5 Weirdest Games On The NES

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The Nintendo Entertainment System was Nintendo’s first home console, meaning the company was still learning as they went. Faced with the technical limits of the hardware, game developers often came up with really unusual ideas to make their games stand out. As a result, the NES has a lot of strange and quirky titles – some are so bizarre they’re hard to believe! It’s often unclear why these games were created, but NES fans appreciate them. There’s just something enjoyable about a truly unique and retro gaming experience.

Here are the five weirdest games on the NES.

5) Zombie Nation

In the game Zombie Nation, you play as a floating samurai head with a rather unique attack style: shooting eyeballs and vomiting on enemies! You’ll battle opponents like zombie snipers and lava monsters, and you can become more powerful by saving hostages as they escape from crumbling buildings. Honestly, that’s more than enough reason to check this game out.

The Japanese version of the game replaces the samurai head with a mask, which tones down some of its stranger elements, but the game still feels incredibly surreal. Luckily, it’s fairly easy to play now, as Zombie Nation was re-released on Nintendo Switch and PC in 2021. This re-release includes both the original and updated versions.

4) Hatris

Hatris is a simple game – it’s essentially Tetris, but with hats instead of blocks. Interestingly, it was created by Alexey Pajitnov, the very same person who invented Tetris, so it’s not a copy! In Hatris, your goal is to stack hats on the heads of six characters displayed at the bottom of the screen.

Hats of different sizes stack together in interesting ways. The goal is to stack five identical hats to make them disappear. While it was a fun game, it wasn’t as popular as Tetris, and its creator, Pajitnov, later called it a disappointment. You can still play it as part of the Tetris Forever collection.

3) Wall Street Kid

In the game Wall Street Kid, you start with $500,000 and your goal is to double it to $1,000,000. If you succeed, you’ll inherit almost a trillion dollars from your family. The game mainly involves buying and selling stocks, which is unusual for a console geared towards younger players, but things quickly become even stranger.

This game motivates you to make money so you can afford nice things and avoid being cut off financially. You also need to impress your girlfriend with gifts, or she’ll leave you! Combined with its witty writing, it’s a really engaging and fun experience.

2) Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom

This adventure game originally appeared on computers in Japan in 1984. It was later released for the Famicom in 1988 and came to North America in 1991. Because the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) didn’t have a keyboard, the game had to be simplified. However, that’s not the reason it’s included here.

Princess Tomato is a quirky NES game set in the Salad Kingdom, a world populated by walking, talking vegetables. Instead of traditional battles, you’ll mostly engage in ‘finger wars’ with the villains, and spend your time exploring to figure out what to do next. With its unique Japanese humor, it’s easily one of the strangest games ever released for the NES.

1) Takeshi’s Challenge

It’s tough to categorize Takeshi’s Challenge as a typical game. Created by Japanese personality Takeshi Kitano – famous for Takeshi’s Castle – it’s built as a side-scrolling action game, but offers so much freedom that it often feels like an adventure game. It even has moments that play like a shooting game! It’s a really unusual mix of genres.

This is just a small part of what makes the game unique. You play as an office worker who discovers a treasure map, and surprisingly, you can fight almost anyone – even your family! Expect constant attacks from dangerous Yakuza members, and you’ll need to drink tequila or stay in hotels to recover your health.

And if that wasn’t enough, Takeshi’s Challenge actually uses the karaoke bar’s microphone! Plus, if you’re not interested in playing the main game, you can mash the punch button over 30,000 times on the title screen to skip straight to the ending. Surprisingly, many of Takeshi’s ideas were deemed too inappropriate for a general audience. It’s hard to picture anything more bizarre than what did make it into the game, but it would be amazing to see what an unrestrained Takeshi could create. Sadly, he hasn’t designed another game since, though he did appear as Toru Hirose in Yakuza 6: The Song of Life.

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2026-04-28 01:11