Modern video games have a reputation for being more mature than those of the past -- overflowing with gritty violence, brooding antiheroes, and gritty brooding nudity. But most of us still remember a more innocent time in gamedom, when plumbers rescued princesses, yellow blobs ate yellow dots, and paddles ponged. But the reason we think about classic games as being nothing but good, clean fun is that, like all childhood trauma, we've pushed out the truly dark, shocking shit that went on in them. Real disturbing stuff like ...

7 In Majora's Mask, You Can Get A Child Drunk (And/Or Lobotomized By Aliens)

Boy, Link sure has it rough in The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time. After being kept in stasis for seven years, the savior of Hyrule awakens to find himself in an adult body in a world as messed up as his sudden hormone surges. Eventually, he defeats a pig Godzilla and saves the sexy princess (and a sexy rancher's daughter, and a sexy fish-woman, and a bunch of sexy sand pirates). But though he crossed time and space to rescue her, Zelda resets the clock and sends Link home without so much as a farewell kiss or a "Thanks for being a pal" handjob.

Nintendo

Nintendo

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"I need some space -- preferably several loading screens away."

If any hero deserves a holiday, it's surely Link. That's where Majora's Mask comes in. After being rejected so hard that his testicles un-drop, kid Link decides to go on a road trip to reconnect with his literal wingwoman, the fairy Navi. Instead, he quickly finds himself trapped in a weird apocalyptic realm in which the same three days keep repeating until he can save the world from doomsday. But time isn't the only thing that's flexible in Majora's Mask -- it seems that child protective services have called it a day as well.

Nintendo

Nintendo

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These look like scenes from Mr. Polanski's Neighborhood.

At some point(s) in time(s), you become friends with a young woman, Cremia, and her younger sister Romani, both of whom look suspiciously like the rancher's daughter you saved back in Hyrule. So much so, in fact, that you really have to ask yourself if Link isn't working through some issues deep inside a medieval sanitarium.