The Western Bionic Commando still had hitler as the final boss, and his head explodes violently. His name was changed, sure, but his likeness was still obvious with his signature mustache.
Nice, there's a SNES WW2 game and you play as Germany. Japan loves nazi Germany. Why do you think Goku's super Saiyan looked like Hitler's ideal idea of a human. Tall, strong, blonde hair and blue eyes. Dragonball naziiiiiii
@@joeszymanski3540 Master-D. But yeah, I saw that scene as a kid, and I was shocked that scene actually got past Nintendo of America's board of censors.
Controversy implies that one side likes something while the other side doesn't or is offended. I don't think the Mega Man box art fits because no one seems to like it.
The dancing zombies are hilarious. You supposed to watch them dance And they'll reward you. But how masochist we were back Then we kept trying to kill them.😂
The most "controversial" NES game I remember was actually Super Mario Bros. 2... there were serious accusations of Nintendo deliberately shorting the supply in USA to create hype... which may have been true
Any accusations of Nintendo deliberately causing this was actually categorically and objectively proven to be false. There absolutely WAS a chip shortage. This has been researched to death already. It was actually well known, it affected the entire electronics industry, not JUST Nintendo and it DID create problems for many tech companies. Nintendo absolutely was not at any fault and they did nothing underhanded in the slightest.
@@teruienages962 Funny how people doesn't look for these facts, it was a big thing back then. Especially because one day there was enought chips then suddenly, almost every manufacturer wanted more chips for their cameras, VCR's, TV's and other electronic devices. That need of those chips just boomed.
Honestly, I am convinced that there has never really been a real Super Mario Brothers 2, as the Japanese one was essentially an expansion pack to Super Mario Brothers, while the one that the rest of the world got was a reskinned game that literally had nothing to do with Mario in the first place. Yeah, I just made both sides of that fight mad at me, but if you look at it objectively, then what I say makes perfect sense.
I remember being at Toy’s R Us in the game isle overhearing two older boys talk bad about SMB2 because it didnt have a score. He said theres no reason to play the game if theres no score. I thought that was the dumbest thing i ever heard as a 6 year old haha
@@paxhumana2015 If you truly look thing objectively you wouldn't say Doki Doki Panic never had anything to do with Mario. That game was made with Mario in mind it was not a random game that was just lying in the shelf. You should look for it's history it's quite interesting and if you ask was Doki Doki Panic supposed to be Mario game they would say yes.
Devil World should get an honorable mention considering that it never had a North America release since people complain about the religious symbolism being used in the game
I have a Raspberry Pi-powered arcade cabinet in my work's breakroom that, every morning, I pick a game (from the library of many thousands) to set on "attract mode". I'm going to have to let the Japanese Bionic Commando run one day.
I rented Taboo. I was 9 years old, so I had no idea what it was about, or how to win. I was like "woo-hoo, I won", when "Game Over" didn't get displayed.
I can speed run Bionic Commando, fun fact. It's one of my favorite NES games. And we all knew who Master D really was. The game had awesome graphics so that left little doubt.
Ok, so, it’s 1987, and 8 year old ME is otw to the creepy Florida fair.. my grandma gave me 5 whole ass dollars to play games and keep me busy for an hour or two while she and my mom go to the craft area. (In the 80’s, little poor kids could run around unsupervised n stuff). It was open air and there were like 5 or 6 huge ass tents that had dozens of arcade cabinets in them. I played some games, and looked around. I went to the arcade all the time, but they had some games I had never seen.. some kinda weird.. I saw an area a little off to the distance with a smaller tent with about 20 games, but in the very corner I saw a game kind of by itself.. this tent had almost no one around, and I got some weird vibes.. as I got closer I heard that this game was turned up loud! It had a gun for a control. Cool, I had played some army type games that had those.. they usually vibrated when you shot the machine gun, I always thought that was cool. I put in my quarter and saw the scene. People tied up in a torture room. It was Chiller. Real Chiller, with all the blood and fire and screams and stuff.. I had never seen a game like this before. I started shooting people and it was gory.. man, I was 8 😂. There was no spin on this, no story.. just be horrible.. it freaked me out. For years I thought I had imagined it.. pre internet I just couldn’t find anything on this game.. the nes version is a joke compared to the OG. My name is John Wayne Lacey from Tampa Florida, that’s my story.
Man nostalgia is so powerful with the NES. Btw I found this from discord and I’m actually someone that checks out post in the TH-cam group. Great video. I remember there being some controversy around shadowgate.
I bought that game when the grocery store sold all of its rental games. So pointless, but fun trying to get scary outcomes, kinda. A bit.. IDK I remember it, so at least a little.
I've always felt that unlicensed games shouldn't be included in these lists, that opens the door to practically any form of software made by anyone. But almost all lists seem to have them, I just thin if it wasn't available in some form of retail consumer infrastructure don't include it, but def still enjoyed the video and subbed
It was an unlicensed game cartridge and they were counting on this scam making people think $199 for 52 games is a bargain. Little did they know how shitty those games were. If it was an actual game licensed by Nintendo, they would never let this fly.
6:19 Action 52 was bound to show up at some point, and here it is: the prime example of unlicensed garbage that was also incredibly expensive and broken. It was perhaps the biggest scam in video game history.
I remember Dr. Mario getting a fair bit of controversy. With the dangers of prescription abuse, having their family friendly mascot plumber sports enthusiast playing with pills upset a lot of people during the "just say 'no'" phase of US politics. One addendum to the "Action 52" cart is that many of the games were not just generic garbage, but were also very clear and lazy copies of the other generic garbage on the same cartridge. Your video was the first I saw of "Chiller" being on the NES. I only saw it in the arcades, and even for its time the graphics and gameplay were below mediocre. Cinematronics was the company behind the arcade game, they were clearly on their way out at the time, and a "last gasp through sheer shock value" is easily the last game I'd expect to see on the console which had to change "hellhounds" to "heckhounds".
I have a copy of Taboo: The Sixth Sense still in it's original box. It no longer has it's original plastic wrap, but it has never been removed from the box.
@@willdiesel8431 Complete in box copies are currently valued at $34.98. If it were an unopened box still in original plastic wrap it would be worth $69.99. I have another loose copy (with my cousin's name written on it in permanent marker) that I have played before.
Never heard of taboo, but I cant imagine I would have been introduced to occult practices. What i saw here I don't think I would have been playing after 3 minutes or so
suprised you didnt talk about golgo 13 top secret episode, that game had you get cigs to refill health, a sex scene to an extent... and the final boss was hitlers brain... some of the games back in the day were unique all around and some were just messed up but we still played em all to our hearts content
How about the great game ABODOX ?!! Was considered too graphic and violent so if i recall correctly, it was either changed drastically or stopped sales & production. Anyone else remember this??
I don't remember Taboo being a topic of discussion when it came to "controversial games", since it obviously got overshadowed by the next generation games like Mortal Kombat... But considering the theme of the game and it being the 80's, the whole "Satanic Panic" crap that was going on was still in full swing... Since other innocent desktop games like Dungeons & Dragons were also blindly accused for "satanism" and other awful things people to this day still love to use when it comes to things they don't understand nor have the courage to do any research on.
I remember playing Predator when I was a kid. A handful of levels in there's a shot of bloody human skeletons hanging from the trees. It's an image with it's intended realism limited to the graphics of the NES, but it was still kinda surprising to see back then.
Super Pitfall is infamous for its glitchy game play and cryptic clues. Worse is the demon world, where you haphazardly stumble into. Bizarre pixaleted characters with elongated heads come after you as a bleak and dark 8-bit soundtrack plays. As a kid, whenever I came across this part of the game, I imagined it was a depiction of hell.
Jekyll and Hyde isn’t a bad game….just misunderstood. It’s a much slower game with way different gameplay than most average games of the time. It’s unique for its dual light and dark world theme as well as one of the earliest games with multiple endings. To get the best possible ending you have to reach the goal as Hyde not Jekyll which you only have a small window of opportunity to actually access.
Action 52 was quite ahead of its time in terms of generic games are concern. The games suck for the most part but the compilations of games is what made it unique for its time.
The Japanese port of Dr Jekyll Mr. Hyde has different stages. Also the game designers made an ending you can only reach as Hyde and it's apparently the BETTER ending. You even fight a boss !
Taboo. I have that game currently and can easily see why it would be controversial. People would see tarot cards and think"witchcraft." I also had Bionic Commando which is one of my favorites games on the NES and if I find it for sale anywhere, I'll get it again.
Back then, yeah, I could see these games as controversial. Hell, parents were mad about the Ninja Turtles using their weapons too much in the og movie so the second one was heavily censored. But everything is controversial nowadays so...
I had Taboo. It was pretty wild. Gave you your lottery numbers at the end, too. Lol Never even heard of Chiller, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Action 52 nor Bionic Commando. I'm surprised you didn't include Freedom Force.
My professor in college worked on Chiller port to the NES. He'd use stories from his experience on Chiller to tell us why we shouldn't go down that path on our own game projects.
There was a TV show based on the game, airing on what was then the Family Channel (now Freeform). A macabre sitcom based on a macabre video game...on a network once owned by Pat Robertson...truly mind-boggling.
I never heard of Action 52, Taboo, & Chiller. It sounds weird that they released these, but cut blood out of their version of Mortal Kombat. It’s wild to hear what you mentioned about Bionic Commando. I only rented it a couple of times & never made it that far. I would’ve never guessed back story. That’s pretty wild. I never played Dr Jeckell/Mr Hyde. It looked interesting enough, but my nine year old self would’ve quickly put that aside.
Splatterhouse! Released in the fable year of 1989! There lies controversy, especially if you were living in 1989! My mom was horrified at the game. Looking back, that game paved the way for titles like resident evil to dead or alive, dark souls…. These modern games owe gratitude to splatterhouse and would not exist probably without the OG of splatterhouse
Chiller along with a port for Crossbow were advertised in one of the video games magazines of the time. This was how I got chiller (ehh how my mom bought me chiller). I still own my copy and enjoyed the gruesomeness. Wasn’t until later on I learned it was in the C64 prior (which had better graphics) and learning much later on it was an actual arcade game
You kill Hitler in the Bionic Commando. I remember seeing that as a thirteen year old in 1994 and not caring. There were far more gory movies out there by that time.
I guessed that Chiller would be in here, but I didn't know about Taboo. What I do find interesting is that the protagonist in Bionic Commando was called Super Joe in advertising when the game hit the US - making it a "sequel" to Capcom's original Commando. Nowadays he's referred to as Nathan "Rad" Spencer.
Jeckyl and Hyde was actually pretty badass once you got into the groove. I think the difficulty was intentional, the same way stuff like Dark Souls is difficult af today. I get the concern about that though. The music was good though man. That was some funky gritty midi.
How is jekyll and hyde controversial? Being a shit game isnt very controversial. And really a cash grab? Because jekyll and hyde was so popular that our parents were going to race out and buy it for us
Taboo - Meh, worse has been said about D&D. None of us listened to them back then and we still aren't listening. Chiller - Considering where games go today for disturbing content, you'd think that NES was about collecting flowers. I personally don't see a need/purpose to go that far in gaming as disturbing content that goes that far isn't entertaining to me, but I have tons of other games I can play so I just ignore it. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - A classic example of nonexistent quality control for the time. Both the game and the manual could've been improved to avoid the mess they made by confusing gamers. Action 52 - A precursor to game bundles of crappy games today. What Action 52 did back then lives on in spirit. It probably wasn't the first, but it's the first one that most people think about. Bionic Commando - Since then, a lot more WW2 imagery and such have shown up in games (some more disturbing than others). I think it probably came out too soon for the west to accept such a thing. In the 80s, many of us kids had grandparents who fought in WW2 or knew other kids with family members who were WW2 veterans. It was a time when our parents understood what happened from their parents and that was getting passed on to us, but it wasn't as successful as it was for our parents. As time marches on, generations get more and more distant from major world events and what those events meant to the people who lived through them. WW2 imagery hit the older generations hard and they cared more about where games came from than did us kids who just wanted to play them. We kids in the 80s didn't see any WW2 imagery in Bionic Commando so we didn't care. Overtime as WW2 gets even more normalized in gaming (some may argue it's already there, and especially among younger gamers), this controversy will be pretty much forgotten except to gaming historians who keep track of such things. In time, I would not be surprised if content related to 9/11 or other world events shows up in games (if it hasn't already). That's the problem with using anything related to historical events in gaming. Gamers just want entertainment, but for people who lived through the times when the events happened...they may have a different opinion on the matter depending on how it hit them. If anything these 5 games just mean that what one person finds entertaining, another person won't. No matter what it is. Even the first Super Mario Bros game, one of the most historically significant and well known games of all time, may eventually be seen as 'meh' or even 'bad' by people in younger generations who never grew up with games of that type. Only time will tell, but everyone will always have their own "cup of tea" preference for what they consider "fun" in gaming.
One of the NES games I remember causing issues was Dr. Mario. Despite it's Teris knockoff gameplay the parent groups hated the notion of using drugs in a game to win.
Back in the day my parents considered buying me action 52, they rented it for me and wanted me to try it to see of they could just buy that one game and never have to buy another. Very glad we rented it first, i remember arguing with my dad how there arent really any actual games, he seen me play it and said, yes there are they are right there. I told him to try it and see, and he did. Thankfully he played videogames some over the years on the old atari 2600 but after playing action 52 for 10 minutes he was convinced even the atari 2600 was better. I wanna say I was 9 years old, and yes they made me try every game which is why I remember.
The devs don't have to hire or listen to consultants. Sweet Baby shouldn't have sparked a harassment campaign, but at the end of the day they have no power over what the developers do. They are paid to offer advice, it's up to the developers to decide what to do with it. Your anger should be directed at them. I really don't think you have anything to worry about, Steam will green light anything and if there's a void in the market for the games you like, someone will step up and fill it.
My parents would not have let me play a game like Chiller back in the day. It's almost laughable when you look at it now. I hadn't really heard of any of these aside from Bionic Commando. Action 52 could be a really bad sequel to Nintendo's "Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics".
I have taboo. Didn’t know it was controversial, but I also didn’t know anyone else that had a copy, much less talk about it. It had a creepy mood though, with the music. Now Bionica Commando, I love. Lost my cartridge… but in the 2000s, capcom had a capcom classics for GBA that came with BC. I beat the game, summer of 92. I didn’t know till later about the Nazi stuff but I first played it in Colombia, so it might have had that stuff on it for that region.
Nintendo did go rather far with censorship. Most of the best games were Japanese in origin. Outside of Acclaim Entertainment, most American companies objected to the censorship, and didnt get a pass from Nintendo. Many American companies stayed out of the NES market for this reason, and if they did get their games on, they would get another company to port it over.
A local VHS rental store back then, which also rented out NES games for $0.49 per week, had a copy of Bath Bubble Babes, but I was never brave enough to ask if I could rent it, plus for the fact that I was l ike, 12 years old
I’m going to go and say that you may have missed on one of the controversial games out there for the NES that many seem to have forgotten about or never heard about. I came across a copy of “death race” for the NES. The objective was to make points for glamorous splats with people via your car. You can clearly see why it was controversial and unlisted as an NES game. I was only able to get it working every once in a while because it was unlisted and probably never got the lockout chip put in. I’m pretty sure it was a PAL game too.
The Western Bionic Commando still had hitler as the final boss, and his head explodes violently. His name was changed, sure, but his likeness was still obvious with his signature mustache.
What was it? The master? It also said damn if I remember correctly. Ed: that's what I get for commenting before I finish the video😂.
Nice, there's a SNES WW2 game and you play as Germany. Japan loves nazi Germany. Why do you think Goku's super Saiyan looked like Hitler's ideal idea of a human. Tall, strong, blonde hair and blue eyes. Dragonball naziiiiiii
@@joeszymanski3540 Master-D. But yeah, I saw that scene as a kid, and I was shocked that scene actually got past Nintendo of America's board of censors.
Yep. As a kid I clearly knew it was Hitler and my friend and I were taken by surprise at the gore.
@@jeremyriley1238 , the Golgo 13 games, if I do recall correctly, had little to no censorship as well.
Mega Man box art. Now that's controversial.
Why?
Controversy implies that one side likes something while the other side doesn't or is offended.
I don't think the Mega Man box art fits because no one seems to like it.
NARC was a pretty controversial game when it came out
That was a good one!
I loved narc!
American Freedom is Freedom from harmful imagery and ideas. Thanks censorship.
I rented it a time or two. It was tough, but fun.
yes and no, it was promoted by Nancy Regan's no drug policy so it was seen as a good thing.
Surprised "Monster Party" wasn't mentioned. That game was insane
I loved that game. I'm 47 and still remember playing it.
See EP 2.
The dancing zombies are hilarious.
You supposed to watch them dance
And they'll reward you.
But how masochist we were back
Then we kept trying to kill them.😂
@@nehemiahpouncey3607Don't you mean sadist?
That was one of my favorite NES games. It was creepy and funny.
When you get gyromite as a Christmas present but they forget ROB. Because it was found at a thrift shop. Back when I was a kid.
It plays better without ROB
I second that. You don't need rob. Watch the avgn episode and check out his custom made controller lol
The most "controversial" NES game I remember was actually Super Mario Bros. 2... there were serious accusations of Nintendo deliberately shorting the supply in USA to create hype... which may have been true
Any accusations of Nintendo deliberately causing this was actually categorically and objectively proven to be false. There absolutely WAS a chip shortage. This has been researched to death already. It was actually well known, it affected the entire electronics industry, not JUST Nintendo and it DID create problems for many tech companies. Nintendo absolutely was not at any fault and they did nothing underhanded in the slightest.
@@teruienages962 Funny how people doesn't look for these facts, it was a big thing back then.
Especially because one day there was enought chips then suddenly, almost every manufacturer wanted more chips for their cameras, VCR's, TV's and other electronic devices.
That need of those chips just boomed.
Honestly, I am convinced that there has never really been a real Super Mario Brothers 2, as the Japanese one was essentially an expansion pack to Super Mario Brothers, while the one that the rest of the world got was a reskinned game that literally had nothing to do with Mario in the first place. Yeah, I just made both sides of that fight mad at me, but if you look at it objectively, then what I say makes perfect sense.
I remember being at Toy’s R Us in the game isle overhearing two older boys talk bad about SMB2 because it didnt have a score. He said theres no reason to play the game if theres no score. I thought that was the dumbest thing i ever heard as a 6 year old haha
@@paxhumana2015 If you truly look thing objectively you wouldn't say Doki Doki Panic never had anything to do with Mario.
That game was made with Mario in mind it was not a random game that was just lying in the shelf.
You should look for it's history it's quite interesting and if you ask was Doki Doki Panic supposed to be Mario game they would say yes.
Devil World should get an honorable mention considering that it never had a North America release since people complain about the religious symbolism being used in the game
No, Nintendo was the one concerned over reIigious imagery, it wasn't released here for people to complain about
Early copies of Maniac Mansion had to be recalled as it contained a scene where you microwave a hamster!
Hey Larry! Yeah I remember hearing something about that, dude, thank you for watching!
Larry stop posting on EVERY video!
Yeah...I did it...only because I didn't believe that you could😭😱
was that removed?
Yep. Was wild.
I have a Raspberry Pi-powered arcade cabinet in my work's breakroom that, every morning, I pick a game (from the library of many thousands) to set on "attract mode". I'm going to have to let the Japanese Bionic Commando run one day.
Taboo was a Tarot reader? I always assumed it was about a wizard that fooled around with a cousin or something LOLOL
Haha! That would be awful, and would have been instantly banned.
jamie and circi lannister, the game
@SNEStalgia you never seen my sister lol
I rented Taboo. I was 9 years old, so I had no idea what it was about, or how to win. I was like "woo-hoo, I won", when "Game Over" didn't get displayed.
I think you're talking about the 70's (ahem) movie
I can speed run Bionic Commando, fun fact. It's one of my favorite NES games. And we all knew who Master D really was. The game had awesome graphics so that left little doubt.
I haven't played it in years, I've been wanting to go back and give it another try.
When I first played this game I didn't know anything about WW2.
camera-gun games were so unpopular that this is the first I am hearing about "Chiller."
Ok, so, it’s 1987, and 8 year old ME is otw to the creepy Florida fair.. my grandma gave me 5 whole ass dollars to play games and keep me busy for an hour or two while she and my mom go to the craft area. (In the 80’s, little poor kids could run around unsupervised n stuff).
It was open air and there were like 5 or 6 huge ass tents that had dozens of arcade cabinets in them. I played some games, and looked around. I went to the arcade all the time, but they had some games I had never seen.. some kinda weird..
I saw an area a little off to the distance with a smaller tent with about 20 games, but in the very corner I saw a game kind of by itself.. this tent had almost no one around, and I got some weird vibes.. as I got closer I heard that this game was turned up loud! It had a gun for a control. Cool, I had played some army type games that had those.. they usually vibrated when you shot the machine gun, I always thought that was cool. I put in my quarter and saw the scene. People tied up in a torture room. It was Chiller. Real Chiller, with all the blood and fire and screams and stuff.. I had never seen a game like this before. I started shooting people and it was gory.. man, I was 8 😂. There was no spin on this, no story.. just be horrible.. it freaked me out. For years I thought I had imagined it.. pre internet I just couldn’t find anything on this game.. the nes version is a joke compared to the OG. My name is John Wayne Lacey from Tampa Florida, that’s my story.
Man nostalgia is so powerful with the NES. Btw I found this from discord and I’m actually someone that checks out post in the TH-cam group. Great video. I remember there being some controversy around shadowgate.
Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed it, I’ll have to look into shadogate.
I didn't know Taboo was controversial. If anything I thought people forgot it existed mostly LOL!
I remember renting it and being like, “WTF, man? Is this all it is???”
I bought that game when the grocery store sold all of its rental games. So pointless, but fun trying to get scary outcomes, kinda. A bit.. IDK I remember it, so at least a little.
christians and the Satanic Panic. Anything that wasn't Pure Christian was obviously Satanic. Silly christians
I've always felt that unlicensed games shouldn't be included in these lists, that opens the door to practically any form of software made by anyone. But almost all lists seem to have them, I just thin if it wasn't available in some form of retail consumer infrastructure don't include it, but def still enjoyed the video and subbed
the ACTION 52 cartridge cost $199 ?!!
It was an unlicensed game cartridge and they were counting on this scam making people think $199 for 52 games is a bargain. Little did they know how shitty those games were. If it was an actual game licensed by Nintendo, they would never let this fly.
I played most of these. Seen all of them. Chiller was one that people talked about but couldnt play because copies were never available.
6:19 Action 52 was bound to show up at some point, and here it is: the prime example of unlicensed garbage that was also incredibly expensive and broken. It was perhaps the biggest scam in video game history.
Caveat emptor.
i remember playing chiller back then even as a kid i was able to identify how violent it is.
Nice to know that the theme for the haunted house in SMW comes from Chiller! :P
I remember Dr. Mario getting a fair bit of controversy. With the dangers of prescription abuse, having their family friendly mascot plumber sports enthusiast playing with pills upset a lot of people during the "just say 'no'" phase of US politics.
One addendum to the "Action 52" cart is that many of the games were not just generic garbage, but were also very clear and lazy copies of the other generic garbage on the same cartridge.
Your video was the first I saw of "Chiller" being on the NES. I only saw it in the arcades, and even for its time the graphics and gameplay were below mediocre. Cinematronics was the company behind the arcade game, they were clearly on their way out at the time, and a "last gasp through sheer shock value" is easily the last game I'd expect to see on the console which had to change "hellhounds" to "heckhounds".
I have a copy of Taboo: The Sixth Sense still in it's original box. It no longer has it's original plastic wrap, but it has never been removed from the box.
What is it retailing for in that condition? Do you ever plan to play it?
@@willdiesel8431 Complete in box copies are currently valued at $34.98. If it were an unopened box still in original plastic wrap it would be worth $69.99. I have another loose copy (with my cousin's name written on it in permanent marker) that I have played before.
Yall remember Smash TV? That was a game that was controversial for gore. Loved that one since the arcade
Taboo was the only game rental I returned to the video store. 10 year old me was not impressed.
Never heard of taboo, but I cant imagine I would have been introduced to occult practices. What i saw here I don't think I would have been playing after 3 minutes or so
@@michaelpolcyn5187 Exactly. You ask a question and get a crappy answer. That's literally the whole game.
suprised you didnt talk about golgo 13 top secret episode, that game had you get cigs to refill health, a sex scene to an extent... and the final boss was hitlers brain... some of the games back in the day were unique all around and some were just messed up but we still played em all to our hearts content
This is like an ad for the Angry video game Nerd lmao
Even though it's nothing like that.
Oh yeah, I saw Action 52 and Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde on his show
How about the great game ABODOX ?!! Was considered too graphic and violent so if i recall correctly, it was either changed drastically or stopped sales & production. Anyone else remember this??
I don't remember Taboo being a topic of discussion when it came to "controversial games", since it obviously got overshadowed by the next generation games like Mortal Kombat... But considering the theme of the game and it being the 80's, the whole "Satanic Panic" crap that was going on was still in full swing... Since other innocent desktop games like Dungeons & Dragons were also blindly accused for "satanism" and other awful things people to this day still love to use when it comes to things they don't understand nor have the courage to do any research on.
Real Safanism is rainbow people.
I remember playing Predator when I was a kid. A handful of levels in there's a shot of bloody human skeletons hanging from the trees. It's an image with it's intended realism limited to the graphics of the NES, but it was still kinda surprising to see back then.
Super Pitfall is infamous for its glitchy game play and cryptic clues. Worse is the demon world, where you haphazardly stumble into. Bizarre pixaleted characters with elongated heads come after you as a bleak and dark 8-bit soundtrack plays. As a kid, whenever I came across this part of the game, I imagined it was a depiction of hell.
I loved that game as a child. Never finished it though.
@@ericturcotte3131 same
Time Killers and Dark Stalkers were pretty controversial. In Time Killers it was a good thing to sever the limbs of your opponent.
This would have been a much better video if you used the actual music for the game being represented at the time.
Jekyll and Hyde isn’t a bad game….just misunderstood. It’s a much slower game with way different gameplay than most average games of the time. It’s unique for its dual light and dark world theme as well as one of the earliest games with multiple endings. To get the best possible ending you have to reach the goal as Hyde not Jekyll which you only have a small window of opportunity to actually access.
Dr Jeckyll demo was cracking me up with the crows crapping on you or the fountain statues peeing
I call myself “an Old School Gamer “ yet I never knew about any of these games!!?? Something tells me….. I am not the only one 😅
Jeckyl and Hyde was all over the place lol. I had a poster of it in my room for some reason.😂
@@CAPCOURTEOUS 😊💰
you're not an old school gamer.
Action 52 was quite ahead of its time in terms of generic games are concern. The games suck for the most part but the compilations of games is what made it unique for its time.
I was always surprised how Jekyll and Hyde got past Nintendo's no religious items policy in the US.
But at least there was plenty of bird shit, and peeing statues.
It’s laughable that any of these games were controversial.
The Japanese port of Dr Jekyll Mr. Hyde has different stages. Also the game designers made an ending you can only reach as Hyde and it's apparently the BETTER ending. You even fight a boss !
Holy crap! How could B Commando be acceptable that way anywhere??
Taboo. I have that game currently and can easily see why it would be controversial. People would see tarot cards and think"witchcraft." I also had Bionic Commando which is one of my favorites games on the NES and if I find it for sale anywhere, I'll get it again.
Back then, yeah, I could see these games as controversial. Hell, parents were mad about the Ninja Turtles using their weapons too much in the og movie so the second one was heavily censored. But everything is controversial nowadays so...
I thought it was stupid to replace Michaelangelo's nunchucks with a freaking grappling hook.
I had Taboo. It was pretty wild. Gave you your lottery numbers at the end, too. Lol
Never even heard of Chiller, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Action 52 nor Bionic Commando.
I'm surprised you didn't include Freedom Force.
My professor in college worked on Chiller port to the NES. He'd use stories from his experience on Chiller to tell us why we shouldn't go down that path on our own game projects.
Castlevania games were censored to remove alot of religious iconography. Great video man!
Thank you so much!
Golgo 13 Top Secret episode was pretty controversial. It had smoking, hotel hookups, and Hitler as the final boss(Japan's version)
No mention for Maniac Mansion? You can microwave a freakin' hamster and then give the remains back to its owner!
A pet dying is controversial? Happens all the time.
Not in full bloody explosive glory in an NES game for kids.
There was a TV show based on the game, airing on what was then the Family Channel (now Freeform).
A macabre sitcom based on a macabre video game...on a network once owned by Pat Robertson...truly mind-boggling.
I never heard of Action 52, Taboo, & Chiller. It sounds weird that they released these, but cut blood out of their version of Mortal Kombat.
It’s wild to hear what you mentioned about Bionic Commando. I only rented it a couple of times & never made it that far. I would’ve never guessed back story. That’s pretty wild.
I never played Dr Jeckell/Mr Hyde. It looked interesting enough, but my nine year old self would’ve quickly put that aside.
What about River City Ransom? It was just beating people up with weapons like pipes and knives.
@11:10 is that Frickin PAUL ADELSTEIN in that game boy commercial??!?
taboo was stupid. pointless, stupid game.
Splatterhouse! Released in the fable year of 1989! There lies controversy, especially if you were living in 1989! My mom was horrified at the game. Looking back, that game paved the way for titles like resident evil to dead or alive, dark souls…. These modern games owe gratitude to splatterhouse and would not exist probably without the OG of splatterhouse
You should rename this video "4 Controversial NES Games and a Meandering Conclusion".
Chiller along with a port for Crossbow were advertised in one of the video games magazines of the time. This was how I got chiller (ehh how my mom bought me chiller). I still own my copy and enjoyed the gruesomeness. Wasn’t until later on I learned it was in the C64 prior (which had better graphics) and learning much later on it was an actual arcade game
The 6 'o Clock News ALWAYS made video games look like a Sunday school picnic to me. Gimme the picnic! 🎮 🕹️ 🤖
You kill Hitler in the Bionic Commando. I remember seeing that as a thirteen year old in 1994 and not caring.
There were far more gory movies out there by that time.
1:50 talking about nes games with link to the past music in the background from the super nes... 😅
Bearded sheepdog breeds seem to be really popular in 80's shows.
I have Action 52. I don't remember any controversy about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pre-Internet.
I worked at a retro used video game store for 8 years but never saw chiller or Taboo. That chiller looks messed up.
I guessed that Chiller would be in here, but I didn't know about Taboo.
What I do find interesting is that the protagonist in Bionic Commando was called Super Joe in advertising when the game hit the US - making it a "sequel" to Capcom's original Commando. Nowadays he's referred to as Nathan "Rad" Spencer.
Jeckyl and Hyde was actually pretty badass once you got into the groove. I think the difficulty was intentional, the same way stuff like Dark Souls is difficult af today. I get the concern about that though. The music was good though man. That was some funky gritty midi.
They left out the 3 pornographic NES games.
How is jekyll and hyde controversial? Being a shit game isnt very controversial. And really a cash grab? Because jekyll and hyde was so popular that our parents were going to race out and buy it for us
Taboo - Meh, worse has been said about D&D. None of us listened to them back then and we still aren't listening.
Chiller - Considering where games go today for disturbing content, you'd think that NES was about collecting flowers. I personally don't see a need/purpose to go that far in gaming as disturbing content that goes that far isn't entertaining to me, but I have tons of other games I can play so I just ignore it.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - A classic example of nonexistent quality control for the time. Both the game and the manual could've been improved to avoid the mess they made by confusing gamers.
Action 52 - A precursor to game bundles of crappy games today. What Action 52 did back then lives on in spirit. It probably wasn't the first, but it's the first one that most people think about.
Bionic Commando - Since then, a lot more WW2 imagery and such have shown up in games (some more disturbing than others). I think it probably came out too soon for the west to accept such a thing. In the 80s, many of us kids had grandparents who fought in WW2 or knew other kids with family members who were WW2 veterans. It was a time when our parents understood what happened from their parents and that was getting passed on to us, but it wasn't as successful as it was for our parents.
As time marches on, generations get more and more distant from major world events and what those events meant to the people who lived through them. WW2 imagery hit the older generations hard and they cared more about where games came from than did us kids who just wanted to play them. We kids in the 80s didn't see any WW2 imagery in Bionic Commando so we didn't care. Overtime as WW2 gets even more normalized in gaming (some may argue it's already there, and especially among younger gamers), this controversy will be pretty much forgotten except to gaming historians who keep track of such things.
In time, I would not be surprised if content related to 9/11 or other world events shows up in games (if it hasn't already). That's the problem with using anything related to historical events in gaming. Gamers just want entertainment, but for people who lived through the times when the events happened...they may have a different opinion on the matter depending on how it hit them.
If anything these 5 games just mean that what one person finds entertaining, another person won't. No matter what it is. Even the first Super Mario Bros game, one of the most historically significant and well known games of all time, may eventually be seen as 'meh' or even 'bad' by people in younger generations who never grew up with games of that type. Only time will tell, but everyone will always have their own "cup of tea" preference for what they consider "fun" in gaming.
One of the NES games I remember causing issues was Dr. Mario. Despite it's Teris knockoff gameplay the parent groups hated the notion of using drugs in a game to win.
I guess they never played Wolfenstein 3D.
Back in the day my parents considered buying me action 52, they rented it for me and wanted me to try it to see of they could just buy that one game and never have to buy another. Very glad we rented it first, i remember arguing with my dad how there arent really any actual games, he seen me play it and said, yes there are they are right there. I told him to try it and see, and he did. Thankfully he played videogames some over the years on the old atari 2600 but after playing action 52 for 10 minutes he was convinced even the atari 2600 was better. I wanna say I was 9 years old, and yes they made me try every game which is why I remember.
Now we have companies like Sweet Baby Inc destroying creativity under the guise of DEI
Didn’t Earn It?
DEI destroys everything, because it takes away the focus from what really matters.
The devs don't have to hire or listen to consultants. Sweet Baby shouldn't have sparked a harassment campaign, but at the end of the day they have no power over what the developers do. They are paid to offer advice, it's up to the developers to decide what to do with it. Your anger should be directed at them. I really don't think you have anything to worry about, Steam will green light anything and if there's a void in the market for the games you like, someone will step up and fill it.
I played Chiller as a kid in Gatlinburg at an arcade. Loved it. That was a long time ago.
Bionic Commando was controversial for delicate unbalanced people.
My parents would not have let me play a game like Chiller back in the day. It's almost laughable when you look at it now. I hadn't really heard of any of these aside from Bionic Commando. Action 52 could be a really bad sequel to Nintendo's "Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics".
Those are 5 games that I had never played or even heard of. I had no idea that they existed. And I've been playing Nintendo since 1986
"The bads" were actually the good guys.
I have taboo. Didn’t know it was controversial, but I also didn’t know anyone else that had a copy, much less talk about it. It had a creepy mood though, with the music. Now Bionica Commando, I love. Lost my cartridge… but in the 2000s, capcom had a capcom classics for GBA that came with BC. I beat the game, summer of 92. I didn’t know till later about the Nazi stuff but I first played it in Colombia, so it might have had that stuff on it for that region.
Anyone else have screaming Angry Video Game Nerd flashbacks playing in their head?
Chiller wasn’t an official Nintendo game though.
Neither was ACTION 52!
Chiller, a NES NASTY. before DOOM, Wolfenstein, MK. like it.
Nintendo did go rather far with censorship.
Most of the best games were Japanese in origin. Outside of Acclaim Entertainment, most American companies objected to the censorship, and didnt get a pass from Nintendo. Many American companies stayed out of the NES market for this reason, and if they did get their games on, they would get another company to port it over.
Music for Taboo was borrowed from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
WHAT?! No way!
Action 52 was $200?! Thats $461in todays money with inflation!
A local VHS rental store back then, which also rented out NES games for $0.49 per week, had a copy of Bath Bubble Babes, but I was never brave enough to ask if I could rent it, plus for the fact that I was l ike, 12 years old
The Tiny hats censor video games.
Taboo has weird vibes…I messed around with it a few times and its predictions came true twice.
So bionic commando was Wolfenstein before Wolfenstein
Wow, the music for Taboo was far ahead of its time!
I used to love Chiller when I was 6 or 7. I used to rent it for a buck at the video store.
I really love this video. Different, odd, perfect. Reminds me of the 80s 90s. Brings back memories 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘
I was 5 years old when my mom bought me Chiller for the NES. I had no idea what was going on but i just shot everything
Was Taboo even a game though? 🤣
Seeing Bionic Commando come up, I’m thinking “Oh hell yeah, I hated trying to figure out that game without a jump button WHAT THE FUCK?! HITLER?!”
This video was interesting. Thanks.
I’m going to go and say that you may have missed on one of the controversial games out there for the NES that many seem to have forgotten about or never heard about. I came across a copy of “death race” for the NES. The objective was to make points for glamorous splats with people via your car. You can clearly see why it was controversial and unlisted as an NES game. I was only able to get it working every once in a while because it was unlisted and probably never got the lockout chip put in. I’m pretty sure it was a PAL game too.
What did people think jeckal and Hyde was a cash grab for? Were people clamoring for merch based on a movie that came out in the 30s in 88?
Taboo: The Sixth Sense also had nudity. You forgot to mention that.
You’re right, I should have mentioned that. Thanks for watching, be sure to like and sub!
Does Taboo have the same soundtrack as the dungeon from Zelda: Link to the Past?
Shouldn't deface these crappy games with Zeldas quality soundtrack lol
Please forgive me :)
Bionic Commando is not crappy, dude.
@@tb3411 the Nazi version is
Most of these weird games I didn’t even know existed…
Where can I purchase original bionic commando