Play Takeshi no Chousenjou (Japan) Online

Takeshi no Chousenjou, known as Takeshi's Challenge outside Japan, came out for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986, developed and published by Taito. It arrived during a period when the NES library was expanding in all directions, including some truly experimental titles. This one stands out not for polish or conventional design, but for its sheer, baffling ambition to be unlike anything else on the platform.

You control a down-on-his-luck salaryman searching for a hidden treasure to escape his dreary life. The game is a side-scrolling adventure where you talk to people, get a job to earn money for a plane ticket, and eventually explore an island. Its signature mechanics are infamous: you must sing karaoke into a second controller's microphone for a real-time minute, leave the game running unattended for long stretches to advance, and even punch your own in-game wife to get her wedding ring. The pacing is glacial, the objectives are cryptic, and the difficulty feels deliberately obtuse. Playing it is an exercise in patience and a willingness to embrace utter nonsense.