Summary
Nintendohas often aimed to be the Disney of the video game industry, for better and for worse. On the outside, their games arejust as child-friendly and squeaky-clean as Disney’sanimated films. They’ll never make Mario curse and shoot guns, or have Peach dress lewdly and drink like a sailor. People can find mature-themed third-party games on Nintendo’s consoles, but their first-party games never get dark. Or do they?
Despite appearances, Nintendo has trodden into heavy territory before. Samus isn’t hunting for coconut-flavored candy bars whenMetroidcalls her a bounty hunter. Link’s different quests inThe Legend of Zeldafranchise can get grim, even when they have the happiest-looking graphics around. EvenPokémoncan turn serious. Butwhich Nintendo games are the darkest?Here are a few examples.
People have made the joke thatPokemonon its own is dark as a concept, with children kidnapping animals, trapping them in tiny orbs, and forcing them to fight until they faint. It’s kind of the equivalent of bear-baiting or cockfights. The games and cartoons haven’t shied away from this, but it’s largely shown as a consensual arrangement. Is that realistic? No, but neither are giant electric rodents nor living pig springs. It’s a cartoony kids’ game!
That doesn’t mean the stories have to be all kids’ stuff though, asPokemon X & Yshows. When a war broke out and killed AZ’s Floette, he used a machine to bring her back, then turned it into a weapon to kill people on both sides of the war. It ended the conflict, and his friendship with his Floette. Ages later, the player has to stop Team Flare from using that same machine to destroy everything on Earth and rebuild humanity in their image.
For many,Super Paper Mariowas where the series’ fall began.The RPG elementswere discarded in favor of dimension-shifting platforming, which wasn’t quite as engaging to old fans. However, it kept its RPG-quality story over the usual “Mario saves Peach from Bowser’s plot” from the platformers, as Count Bleck tries to destroy all reality at the urging of his minion Dimentio.
From there, the plot is straightforward as Mario searches for the Pure Hearts to overcome Bleck’s Chaos Heart, and Bleck gradually reveals why he’s using it to destroy the dimensions. Though that doesn’t prepare the player for its off-putting elements. Elements like Bleck’s minion, Mimi, turning into a creepy spider-form, or Luigi being brainwashed, killed, and then merging with Dimentio as the game’s final boss.
It’s hard to point to a ‘light’Metroidgame, as they all involve something grim going on. Samus’ past as a human raised by an extinct alien race is covered in the original game. Scientists get killed experimenting with something they don’t understand inSuper Metroid.Metroid Fusionhas Samus getting stalked by a parasitic clone of herself while she’s trying to cure herself of an infection.
Still, those games aimed for a somewhat happy ending.Metroid Prime 3: Corruptionends on a much sadder note. This time, Samus must destroy the Leviathan Seeds to stop the planets Bryyo and Elysia from being corrupted by Phazon like her fellow bounty hunters. She neutralizes the threat, saving herself from its influence and stopping herevil counterpart Dark Samus, but she couldn’t save her friends.
In turn, most ofThe Legend of Zeldagames are dark to some degree or another. EvenLink’s Awakeninghas a whole land disappearing from existence. But ultimately, the most famous darkZeldagame isMajora’s Mask, as nearly every element of the game is coated in off-putting melancholy, from the main story to the sidequests, and even Link’s gear.
For example, all of Link’s main mask forms are based on deceased characters, whose deaths are mourned at different parts of the game. Then, the citizens of Termina each gradually accept their fate as the Moon draws closer to their town, expressing themselves to each other while they still can. Then the Skull Kid, likeSPM’sCount Bleck, turns out to be a broken pawn controlled byan even more malevolent force.
3Mother 3
Family Loses Its Mother And First Son To Pig-Faced Invaders Intent On Destroying The World
Earthboundis perhaps the most famous example of a dark Nintendo game. It starts off all bright, silly, and quirky, then ends with Giygas’ creepy, swirling face intentionally designed to break children’s innocence. Characters come from broken homes, almost get killed by cultists, and die at the hands of henchmen. It’s not all living road signs and Retro Hippies.
Then its sequel,Mother 3,has a mother dying, a son going missing, a grief-stricken father, animal experimentation and abuse, and a humble community corrupted by the excesses of capitalism. That’s not including them being all that’s left of humanity, and the villain’s plot to destroy them by removing the needles holding its biggest threat in place. This and more are perhaps partly why Nintendo hasn’t beenkeen on officially localizing the gamein the West.
If theFire Emblemgames were going to be soft and fuzzy, their characters wouldn’t be armor-clad sword fighters. It might be tougher to list its lighter games, as the series has covered discrimination, social inequality, abuse, revenge, betrayal, death, and more.Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy Waris no different, but it sprinkles more on top. Its warriors’ attempts to stop a cult from reviving the dragon Loptous aren’t as direct as fighting it head-on.
The first hero, Sigurd, is betrayed by his allies and murdered, along with his army, by meteors. Then his wife, Deirdre, has her mind wiped by Manfroy and is partnered up with her half-brother Arvis to revive Loptous through their son, Julius. It’s left to Sigurd’s son, Seliph, to stop Manfroy, Julius, and Loptous' followers, and he has his work cut out for him.
Technically,Eternal Darknesswas a third-party gamemade by Silicon Knights, butNintendo were the ones who sparked its development,asking the studio to give their GameCube a mature game along the lines ofBlood Omen: Legacy of Kain. They even patented the game’s Sanity effects, where the lower it got, the more the game would break the fourth wall (e.g. pretending to wipe save data, etc.).
That said, Nintendo got their wish, as the game became a multi-millennia-spanning tale about murder, curses, and demons. Its different protagonists get pulled into a plot where they collect artifacts and tomes that culminate with its main lead, Alexandra, going beyond time and space to fight the godlike Ancients. Provided its horrors don’t break their psyches into a chaotic mess first.
