No Exit Oh Well Lets Continue

Title card for episode.

Little Red Hood - unlicensed NES - Angry Video Game Nerd - Episode 83

(Level 2 music from "Snake Rattle'n'Roll" plays)

The Nerd: I have a lot of NES games. Look at all these fuckin' games. So many choices. Which one should I play? Well here's a question: which one's different from the rest, huh? Which one juts out like a fuckin' piece of shit? This one. (pulls out "Little Red Hood" cartridge) And look, what's that? Why it's another game hiding behind it.

The Nerd: It sure is a unique specimen. If it had only been for this, I'd say it's pretty strange, but the way it protrudes out too, definitely makes it the most oddly-shaped of the whole collection. Being that this is one of those unlicensed hack-fucks, it won't play in a classic Nintendo, unless you stick another game on it. So that's what it's for. But all the other unlicensed games didn't have to do that, so why this one? It's just like Super Noah's Ark 3D, the only Super Nintendo game where you had to do that.

(Level 1 music from "Snake Rattle'n'Roll" plays)

The Nerd: If you play it on the Top Loader, then it works just like a regular game. It does look lonely and stupid, so I guess you could stack shit on top if you want. (stacks a Game Genie and two other stackable games on the top of the cartridge)

The Nerd: You know what? I noticed somethin' really weird. These ("Little Red Hood" and "Super Noah's Ark 3D") are the only two games I know of that have that weird thing where you gotta stick the game on the top, but they also both involve animals, slingshots, and fruit. I wonder if there's a connection... Probably not.

The Nerd: Anyway, whaddya expect of a game based off of Little Red Riding Hood? You're familiar with the story, right? It goes somethin' like this. Once upon a time, there was a girl named Little Red Riding Hood. She liked to jump in the air and whistle out her vagina. She kicked at trees until Big Bird's ballsack would appear.

The Nerd: What, that's not the story? Oh, well excuse me, 'cause this isn't Little Red Riding Hood. This is Little RED Hood. Yeah! Not to be confused. I don't know, really; th-the real reason why it's called Little Red Hood, instead of Little Red Riding Hood... is... because I have no fucking idea.

(Game starts)

The Nerd: So this is the game. You just look at it, and it sucks. It doesn't come as a surprise. It's not like there's any expectations to meet. It's not Spider-Man, or Batman, or somethin' cool; it's a fuckin' fairy tale. So it doesn't even need to try to be bad. Well just hold that thought, because pretty soon, you're gonna see how it goes way beyond your wildest nightmares.

The Nerd: The first thing you try to figure out is how to attack. The B button makes her kick, but it doesn't do a damn thing. It's like the stick in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Why do they give you an attack that doesn't do shit? On the cover of the fucking game, it shows her kicking an enemy! Why can't you do it in the game?! Why'd they have to FUCKIN' LIE?! The only thing the kick can be used for is kicking palm trees to make cherries appear. But please God, tell me one thing: WHY ARE THERE CHERRIES COMING OUT OF A FUCKING PALM TREE?!

The Nerd: So that's it for the kick, so let's try the A button, which makes ya jump. Can you use this as an attack? (She tries to jump on an enemy, but gets hit instead) Nope. Well that pretty much cancels it all out. But there's guys running all over the place tryin' to kill you. There's gotta be some way to attack, right?

The Nerd: Well, sometimes when you pick up a rock, you might uncover a white dog, and if you're lucky, the dog will eat the bad guys. So that's basically your attack. Mario jumps on people, Link uses a sword, Little Red Hood uses a dog that she finds under a rock. I can't believe I'm explaining this. It's not even like you control the dog; it just wanders around. So you just have to hope that the dog and the bad guys just accidentally walk into one another.

The Nerd: Let's check out the store. The store always sells the same three items. Even when there's two stores right next to each other. What's the point of that? It's like fuckin' Starbucks at every street corner. The first item is a potion that makes you invincible. It only works for a few seconds, so it's not worth the investment. The second item is a heart that regains your health. But tell me, why is your health indicated by those traditional fake Valentine-looking hearts, when the heart you buy in the store is like a real human heart? Not to mention, you can find candy, which gives you some health back too. Not as much as the heart you buy in the store, but why would you pay for it when you can basically find the same thing for free?

The Nerd: The third item is a slingshot. Now that's more what we're talkin' about. Now you'd expect her to use the slingshot to shoot rocks or something, right? But no. She THROWS the fucking thing!

The Nerd: (grabs a real-life slingshot) Yeah, check this out! Look! I'm gonna hit you with this slingshot! (pulls the band back as if to shoot a rock, but then decides to throw it. He shakes his head and raises his hands in confusion.) I suppose if the game programmers put a gun in the game, you'd be throwin' that as well. Does that make any sense? (takes a drink and thinks for a second, then shakes his head) No.

The Nerd: It doesn't matter anyway, because after you've thrown only a few slingshots, it's gone. 1000 gold pieces down the shitter. Even when you do kill anybody, they come back right away. Respawning enemies are common in games, but here, they don't even give you a second. The instant they die, they come back, almost as if nothing happened. So there's no purpose tryin' to kill anybody. All you can do is run, run, run, like a little red pussy.

The Nerd: Once you've gotten over that fact, you start wondering, "What's the goal? How do you get to the next level?" Well this is where the real havoc begins. To begin with, the stage is small enough to span two TV screens. Occasionally a staircase will appear. You go down the staircase, and you find a room. Here you can get some gold and some candy, but other than that, it's a dead end. The staircase continues to appear, but in no such way that you can predict. I'm not sure if it goes off on a timer or whatever, but basically, this staircase appears whenever it wants. It's never in the same place, but it always leads to the same room.

The Nerd: You try kicking trees, but all you get are cherries, which don't seem to do anything. You try kicking rocks and all you get are enemies or other items; no exit and no clue whatsoever. Sometimes you get a balloon, but that only takes you to a bonus stage. One piece of gold always flashes, but I don't understand why, and I'm pretty sure it's just a glitch of some kind. You try all the boundaries, thinking that somewhere there's a spot where you can walk into the next part of the game, but it doesn't happen. All the trees, even that one little spot that looks like a fence, and even the areas that seem wide open are all just the same: a fuckin' barricade that might as well be a brick wall.

The Nerd: Like, what a mystery, right? (Throws controller to the floor) Well this is when anybody would just shut off the game. But do you really wanna know how to play it? (raises his beer) One more of these and I'll tell ya. (drinks)

The Nerd: You need to get a key. Now, where could this key be hidden? Why, of course. It appears randomly inside one of the staircases, which also appear randomly. If you've been in that room once already, you'd just assume there's nothing there. So now that you have the key, whaddya do with it? You're thinking, there's gotta be a locked door or somethin' like that, right? But no. You're supposed to wait for another staircase to appear, and that's the exit. That doesn't make any sense. How would a key unlock an open staircase that doesn't even have a door in front of it? At least if they put a keyhole on it, it would be more logical, but it would also let you know that you're supposed to use the key there.

The Nerd: Oh, and I didn't even tell ya how to make this staircase appear. That's where the cherries come in. You just go around kicking random trees, getting cherries, and when you've gotten enough of them, I think twelve, the stairway appears. How would anybody guess that's what the cherries are for? There isn't even a counter to keep track of how many cherries you've collected. Come to think of it, there's nothing tellin' ya how many lives you have either. You get no information. I've tried hitting Start, Select; there's no status screen, and unless you have an instruction manual, you'll never figure this out.

The Nerd: But now we know, so let's continue with the game. But first, let's recap and make sure we got this straight, okay? All right... you wait for randomly flashing staircases to appear, in which you try to find a randomly appearing key, which randomly appears within the randomly appearing staircases, and then try to collect a random number of cherries, that randomly appear as you kick palm trees, to reveal another staircase that doesn't flash, or more or less appears to be flashing, but in a frozen state. You go in there, and then you're off to the next level.

The Nerd: You got that? Well, good. 'Cause now, all you gotta do is do that nine more times, and congratulations - you've learned the secret of playing Little Red Hood. The only thing you might be wondering now, is what on Earth does this have to do with the story of Little Red Riding Hood? Well... I'll tell ya. Absolutely FUCKIN' nothing.

The Nerd: So now that you know how to play, you just gotta go through the same routine over and over. Because of the random nature of this game, each stage could take anywhere from five minutes, to a half hour. It all depends when the stairways appear, when the key appears, and so on. It starts to wear on your mind very quickly. Every level looks alike. The colors are changed, the trees and the fruit are different, but overall the design is basically the same thing. But it goes beyond just being bland. They somehow managed to choose the most repulsive color schemes and patterns. Don't you wish there could've been a more appealing texture and hue, rather than this diarrhea-ish brown? Look at the bear! Did they purposely try to make it match the background? They really couldn't help but use the same putrid color twice?

The Nerd: The music never changes. Every level is the same frothy sound of crackling ass. Even something as simple as walking can't go without glitchy side effects. Like Metal Gear, you can't pass through narrow spots. I mean, if you can't walk through, why make it look like you can?! (He manages to do so.) Oh, never mind. I guess if ya fidget around enough, it works.

The Nerd: You can't jump when you're below a tree, as if your head is somehow hitting the trunk. Technically this would mean the character is not jumping straight up into the air, but rather sideways, as if Little Red Hood exists in a two-dimensional space, while jumping sideways into a three-dimensional tree! If you're walking above the tree, you can't walk behind the leaves. It's as if this vague space the tree occupies is a blockade. The items always appear at random, even in areas where you can't get to them, like inside a tree. Sometimes two items can appear in the same place! And sometimes, an item can just randomly disappear. Everything about this game is a broken-down mess!

The Nerd: It's just, so random... Y'know, how many times have I used the word "random" and "appear"? But that's exactly what's happening. Stuff appears, or doesn't appear, or randomly does something else. I feel like a guinea pig in an experiment where they're testing the effects of negative reinforcement. Let's see what happens if we take the key away... It's 20 years late, but whoever you are, and if you wanna know what the effect is, I'll tell ya the effect! (loudly) IT'S FUCKIN' PISSING ME OFF!

The Nerd: Nothing is consistent about this twisted piece of shit-covered anal fuck! In this stage, the key is out in the open, guarded by a panda, I guess. Are any of the animals in this game supposed to be the Big Bad Wolf? Anyway, the panda is the only enemy that kills you with one hit. Doesn't matter if you have full health; you touch the panda and you're dead! The only way you can get past it is if you get hit by something else, and then pass through. Thank God for that after-hit invincibility. Then there's this spot where ya have to jump on turtles to get across a waterfall. And this is NOT the kinda game that has good jumping control. (The Nerd tries to jump to the other side of the waterfall, but fails) Fuck... (grunts) Oh, FUCK! (growls angrily) UNNNNNGH! (yells) FUCK!

The Nerd: Level 5 is a sea level. All ya have to do is get two pearls. I guess they decided to change it up a bit. It's the easiest level in existence, and has no purpose. Too bad there weren't any other levels like this so we can breeze through this fuckwad!

The Nerd: But the most fucked-up level of all, is Level 8. Here, the key never appears. Just, never. It never appears. I played this stage for about an hour, before I eventually looked up an online walkthrough from someone who probably had more time to spare than me, and guess what? In this stage, the key doesn't appear, until you buy an invincibility potion and three slingshots!

(The Nerd is stunned.)

The Nerd: HOW WOULD ANYBODY KNOW TO DO THAT?! You go through the whole game, all of a sudden they throw you a curve ball and change the fuckin' rules! Imagine if in Super Mario Bros., if one level you can't jump on the flagpole at the end. Unless first you collect exactly 29 coins, stomp 3 Goombas, and get a fire flower.

The Nerd: You wanna know how I feel now?! I'm fuckin' ENRAGED! You don't just change the rules like that! This is SHIT SAUCE! This is DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE STANDARDS! And I'm still playing it! I don't even know why; I guess I can't resist being able to say "I beat Little Red Hood!" And you know what? I don't expect a good ending either. Why work hard on creating an elaborate ending when you've made the game so hard to figure out that there's not a chance in hell anyone would get that far?! In fact, I expect a SHITTY ending! A FUCKIN' LOATHSOME, ASS-SUCKING SHIT HEAP OF AN ENDING!

The Nerd: (mimics Grandma) "Oh! My dear Little Red Hood! Thank you for your coming!" (The Nerd drops the controller and picks up his beer) You did not disappoint.

(The Nerd drinks Rolling Rock while Paul Farah's Angry Video Game Nerd remix plays in the background.)

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Source: https://avgn.fandom.com/wiki/Transcript_of_AVGN_Episode_Little_Red_Hood

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