Nightmare Ned is a game I never meant to own. Just like all the Jungle Games, I got this one bundled in with something else, a game we'll actually talk about later. My youngest brother thought that maybe this game wasn't real, that it was part of a bad dream he'd half-remembered all these years later. But as soon as he asked me if I remembered it, I knew exactly what it was. Funnily enough, I'd just seen it recommended in a video recommending deep cut games to play on Halloween.
Nightmare Ned is, to my great surprise, a cinematic platformer. Every other game I've looked at so far has felt very definitive in my memory. I knew Aladdin was a Capcom platformer. I knew Muppet Treasure Island was a point-and-click adventure game. But I didn't know that Nightmare Ned was a cinematic platformer. Honestly, my memories of this game were probably about as fuzzy as my brother's but definitely more certain. I knew this game was real and I knew we had it. I knew it had made quite an impression on me. But somehow, I never really understood what kind of game it was. And, in all fairness, cinematic platformers really are one of the most if-you-know-you-know genres of videogames. The most famous of them are cult classics like the Oddworld franchise, or very unique and of-their-time titles like Another World or Flashback. Not to mention Prince of Persia and its sequel, games in a franchise which wouldn't reach the height of its popularity until the beloved Sands of Time, in a totally separate genre. Cinematic platformers are quite niche, but oh my god, what a uniquely interesting niche it is.
Nightmare Ned is supposed to be an easier cinematic platformer than its contemporaries but I couldn't figure it out back in the day. While I will say there's quite a bit of obvious pathing which is evident to me now, I still got stuck in certain sections, particularly the school level and the teeth section. It also has a bit of an odd control scheme on keyboard, which is all I had back then and all I could get to work today. There are separate buttons for jumping up and jumping forward, so it doesn't exactly feel like the platformers I'm used to. You never quite feel like you're going to make the jump you're trying to execute. There's also no obvious health bar, and there are only so many hits you can take before losing a life.
That being said.
This is one of the most creatively raw videogames I've ever played. The gameplay has so many interesting and unique segments without abandoning your controls for a minigame, and even that happens only once and it's great. The storytelling is some of the most satisfying I've ever seen in a children's game. The music is infectious. The visuals are amazing. This game looks like no other game. I honestly don't want to tell you too much because I want you to get this game for yourself and experience it fresh. There are story beats that made me cry, not from fear, but just from how much of an emotional gut-punch they were, how full of hope and in love with life they were. I have a particular interpretation of this game that I want to make, but I will need to save it for another entry. I'm playing the long game with this series, and there are things you're not supposed to know yet ;)
Now I can look at this game as being an amazing forgotten gem that deserves high praise and a critical reappraisal. But back then I guess it really scared me. But nothing in the game scared me as much as something that happened while playing it.
There's this section of the game where Ned ends up on a giant chalkboard covered in equations. You have to climb up the chalkboard using the chalk drawings as platforming objects. But for some reason the game also doesn't let you pause in this segment. There are other rooms in the game that won't let you pause, but when I was younger, this is the only room I made it to that did that. I didn't know back then that there were certain rooms that wouldn't let you pause while you were in them. I thought the game was just broken. I also couldn't figure out how to progress in the level, because I didn't understand the controls back then, and the room didn't have a two-way door. You could enter the room one way, but to get out, you had to climb all the way to the top. The pause menu lets you exit levels and also lets you quit the game. Combining all these factors, I fully believed that the game had glitched out, and that that room was just broken.
Remember, I was also the house troubleshooter. I also had a fear of what would happen when computers broke. So, when I had decided I was stuck in this room, and that the game was broken, I did the only thing I could think of: I ejected the CD-ROM.
And the game kept playing. The music didn't stop. The controls were still responding. It was as if nothing had changed. Again, I was a child, I had no idea what was going on. So, thinking that nothing had changed, I put the disc back in. And then everything broke. I saw the Disney Interactive logo pop up super-imposed on the screen in bizarre colors. I saw the install wizard flash in those same broken tones. The music had stopped, but I could still move the character for a second until the computer crashed. I saw error messages I'd never seen before. I saw the Japanese language for the first time, and it scared me, because I didn't know what shapes I was seeing. I saw words in several other languages which looked almost French, a language I did recognize, but it clearly wasn't French. And meanwhile there's me, weighing my options, trying to decide what was more scary, what I'd done to the computer, or what was going to happen to me when someone saw what I'd done.
When Ned wakes up at the end of the game, his parents are right next to his bed to catch him. They're not mad that he stayed up late while they weren't home. They weren't mad he'd eaten a bunch of junk food he shouldn't have touched. They're just worried that they left their child alone at home in a power outage because a bad storm had kept them from getting back.
I wish I could finish saying what I want to.
Other games I've enjoyed from the year 1997:
Star Fox 64 (N64), The Curse of Monkey Island (PC), Mario Kart 64 (N64), Soul Blade (PS)
