RETURN OF GANON

What it's from: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
The context: Link runs out of lives.
Comments: Few "Game Over" screens on the NES were as memorable, as annoying, or as red as the one in Zelda II. Not only did the game illustrate the RETURN OF GANON with a shadowy picture of that pig-faced retard, but he fucking laughed at you too. I still don't quite understand why Ganon's resurrection ended the game. Didn't Link kick his ass in the previous game? Didn't he kick his ass in almost every game after this one? STOP LAUGHING AT ME, YOU BASTARD!

SAVE SYLVIA FROM MR. X

What it's from: Kung Fu
The context: After clearing Kung Fu's second and fourth floors, you're treated a brief cut scene of your girlfriend begging for help.
Comments: Kung Fu was a port of a 1984 arcade game called Kung-Fu Master, but the NES version is much more well-known and highly regarded, despite being far less pretty. The game is simplistic without being dull, hard without being frustrating, and fun as all hell. Is it repetitive? Absolutely. But for some reason, saving Sylvia from Mr. X never felt repetitive. Although this game is an arcade port, the quote is exclusive to the NES version. The arcade version features a slightly different interlude, while other home versions lack the scene entirely.

THIS IS A NEUTRAL AREA. ALL ACTS OF HOSTILITIES ARE PROHIBITED IN THIS AREA.
IF VIOLATED, YOU WILL BE ATTACKED.

What it's from: Bionic Commando
The context: Spencer enters a neutral zone and is greeted by a peacekeeper.
Comments: Bionic Commando could have been a straight action game, but it wasn't. Instead, the design team decided to add in a bunch of neutral zones where you could converse with enemy soldiers, acquire mission items that easily could have been placed in action stages, and receive vague, stupid clues as to what to do next. The highlight of these levels was that if you became bored, you could discharge your weapon and an alarm would sound signaling that the ceasefire had been broken. Then, an infinite supply of peacekeepers would attack you until you left the area or died. I'm pretty sure most people had at least one Bionic Commando excursion where they killed more peacekeepers than Badd soldiers; I know I did.

See your face upon the clean water. How dirty! Come! Wash your face!

What it's from: Final Fantasy
The context: If you use the talk/action button on the fountain in Coneria, this is the message you get.
Comments: So there you are, a freshly created party of Final Fantasy characters. You beam into existence right outside of Coneria with nothing but 400 gold coins, an undying sense of justice, and the generic clothes that each character class is assigned by their god. You walk into the town of Coneria, as of yet blissfully unaware that you have to rescue a princess from the evil knight Garland. You march right into the center of town, peer into the fountain, and discover that you're dirty. Somehow, in the four steps it takes you to get to town from the game's starting point, you apparently fell in the mud or something. What the fuck?

TELL MIKE TO DIP MY LETTER IN WATER....

What it's from: StarTropics
The context: At the end of Chapter 4, your uncle's assistant tells you that the last thing your uncle told him was to tell you to dip his letter in water. Then, when you reboard Sub-C, the submarine's computer asks you to input a frequency. The frequency you need is on the damn letter.
Comments: This is one of the most famously annoying puzzles ever put into an NES game. Forget about the obtuse bullshit you had to deal with in Tombs & Treasure and Uninvited; neither of those games required you to damage an object in the real world to advance within the game. But StarTropics did. When your lovable ethnic sidekick Baboo tells you to dip your uncle's letter in water, he's talking about an actual letter that came packaged in the StarTropics box that you actually have to dip in actual water to actually see the actual code. So if you rented the game, bought it used, or threw out the letter, you were actually fucked. Nintendo addressed this issue by printing the code in the December 1991 issue of Nintendo Power. It's 747.

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