We Could Originally Shoot The Dog In 'Duck Hunt'
We believe that when devs make games, they want to create a fun and enjoyable experience…most of the time. We kind of feel like there was some ulterior motive when Nintendo came up with Duck Hunt for the NES, or, as most of us remember it, that game with that dog who laughed at our failures. Most players don't even remember it being a game about a bunch of ducks who set out to hunt humans (we believe), but everyone sure as hell remembers hating the dog. That goddamn dog left such an impression on an entire generation that our best Universities should conduct studies on the correlation between playing Duck Hunt as a kid and wanting to pursue a career as a SWAT officer. Luckily for everyone, we're happy to say (in this context and in this context alone), that we could actually shoot the dog in the original version of the game.
Turns out that in the very rare arcade version of the game, the dog jumped after the ducks and we could uh, accidentally, shoot it.
Interestingly, that's just one of a surprisingly large number of animal violence incidents that Nintendo has covered up over the years. Yeah, we've previously talked about how Mario was originally using not the power of friendship but rather the power of fists to coerce Yoshi into helping him save the princess, but there's more. Like, how many people know that the Ice Climbers only became strong enough to compete in the Super Smash Bros. league after many years of training by killing baby seals? In the Western version of Ice Climber, the enemies are abominable snowmen, something that's totally ok to murder in games because we've already led them to extinction in real life (probably), so no harm no foul.
In the Japanese version of the game, however, the Ice Climber was totally clubbing baby seals.
Just wait until the new and animal cruelty-free Mario learns about this!
Top Image: Nintendo
