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00:00This is the wise guy that tried to steal my dough.
00:04What do you gotta say for yourself, boy?
00:07Um, what?
00:09Welcome to Mojo Plays, and today we are taking a look at 20 of the absolute strangest games ever released
00:16for the Nintendo 64.
00:24But before we dive in, we publish new content all week long.
00:27So, be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos.
00:33Forty Winx
00:42When the game first launched in 1999, Forty Winx wasn't super absurd in its concept.
00:48There were plenty of cartoony games with dark fantasy themes at this time between Heart of Darkness, Oddworld, Medieval, and
00:56a bunch more.
00:56What really boggles our minds about Forty Winx is that the Nintendo 64 version didn't release until 2019.
01:04The reason for this was because of the game's awful commercial performance on PS1,
01:08which had a hand in GT Interactive's long-standing financial woes.
01:13Pico Interactive obtained the license and launched a Kickstarter in 2018,
01:17releasing an official cartridge for the game 20 years after the game's initial debut.
01:31Blastcore
01:32Blastcore
01:41Blastcore is already a surreal game once the basic premise presents itself.
01:46You must escort a runaway nuclear missile to its destination and destroy anything and everything in its path.
01:53If it manages to hit something, boom.
01:55Now, immediately one may ask if there was an easier way to keep the world safe from this runaway nuclear
02:01missile.
02:02Maybe there's a way to disarm it before it can cross through the first area.
02:06Or maybe someone can hijack the missile and guide it to another place where it won't harm anyone.
02:10We can poke holes in this plot all day, but none of the easier methods would make for a fun
02:15video game, now would it?
02:26Mario Golf
02:36On the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything bizarre about Mario Golf.
02:41What, isn't it just a game where Mario and his friends enjoy the King's game?
02:44That is certainly what it appears to be until you get a look at the full roster.
02:49Of the 17 playable characters, only 8 of them are Mario characters.
02:53The rest are completely original characters who have had nothing to do with any Mario game before and after this
03:00launch.
03:00Only two of them appeared in one more Mario Golf after this.
03:04We know this was the start of the series here, not counting NES Open Tournament Golf,
03:09but the normies here make it a tad weird revisiting this installment.
03:14Nice shot!
03:17Oh, too bad.
03:19Super Smash Brothers
03:20Go!
03:26To be fair, Smash Bros. has been around for so long now that the older games don't seem as odd
03:32in hindsight.
03:33But that's if you're looking at where we are now, and what we've seen from the sequels.
03:38Back in 1999, this was an insanely weird game to see.
03:42Why is Fox McCloud laying the smackdown on Luigi in Dream Land?
03:46What reason does Samus have to fight Mario in Hyrule?
03:50Obviously, who really cares?
03:52But when you're really saying what you're seeing out loud,
03:55you kind of realize how absurd Smash Bros. was and still is.
04:13It's already weird to see a video game based on a comedy movie from 1980.
04:17It's even more befuddling to see a game based on a sequel released 20 years after said movie.
04:23That alone is what had us so confused about Blues Brothers 2000.
04:27Even worse is that it's not even a decent game at best.
04:31The minigames are bland, the level design is uninspiring,
04:34and simply has none of the pizzazz the soul duo had in their flick.
04:39Ultimately, it's worth asking if this game was even a necessity for the sequel's marketing in the first place.
04:52Pokemon Snap
05:00Don't get us wrong, Pokemon Snap is a real treat.
05:03However, you have to admit the concept is rather bizarre.
05:07Think, this is a Pokemon game centered entirely around photographing the pocket monsters in the wild,
05:12rather than catching, training, and battling them.
05:15Given the franchise had been known for the latter by this point,
05:19we wouldn't think taking pictures of them could be this much fun.
05:22Between the cute animations and secret interactions to make certain Pokemon appear,
05:27Pokemon Snap wound up being a way more special gem than we had initially believed from the box art back
05:32then.
05:41Beetle Adventure Racing
05:50Most developers who work on licensed games would typically phone in ideas.
05:54In this case, what else would you do with the Volkswagen license?
05:58Not make a racing game?
05:59What we weren't expecting is just how good Beetle Adventure Racing actually turned out to be.
06:05The vehicles handled great, the track design was modeled well and rich with detail,
06:09and the music was pretty chill.
06:11It turned out to be a pleasant breather away from the realistic racing sims and chaotic kart racers.
06:16If only we could get more arcade racers like this today.
06:37The thing we don't acknowledge about the N64 is that a lot of the big games released for it were
06:43colorful, family-friendly titles.
06:45They all had distinct cover art that grabbed your attention and told your parents,
06:48hey, your kid is going to have a fun, wholesome time playing this game.
06:52Conker's Bad Fur Day is absolutely not that kind of game.
06:56There is a hell of a ton of swearing, poo jokes, innuendos, and a whole lot more.
07:01It's almost hard to believe that anyone thought this kind of a game would be entertaining in any way.
07:06And yet, the cute visuals and crass demeanor blend well together into something that winds up having a ton of
07:12heart behind it.
07:13That is, if you manage to beat the game without mom and dad realizing they bought something unsuitable for your
07:19age.
07:26Clay Fighter 63 and a third.
07:29Get him, little buddy.
07:32See ya.
07:36At the time, a lot of fighting games kind of stayed to the course in being edgy with blood and
07:41viscera coming out of ninjas, monks, cyborgs, and vicious monsters.
07:46Clay Fighter, for some reason, tried so hard to be absurd that it wound up steering some folks away from
07:51it.
07:51You got this half-naked Santa Claus fighting a taffy creature one moment,
07:56and the next is a maniacal clown fighting Earthworm Jim.
07:59Would it be an understatement to call Clay Fighter a fever dream?
08:02Quite possibly, and even with its wild imagination, the controls and humor make the game falter significantly.
08:09You're better off playing other fighting games.
08:12Let's get ready to crumble!
08:16Let's rock!
08:17Silicon Valley
08:29It's already weird knowing that Rockstar North made this right around the time they were pushing Grand Theft Auto to
08:35be a blockbuster game.
08:37But what's weirder is that this was arguably their best non-open-world sandbox game they ever made, and have
08:43not once bothered to revisit it.
08:46Silicon Valley throws you into different areas where you must take control of different animals in order to proceed to
08:52the next area.
08:53Every animal has different abilities, both ones you'd expect and others that may seem a bit outlandish.
08:58It's a genuinely funny game, though it's one you may need to spend some time with before you start appreciating
09:04it.
09:15Glover
09:23The 1990s saw a ton of different platformer mascots, most of which were cute critters.
09:29Glover, on the other hand, is a glove.
09:31A walking, sentient glove is certainly a strange choice for a video game star, but the plot is also pretty
09:37out there.
09:38Glover belongs to a powerful wizard, a spell of whose backfires one day, turning him into stoned and displacing mystical,
09:46kingdom-maintaining crystals.
09:48Oh, and these crystals have been transformed into balls, which Glover must roll, slap, and dribble through obstacles for every
09:55level.
09:56You can even transform this ball into others.
09:59Still, its weird story, gameplay, and protagonist didn't exactly take the world by storm,
10:04though there are far more obscure platformers on the system.
10:14Hybrid Heaven
10:22Have you ever wanted to give a monster a suplex?
10:25Well then, Hybrid Heaven might be the game for you.
10:28This Konami title follows a synthetic human created by aliens who turns on his creators to stop them from replacing
10:34the president of the U.S. with a clone.
10:37It was an early instance of blending genres, playing like an action-adventure game, but with turn-based battles.
10:43That itself is a bit odd for the time, but what's weirder are the attacks you can pull off.
10:48Among the surprising amount of punches and kicks are wrestling moves.
10:52There's nothing quite like body-slamming, tackling, and shoulder-tossing robots, clones, and mutant pigs in a secret invasion plot.
11:05Tonic Trouble
11:13Video game companies copy each other all the time.
11:16However, it's a much rarer occurrence for a studio to so blatantly copy itself.
11:21Tonic Trouble stars Ed, a Rayman wannabe whose hands and feet also float detached from his body.
11:28Not only was it developed and published by Ubisoft, but it also came from Rayman creator Michel Ancel.
11:35If that wasn't weird enough for you, it follows the alien janitor after he accidentally drops dangerous alien liquid on
11:41Earth, mutating the entire planet.
11:44Adding to the mayhem is a drunk who drinks the liquid, gaining superpowers, and conquering the world.
11:50Still not weird enough?
11:51Well, you can also turn into Super Ed by eating popcorn and you gain more health by collecting thermometers.
11:58For some reason.
12:04Iggy's Wreckin' Balls
12:11You've played as a glove transporting balls, now how about just balls?
12:17Iggy's Wreckin' Balls is a racer where players must reach the top of various spiral towers, either by themselves or
12:23against other players.
12:24In your path are enemies and obstacles in which you use a grappling hook to get around.
12:29There aren't many racing platforming hybrids, but by far the strangest element of Iggy's Wreckin' Balls
12:35are the balls themselves.
12:37The spherical characters each have a unique design and personality, such as the pink, pigtailed, fun-loving QT,
12:44and Chatter, whose entire face is a mouth, yet for some reason doesn't talk.
12:49Who could have guessed something this bizarre would have come from the makers of Turok?
12:58Earthworm Jim 3D
13:07It shouldn't come as a surprise that a third entry in the already weird Earthworm Jim series is also weird.
13:14This installment takes place almost entirely in Jim's head.
13:18He's been put into a coma and discovers he's completely insane.
13:22Villains run amok inside his subconscious and only collecting all the golden udders will break Jim free.
13:28Yeah, pretty strange, but that's to be expected.
13:32What's also weird is that, despite sounding pretty in line for this particular hero's adventures,
13:37most critics and players weren't too keen on it.
13:40A troubled development period, missing features seen pre-launch, mediocre gameplay,
13:45and an awful camera all played roles in this franchise-killing entry.
13:50Even the original creators felt Earthworm Jim 3D had ruined the series.
13:55Ouch.
13:56Ouch.
14:03Robot on Wheels
14:12Sucker Punch is one of the most impressive studios under PlayStation's umbrella,
14:17having created Sly Cooper, Infamous, and Ghost of Tsushima.
14:20But long before it was acquired by Sony or made any of those beloved franchises,
14:25the studio churned out a platformer about a unicycle robot trying to save a theme park from an evil raccoon.
14:31Gameplay isn't too outside the norm.
14:34Rocket has to collect tickets to open new worlds, gaining new abilities in the process.
14:38But the premise is still one of the sillier of the era,
14:41that's the only one of the most popular characters.
14:45Given how the studio evolved to be a franchise-crafting machine,
14:50it's also odd to look back at how it got started.
15:08The N64 clearly had no shortage of platformers,
15:12and a big chunk of them were obviously pretty strange.
15:15Chameleon Twist is the tail of a normal chameleon who follows a white rabbit into a new world,
15:20a la Alice in Wonderland, and finds he's been made humanoid.
15:24Gameplay revolves around using the chameleon's tongue to latch onto different things,
15:29combating enemies, and navigating environments.
15:31Moving past the complete lack of hygiene your character shows by sticking their tongue to
15:36literally everything, it can also be controlled by you via the joystick,
15:40or be used to launch off the ground.
15:42This makes each area fun to navigate, albeit a little repetitive after a while.
15:55Body Harvest
16:03Before it was renamed to fit within the Rockstars game family, but after its first Grand Theft Auto,
16:09DMA Design released this other, mostly forgotten action game.
16:13In Body Harvest, aliens invade Earth every 25 years to, well, harvest bodies.
16:20You play as a super soldier who travels across different time periods to stop them,
16:24like Greece during World War I and the futuristic year of 2016.
16:29In each level, you must hold off an alien onslaught and stop the civilian casualty meter from reaching capacity.
16:36Although, in typical GTA fashion, you can also kill anyone or anything you want.
16:41Most of the time, you'll be fighting hordes and vehicles, which is fair,
16:45considering most enemies will be the size of a bus anyway.
16:55Mischief Makers
17:03Sticking to 2D and the dawn of 3D was a bold move for a developer to make.
17:08While some, like Symphony of the Night, found success, Mischief Makers sadly did not.
17:14On top of the perplexing dimensional choice is its strange plot and art style.
17:19You play as a robotic maid who travels to another planet to rescue her kidnapped inventor.
17:23Gameplay mostly revolves around a grab-and-shake mechanic used to get rid of enemies and traverse levels.
17:29It seems to have been heavily inspired by anime, especially in the design of its large-eyed chibi protagonist.
17:36Anime wasn't nearly as influential back then, at least when it came to video games not based on an IP.
17:42Clearly, Mischief Makers was ahead of its time.
17:46Shake Shake Shake Shake Shake Shake Shake Shake
17:58Before we continue, check out this single from Sound Mojo's Audio, Songs from Iran,
18:03reimagining Persian melodies as modern rock, metal, and pop songs.
18:07Check out the full track and album below.
18:10So nature bring dawn to this darkness
18:21Spring has come, flowers bloom
18:28Mystical Ninja starring Goemon
18:36This action-adventure game from Konami has all the makings of a weird game.
18:41It follows the little ninja as he tries to stop some evil shoguns from using their tech-heavy spaceship
18:46to transform Japan into a theater and its citizens into dancers.
18:51A spaceship in feudal Japan controlled by aggressively passionate art connoisseurs?
18:55Pretty weird already, but let's keep going.
18:57The plot is overflowing with surrealist humor, there's a laugh track,
19:02as well as a handful of some truly bizarre musical numbers.
19:05This isn't even the first or last game in the series, so imagine how weird it is altogether.
19:11If you ever get a chance to try it, don't pass it up.
19:14We doubt you'll play another game quite like it.
19:23What's the weirdest Nintendo 64 game you've played?
19:26Let us know down in the comments, and don't forget to subscribe to MojoPlays!
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