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BLOOD
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Behold: One of the last and most notable act of Nintendo censorship! Those who haven’t finished Ocarina since unwrapping the gold-shelled masterpiece in 1998 may not even realize that Ganondorf’s blood has been rendered a glorious green in subsequent Ocarina releases, from cartridge to the Virtual Console.
There are a zillion reasons to bitch about this, but for the sake of brevity, you’re only allowed to pick two in the comments:
-How was Nintendo above its own rules?
-Will the original, blood-red version remain exclusive to the N64?
-Why censor something millions already own?
-How is someone coughing up their own green guts less disturbing?
-Shouldn’t you’ve been spending more time on Majora’s Mask?
-This is all Wind Waker’s fault!
Super Castlevania IV
You’d think a series about vampires would’ve been given some leeway in terms of blood, but even Castlevania IV’s title screen was swabbed clean of plasma.
Plus, pits filled with red and “bloodish” liquid were also replaced with green ooze, even though Simon Belmont’s lungs will react to them all the same.
Street Fighter II
Though swollen leaky faces remained for SFII losers, chunky blood splashes were removed on the VS screen.
Zombies Ate My Neighbors
The Game Over screen in this LucasArts classic had to undergo serious purplefication.
Final Fight
A light mist of hemoglobin was replaced by a tiny explosion in console port of Capcom’s famous brawler.
Blackthorne
Instead of depicting realistic death, our hero dies in a pool of crude oil. It’s like Wages of Fear for babies!
Mortal Kombat
Oh, do we really need to talk about this again… Yeah, so the Nintendo palette-swapped the goop grey, called it sweat, blah, blah, blah. Both versions let you “Go Red” with codes anyway! And by the time MKII and the ESRB rolled around, all was right in Outworld and websites like us had something to consistently drag up.
ANIMAL CRUELTY
Ice Climbers
Younger gamers probably know Nintendo’s original Hammer Siblings as the adorably annoying characters from Smash Bros. But Popo and Nana actually began their careers bashing baby seals about the head in the original version of Ice Climbers. Unfortunately, America’s endangered seal clubbing scene was tepid at best, so these precious creatures were replaced by equally huggable Yetis in the US.
Wolfenstein 3D
On the next page, you may think Nintendo was kind to the Nazis of Wolfenstein, but look at the care they extended to man’s best bud. NoA felt that killing the deadly carnivorous puppies was a bit too much and felt far more comfortable allowing gamers to murder giant, hyper-aggressive rats.
