Pumpkins, vampires, zombies, murderous robots. These were among the numerous creatures to pervade the entertainment landscape, tapping into the fears that people developed worldwide. So it’s no surprise that such monsters would find their way into videogames. Monster Party sought to bring them to the forefront and make them the primary enemies in the game. What we got was a game that actually parodized the monster genre and made little references to the source material here and there. Oh, and this game pretty was hard. After a month off, let’s celebrate NES MAY with a Monster Party!

A Japanese Game No One In Japan Played

As the name of the game suggests, Monster Party was all about monsters, namely those born from old folklore or pop culture. These ranged from man-eating plants to mummies to… Rockstars? Onion Rings? Yeah, this game is really weird, and its references even weirder. The game begins with a boy named Mark coming home from a baseball game when all of a sudden a bird-like creature appears from a shooting star. The creature, Bert, asks Mark for his help as his homeland is being overrun by monsters. Mark agrees (why!?) and Bert flies him to his homeworld. Thus, the game begins.

The main draw Monster Party was its zany nature. Probably the most normal thing in this game is the Man-Eating Plant. After that it just gets crazier. Like I said before, this game is full of references, like the aforementioned Man-Eating Plant, Dancing Zombies, A Mech with a haniwa face. Another thing that caught the attention of the gaming public many years later was a supposed Japanese beta version of the game that was more graphic than what we ended up with. The title screen’s green slime was supposed to be blood, and one spider bosses was more terrifying with a mangled face and blood dripping from its mouth. However, this would not see the light of day as Monster Party, a game made in Japan, was not released in Japan. This is one of the few games in videogame history that had this happen. The only other game I know of that suffered a fate like this was Advanced Wars: Days of Ruin.

There are rumors circulating that some of the carts of the beta are out there. Unfortunately, no one has dumped the ROM of the game, probably due to fear of the ROM being online depreciating the value of the cart.