Taboo: The Sixth Sense (1989)
Developed by: Rare
Published by: Tradewest
Released in: NA
The big selling point of the NES game Taboo: The Sixth Sense was that it was not, in fact, a game at all. One of the oddest ducks in the NES library by a mile, Taboo is a tarot reading simulator made for and marketed to adults. Specifically, it was meant to be whipped out at parties when the kids were asleep, or for teenagers to squeal about the state of their crushes amongst a group of like-minded friends. Indeed, sloshed adults and giggling schoolgirls alike could get a glimpse into their futures with the use of this cartridge! An awkwardly written out glimpse, mind you, but a glimpse all the same.
The game uses an adlibs style of slotting short, pre-determined answers to the viewer. This is done with zero regard for grammar, however, so the template of “(blank) (blank) is (blank) (blank)” could result in the garbled, near unintelligible mess that is the “near future influencing you soon is unable to adapt to new project” prediction I just got. For the love of God, should I sell my stocks or not, Taboo?! I need a tarot reading to decipher this tarot reading!
You input your name, DOB, and gender. You type in the question you want the game to answer. You push A, read through your very accurate tarot reading, and in a three minute span, you’ve seen everything the game has to offer. The music is fittingly whimsical/eerie and the animations and artwork can be visually interesting, but there’s zero reason to look at Taboo more than once.
It’s also home to one of the only instances – if not the only instance – of nudity in an officially licensed NES game, appearing in the form of a few tarot cards. I know that the 80’s were a different time, and finding titillating content wasn’t as easy as it is in the digital age, but I’m not sure I would’ve paid $50 1980’s US dollars to look at some pixelated boobs. Maybe $20-30, but definitely not $50.
The only other section is, when your reading is finished, the game asks for what state you live in to generate a handful of lottery numbers for you. It includes Canadian provinces, a rarity which is mildly interesting for a Canuck like me, but…I’m struggling here, guys. I feel like I just dropped my queue cards. There’s really nothing to say about Taboo. You can’t even “beat” it, technically, because there’s no game. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s tough to talk about.
Uhh, Taboo allegedly shipped with a black silk bag to store the cartridge in, but I’ve sniffed around for evidence and can’t find a single photo of such a thing, so I don’t know how true that is. It does look like it comes with a mysterious black slip cover, one missing the red “Nintendo” branding cartridges would often come with, but is it made of silk? I don’t know, but that’s something. And the manual’s kind of weird and cryptic? That’s something else!
Taboo is a fascinating footnote in the NES’s history though, and an early attempt to make video games for adults. An early official attempt, I should say; the NES is home to more than a few so-called “erotic” games that Nintendo had no part in and are also not the least bit sexy.
While there’s no hard evidence out there that Rare was intentionally trying to make something that would cause a stink with religious groups (which would likely translate to sales), I can only assume that’s the case. It feels as though Taboo was almost tailor-made to drum up controversy in the Satanic Panic era of the 1980’s. Full of religious, devil-centric imagery, nudity, and “NOT FOR KIDS” warnings plastered all over the box and manual, it’s all too coincidental to be anything else. If Dungeons and Dragons was too extreme for concerned parents of the time, there’s no way in hell tarot would get a free pass. As it stands, however, the only people angry about Taboo’s existence are people who paid full price for it when it was brand new. You could likely get a proper deck of tarot cards from the questionable catalogues they’d tuck away in the back of comic books for a cool $5 back then.
At a total runtime of three minutes, I’d say Taboo could be worth a quick glance if you’re interested in oddities or tarot, but that’s about all you’ll get from it.
Initial Interest Rating: 8/10
Final Score:
NESJunk 