10 Terrifyingly Dark Implications In Otherwise Cheerful Video Games
Is a game PG if you see someone made into cat food?
As anyone who has seen almost any children's cartoon can attest, stuff being made for kids or for with a "happier atmosphere" doesn't always mean that it's without dark moments.
Even when these moments aren't explicitly revealed, there's often the suggestion of much darker stuff happening, that can fly by the heads of those not looking for it.
And this is doubly true for video games, where even wholesome titles like Ecco the Dolphin somehow end up with nightmarish extraterrestrials in it. For every sweet moment you get in a game, there's sure to be one vaguely worrying moment that comes along right after it.
Though it's completely surreal to realise there was a grim implication in a game you happily played through unaware, it's also kind of cool. It's like watching Shrek or a cartoon you saw as a kid when you're all grown up, and being able to get all the references and hidden humour - breathing new life into something you already loved.
That said, sometimes it ruins it slightly, as you remember your favourite Pokémon is the spirit of a dead human, or that you've repressed memories of seeing a woman be made into cat food in a "child friendly" video game.
10. You Kidnap Or Kill Countless People - Katamari Damacy
Katamari Damacy has never been a series that has concerned itself with rationality or logic - but that doesn't mean it doesn't sometimes have some worrying implications.
Though the first time you picked up a living creature into your ball of chaos was no doubt a high moment of your game, it's a moment that also comes with some unsavoury implications to say the least.
Now, your first concern - and perhaps most logical concern - would be that these creatures (especially humans) will die in the katamari you create, as they're supposed to turn into stars - and it's safe to say that very few people can survive inside a star.
But, to be fair, this is thought to perhaps be a case of a translation issues, as in Japanese, the word hoshi can mean a star or a planet - meaning there's an equal chance the idea is that whatever you gather up becomes a planet, where presumably these creatures would live.
But that's also weird, because these people were getting on with their lives, and you've now sort of yeeted them to the other side of the galaxy. Hope they didn't leave the oven on.