The Spooky Zone of Strangely Strangeness #1: Super James Pond (1993)

Super Mario. Sonic The Hedgehog. The Legend of Zelda. Some games are so ingrained in our collective conscience that sometimes we forget how simple they can be. 

But sometimes there are games that are so strange, so out there, that they defy all logic. They spit in the face of mere reason and stand alone as pieces of surrealistic art. These games have been locked away in time. But you can now find them again if you come with me into....

The Spooky Zone of Strangely Strangeness.

I have been wanting to talk about Super James Pond ever since I played it. Never before have I gone into a game believing that it was just going to be a fun, simple little SNES title only to have it be a kaleidoscope of sheer terror.

For starters, the game does not give you any semblance of a plot, an introduction to the story, your character, or anything. You just press start and this is what you're made to deal with it.

What? Wh....WHAT

So yeah, O.K. Just throw me into the blizzard-ing tundra with no context. No that's fine. I'm cool with it. So the titular character is James Pond, a tadpole secret agent. Get it? He's from the water and he's a secret agent so his name is James Pond. It's cute, I can't lie. But then the cuteness fades into sheer panic when you learn our aquatic amigo can do this:

Jesus Christ....what the fuck is that? Did James go back in time to Victorian era England and wear rib crushing corsets for a few years just so he could do that? What is the point of it? Why can't he just jump and grab higher platforms? Why does he have to contort his spine like some fish/giraffe/demon spawn hybrid?

The answer is the makers of this game were Satanists. That's the only deduction I can truly make.

Our Lord and Master, Beelzepond

So basically, at the very crux of everything, this game is a standard platformer where you need to get to the end of every level until you reach a boss. Pretty standard stuff. What isn't standard is what's in the levels. Like, take for instance the backgrounds.

"Jerry. What did you do with that LSD?"
"Oh...I put it in your drink. I thought you wanted it when you played that video game"
"....Goddamn it, Jerry."

What do sad, confused bears and a withered beanstalk have in common? I dunno...a metaphor for a spiral into psychosexual degeneration? Probably.

And then the items you pick up for nothing more than just points and sometimes power ups are as equally strange. They range from hamburgers, candy canes, hammers, apples, etc. The reason for these disparate elements are never explained. And finally, like a psychedelic cherry on top, you finish the level by collecting penguins. Why? Because FUCK YOU THAT'S WHY.

The bosses are equally terrifying. Take for example, the first boss, which is a giant version of the bears from the first level, as if he's their slave master and that's why they look so scared in the background.

GODDAMN IT JERRY!

Nothing much changes from this point. You get some scrolling levels here and there and you can swim underwater after falling into a giant tub of ice cream and at this point, I am no longer surprised. Finally, if you make it to the end without your last thread of sanity snapping, you beat the fianl boss and see this cunt welcoming you.

Yes, that is Santa Claus. You see, the problem with the SNES version is it conveniently decides to leave any semblance of plot to this game so you're just running around killing giant bears while collecting penguins wondering if you're really writing all of this in shit in some white padded room. According to the Genesis version which actually has a story and a introduction, here is the plot:


"The game takes place immediately after its predecessor, James Pond. Although Acme Oil Co. has been destroyed by James Pond, Pond's arch enemy Dr. Maybe survived and has retreated to the North Pole where he has taken over Santa's workshop. Dr. Maybe is holding Santa's workers hostage (in most versions of the game they are penguins, in some they are elves), and has turned many of Santa's helpers into his own twisted and dangerous assistants. James Pond is recruited to infiltrate Santa's grotto, free the captive penguins, retrieve the stolen toys for the children of the world, and defeat Dr. Maybe once and for all. This time, however, due to the greater risks involved in this mission, Pond is given a robotic suit and the code name "RoboCod" (a pun on RoboCop). This suit gives Pond superhuman strength and agility as well as enabling him to stretch his midsection almost indefinitely and reach otherwise impossibly high areas."

What? This is a sequel? There's a game where you're not able to stretch your torso in disgusting, scientifically impossible ways? What poor bastard had to come up with the plot of this? One answer I do have is, while knowing the plot now makes a lot of the stuff in the game make more sense, it doesn't make it any less horror inducing.