5 Weirdest Games On The NES

The Nintendo Entertainment System was Nintendo’s first console, so the team was still figuring things out to some degree. And with hardware limitations, developers tried a few bonkers ideas to stand out from the crowd. With that in mind, there are dozens of oddball games on the NES, but a few of them are weirder than most fans can possibly imagine. It’s hard to understand why some of these games were made, but NES fans are certainly glad they were. After all, there’s something fun about a truly bonkers retro game.

Here are the five weirdest games on the NES.

5) Zombie Nation

Zombie Nation has players controlling a disembodied samurai head that can shoot eyeballs and vomit at its enemies. Those opponents include zombie snipers and lava monsters, and you upgrade your firepower by rescuing hostages who jump out of destroyed buildings. If that’s not enough to get it on this list, I don’t know what is.

Sure, that samurai head becomes a mask in the Japanese version, which cuts down on some of Zombie Nation’s weirdness, but regardless, this one feels like a fever dream. You can also check it out relatively easily, as Zombie Nation was re-released on the Nintendo Switch on PC in 2021. It includes both versions and several modern updates.

4) Hatris

Hatris is pretty easy to explain: it’s Tetris with hats. And before you accuse the developers of stealing from Tetris, Hatris was developed by Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of the hit puzzle game. In Hatris, you have to stack hats on the heads of six characters at the bottom of the screen.

Different-sized hats will stack in unique ways, and you need to stack five of the same hats to eliminate them from the board. Unfortunately, it didn’t have nearly the same stickiness as Tetris. It’s a neat game, but it did not sell well, leading Pajitnov to call it later “a big disappointment.” Still, you can try it out for yourself as part of the Tetris Forever compilation.

3) Wall Street Kid

In Wall Street Kid, you’re given $500,000 in seed money and have to grow it to $1,000,000. If you can pull it off, you’ll earn an inheritance of nearly one trillion dollars from your wealthy family. Most of the gameplay is you buying and selling stocks, which is odd enough for a console mostly aimed at children, but it gets much weirder.

See, you need to earn enough money to go shopping and buy expensive items; if you don’t hit certain milestones, you’ll be disowned. Plus, you have to spoil your girlfriend with presents, and she will leave you if you don’t make enough money. Toss in some genuinely funny writing, and this day-trading game easily earns its spot on this list.

2) Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom

This text adventure was first launched in Japan in 1984 for computers. It was then ported to the Famicom in 1988 and came to North America in 1991. Of course, the NES didn’t have a keyboard accessory, so the developers had to streamline things quite a bit. That’s not why it’s on this list, though.

Princess Tomato puts you in the thick of a royal struggle in the Salad Kingdom, which is ruled by anthropomorphic vegetables. The only real “combat” is the finger wars you’ll fight against a few villains. Outside of that, it’s mostly just figuring out where to go next. Throw in some trademark, off-the-wall Japanese humor, and you have one of the weirdest NES games of all time.

1) Takeshi’s Challenge

Is Takeshi’s Challenge really a game? It’s hard to say. It was created by Takeshi Kitano, the Japanese entertainer best known for Takeshi’s Castle. Technically, it’s a side-scrolling action game, but there’s also a ton of player choice, which turns it into more of an adventure game at times. Heck, there are even a few shooter elements. It’s weird.

That’s only the tip of the iceberg, though. You’re playing as a salaryman who found a treasure map. You are allowed and sometimes encouraged to punch just about everyone, including your wife and kids. Hostile Yakuza will constantly attack you, and your health can only be restored by drinking tequila or sleeping in a hotel.

If that’s not enough, Takeshi’s Challenge uses the microphone function for the karaoke bar. Oh, and if you don’t want to play through the campaign, you can press the punch button just over 30,000 times at the title screen to instantly warp to the end. What’s even wilder is that Takeshi had several ideas rejected because they weren’t family-friendly. It’s hard to imagine something even stranger with an unchained Takeshi, but I’d love to see it. Unfortunately, he’s never designed another game, though he was in Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, where he played Toru Hirose.

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