1. Monster Party
A side-scrolling action game where you play as Mark, a kid armed with a baseball bat who teams up with a gargoyle named Bert to fight through bizarre horror-themed levels. The game is a fever dream of surreal enemies, from a giant onion ring to a killer fried shrimp. Its sudden shifts in tone—from goofy to grotesque—make it an unsettling experience.
2. Wurm: Journey to the Center of the Earth
A hybrid of side-scrolling shooter, platformer, and first-person adventure. Players control a drilling machine through underground caverns filled with hostile creatures. The game’s genre-blending mechanics and its oddly philosophical storyline make it stand out. The narrative dives into existential themes, which is unusual for an NES game.
3. Zombie Nation
A shooter where you control a giant floating samurai head named Namakubi, who spits out eyeballs and vomit to destroy enemies and save America from an alien invasion. The concept of playing as a decapitated samurai head that shoots projectiles from its mouth is bizarre enough, but the game's strange enemy designs and chaotic levels take it to another level.
4. Clash at Demonhead
An open-world action platformer where you play as Bang, a secret agent trying to stop a doomsday device from destroying the world. The game features a non-linear world, quirky characters, and a plot that includes ancient demons and cybernetic enhancements. The mix of sci-fi, fantasy, and humor is refreshingly odd.
5. A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia
A puzzle-platformer where you guide a boy and his blob companion through a series of challenges using jellybeans that transform the blob into various useful shapes. The concept of feeding jellybeans to a blob to solve puzzles is strange enough, but the game’s quirky mechanics and lack of explanation for anything happening around you make it truly weird.
6. Taboo: The Sixth Sense
Not a game in the traditional sense, Taboo is a tarot card reading simulator that offers vague predictions about the player's future. It’s more of a digital fortune-teller than a game, with no actual gameplay or objective. The idea of using your NES to predict your future feels out of place and odd.
7. Time Diver: Eon Man
A side-scrolling platformer where you play as Dan Nelson, a man who must travel through time to prevent disasters that could alter history. The game was never officially released in North America, and its mix of time-travel narrative with bizarre enemies like mermen and robots in anachronistic settings is disorienting.
8. Mendel Palace
A puzzle game where you must flip floor tiles to defeat hordes of animated dolls and clear each stage. The game’s surreal, doll-themed enemies and the fact that the entire gameplay revolves around flipping tiles give it an unusual feel. The unsettling atmosphere of battling doll-like creatures adds to the weirdness.
9. Yo! Noid
A platformer where you play as the Noid, a mascot for Domino’s Pizza, as he battles his way through New York City. The idea of a pizza mascot being the protagonist of an NES game is already strange, but the bizarre mini-games and the fact that it’s a reskinned Japanese game just make it even weirder.
10. Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom
A text-based adventure game where you play as Sir Cucumber, tasked with rescuing Princess Tomato from the evil Minister Pumpkin in a world inhabited by anthropomorphic vegetables. The entire game is a vegetable-themed adventure, with puzzles and dialogue that are as quirky as the concept. The sheer absurdity of a world where cucumbers, tomatoes, and pumpkins interact like humans makes it one of the strangest NES titles.
