It’s no secret that Nintendo saved the U.S videogame market after the infamous crash
of 1983.
Among other reasons, a flood of bad games during the Atari era destroyed the public’s
trust in the gaming industry, but Nintendo managed to rebuild it from scratch, keeping
a steady supply of quality titles at the audience’s reach.
In order to maintain their brand's image, Nintendo applied a very rigid set of rules
to third party developers, such as what kind of material they could show in their titles.Nintendo
would not allow things like excessive violence and sexual themes to pervade the NES, in an
attempt to keep its products as family friendly as possible.
But as Censored Gaming covered in the past, once in a while, the company’s watch dogs
would drop their guard, and themes otherwise considered objectionable would find their
way intostores without any incident.
Today, we’ll talk a little about more about this.
Here are eight licensed games that escaped Nintendo’s censorship during the 8 bit era.
Let’s start with Acclaim’s WWF Wrestlemania, which was released in 1989 and featured some
of the biggest names in sports entertainment at the time.
The game was more of a brawler than a wrestling title, since the action consisted mostly of
button mashing with very few grappling moves.
Characters could replenish health by grabbing items that would randomly cross the ring,
each one of them related to their in-ring persona: For the Honky Tonk Man it was a guitar,
for Andre the Giant, a steak, and for Hulk Hogan, a crucifix.
Nintendo had a strict policy regarding the display of religious symbols in their games,
as well as any mention of gods, but the Hulkster somehow got a pass.
It’s possible that Nintendo made an exception in this case, since the catchphrase “say
your prayers and take your vitamins” was as intrinsically connected to Hogan as wrestling
itself.
Moving on to Bionic Commando, Capcom’s classic action game became infamous for presenting
the audience with one of the goriest moments of the 8 bit era.
In the original story, the hero Ladd Spencer fights against a new Nazi empire, which was
rebranded as “theBadds” for the American release.
All Nazi symbols and references were removed, but the final boss is still an unmistakable
Adolf Hitler, whose head explodes in very graphic detail once he’s defeated.
Another game which confronted the player with Nazi enemies was Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode.
Again, due to Nintendo's family friendly censorship policies there are no mentions of Nazism outside
of Japan.
However, as shown here,it’s actually still possible to pick up a file with a Swastika
on the cover.
Additionally, the final boss Smirk remains an obvious cyborg version of Adolf Hitler.
But that was just the tip of the iceberg.
Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode is based on a manga by Takao Saito - a series following
Duke Togo, a professional hitman, in stories full of violence and sex.
The videogame successfully duplicated the mystique of the comic book, and while some
content was cut from the original Japanese release, a lot of it arrived in the U.S unscathed.
For starters, in the sniper segments, it’s possible to see clear blood spurts every time
the target is hit, something that went completely against Nintendo’s stance on blood and gore
at the time.
Top Secret Episode also had scenes were the hero’s female companions would undress in
front of him.
The nudity was removed from the western version, but the view from outside their hotel window,
which heavily implied they had sex, remained.
Finally, it’s possible to find a pack of cigarettes and regain health by smoking them.
Duke Togo wasn’t the only smoker who kept his bad habit while working under Nintendo’s
Umbrella.
In Metal Gear, a pack of cigarettes is the only item Solid Snake possess at the start
of the game.
At first, they serve no apparent purpose, but if used during the final scene countdown,
they will double the time you have to escape the enemy base before it blows up.
It’s actually possible to finish Metal Gear without using them, rendering the item non-vital,
which adds to the mystery of why it was not cut from the game.
Nintendo didn’t make the same mistake twice and, when Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel was
released for the Game Boy Color in the year 2000, the cigarettes had their name changed
to “fogger” and were described as “a device that emits smoke”.
Even though Nintendo tried it’s best to keep any type of adult material away from
the NES, quite a few titles were released with instances of nudity on them.
Such is the case with River City Ransom, Technōs Japan's beloved brawler.
In it, players can visit book shops and restaurants to buy items that increase the hero’s attributes.
One of the establishments at your disposal is a sauna, where the main character can have
a bath and relax, while inadvertently mooning the audience.
Culture Brain’s RPG The Magic of Scheherazade also contained some nudity, but this time
of a more 'otherworldly' nature.
The second boss, Curly, is based on the Hindu goddess of destruction and creation, Kali,
who’s commonly represented as a six-armed figure with exposed breasts.
While her name was changed for translation, she is still referred as a female in the game
dialogue.
And in her second form, she transforms, and her naked torso is clearly visible.
It’s true that Kali, or Curly, isn’t actually human, but Nintendo’s censorship policies
extended even to monsters during that era, as seen with the Medusa in Castlevania III,
who had her female features severely lessened.
It’s curious that this got a free pass in not only showing a Hindu divinity, but her
bare assets as well.
Next up is Taboo: The Sixth Sense, which is actually not really a game, but a tarot card
reading simulator.
Players would input their name, birthdate and gender at the start, then the cartridge
would “read their luck” using a tarot deck.
One of the arcana is represented bya naked couple seen from the behind, another of a
woman baring her breasts and then lastly is the chimera, which has a lion body and a topless
women sticking out of its back.
Finally, we have the NES version of Maniac Mansion.
The original game was full of double entendre and dark humor, so Nintendo kept the adaptation
under a microscope, and objected to as much content as humanly possible.
As previously covered by Censored Gaming, any sexual innuendo, such as Nurse Edna’s
lines when imprisoning the main characters, were removed.
Nintendo also demanded the removal of a nude statue on the second floor of the mansion,
as well as a Playboy poster and a mummy pin-up from the workout room.
Also, in the original game, your character would be killed by the Green Tentacle when
playing “Mating calls”, the implication being that the creature killed you by having
sex with you.
No such thing happens in the Nintendo version.
Maniac Mansion also went through some very heavy language cleaning, and words like “kill”,
“suck” and “pissed” were entirely removed, not only from the story’s dialogue,
but also from the arcade machines in the game room.
The cabinet named “Die, Enemy, Die” was completely removed, while the one called “Kill
Thrill” was renamed to “Muff Diver”, and later to “Tuna Diver”, since “Muff
Diver” also sounded sexual to Nintendo’s watchers.
Considering all the material that was cut from the NES adaptation of the game, it’s
mind boggling that Nintendo managed to let one very clear instance of animal cruelty
escape their grasp.
While playing as Syd or Razor, gamers could steal Ed’s hamster and microwave it until
the rodent exploded.
Then, it was possible to deliver the remains to his owner, who would promptly kill your
character.
When Nintendo got wind of this, they demanded that such gruesome feature was removed from
any future batch of cartridges.
Curiously, this change only affected the PAL versions, since there wasn’t a second run
of the U.S version.
As Nintendo's outrage at the Maniac Mansion hamster scene shows, whilst they tried very
hard to keep their consoles "family friendly" they did still sometimes miss things!
This also perhaps helps explain how some of the other entries on the list were left uncensored.
Whilst Censored Gaming typically takes a look at the things that "did" get censored, videos
like this can be good from time to time, where we instead take a look at the reverse and
things "not" being censored.
If this is something you'd like to see more of then please leave a comment below and hit
that subscribe button and, until next time, thank you for watching.