concept centered on transformative masks of dead people, and a gameplay mechanic that gives players three in-game days to beat a temple, this game is probably the furthest from the “Zelda formula” the franchise ever strayed. Nintendo made sure to get players used to this strange direction with a downright disturbing cutscene involving the Happy Mask Salesman.
The traveling mask-dealer lost Majora’s mask when Skull Kid stole it from him. In an attempt to get it back, he enlists Link’s help. Clearly desperate, the Happy Mask salesman clearly loses all self-control, making weird faces, shaking Link, and acting like a total creep to a child.
6 ??? - The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
In reality, we could have put Majora’s Mask as one entry, but there are too many moments mixed with a normal-playing game to just label it as “weird” and walk away. Plus, we wouldn’t be able to give this weird character his own list entry. Not even given a name — he goes by “???” — this hand in a toilet emerges in the bathroom of the Stock Pot Inn at midnight until 6:00 a.m., asking for paper. If Link gives him some, he will disappear and reappear with a piece of heart. Weirdly enough, when Link does his traditional “hold-up-item” pose after getting said heart piece, ??? mimics him. He has no back story and no personality, he’s just a hand in a toilet looking for paper.
5 Tomodachi Life
Tomodachi Life stands as the single weirdest thing on the Nintendo 3DS. As a “Life Simulator”, players have little control over the actual happenings that occur in the game, but that just makes things weirder. Taking place on a tropical island, players import their Mii into the game and can build/create any person they want, or import friends to boot.
They build relationships, and play minigames, or just experience weird dance parties between other characters. There’s no real goal to the game either, which makes us believe the game just wants players to do weird things like standing at a pier while giant Mii heads emerge from the water staring at you.
4 Negative Man - Earthbound
Earthbound is easily the weirdest Nintendo RPG ever made. Don’t believe us? Check out Negative Man. This actual boss in an actual video game pops on the screen with a look of pain on his face. While he will attack sometimes, he mostly uses his turns to comment about how life is meaningless or to insult himself all while easily the most epic song in the game plays in the background. Whether he’s begging to die or depressingly lamenting about how his horrible life never changes, this boss battle is equal parts hilarious, strange, and sad.
3 Out Of This Dimension - Star Fox
Star Fox was a stunning game for its time. Launching in 1993, the game really cemented the polygonal art direction that defined the rest of the decade as crude 3D games gained more popularity. Yet, while the game does play like a run-of-the-mill space-shooter, it takes a turn into the weird with the “Out of This Dimension” level. While flying through space, players are treated to creepy planets with faces shifting back and forth through the background in a hypnotic manner while dodging random space debris. The stage ends with players pulling the lever of a slot machine. The whole stage is like a mushroom trip from the weird visuals, to the strange music, to the big climax at the end.
2 Animal Crossing Aliens
Animal Crossing is a calming, relaxing game to play when life gets a little too stressful. Things aren’t going well at work or school? That’s OK, the characters of Animal Crossing will be happy to see you back in their world! Yet, if you want to watch TV at 3:33 a.m., your static will be interrupted with the face of an alien. For such a cute and cuddly game full of the feel-goods, this is completely unexpected and pretty creepy. He doesn’t say anything, instead he just kind of stands there silently, before the video makes a hard-cut to what looks like him screaming.
1 Dark Link - The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess
In an attempt to distance itself from the cartoony Wind Waker, Nintendo did everything possible to make The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess as dark and gritty as possible. The culmination of this thought process is a down-right disturbing cutscene that is supposed to give players the history of Hyrule. It starts innocent enough, discussing how the world was chaos until the Goddesses created order, but then it takes a turn into the creepy when the story discusses the wars of the land. Here, Beth’s eyes lose their pupils, and she attempts to stab Link, who then runs toward a triforce only to be stopped by a group of Dark Links and a pupil-less regular Link with a terrifying smile.
Next: 10 3DS Games That Need A Second Life On The Switch
