Ten of the Weirdest Game Over Screens
Image: Nintendo

Game over screens — as a professional gamer, you understand — aren't something that I personally have a lot of firsthand experience with. Not through a lack of in-game skill, that's for sure.

However, as I'm also a highly learned and incredibly hirsute scholar of the interactive arts (also a compulsive liar), I have made it my very important business to die on purpose many, many times in order to familiarise myself with the very best and most important ways to come-a-cropper, as they say, in a video game.

Now, as we all know, there are some instant talking points within this particular topic, stuff that everyone is going to bring up immediately: your GTA 'WASTED' screen; FromSoftware's 'You Died'; and all of the very many unpleasantly hilarious ways you can be offed in the Mortal Kombat series. These are cool, but they're all a little bit obvious.

The same goes for that lovely Bond-styled death animation for GoldenEye on the N64 (something that got me very excited about life back at the tail end of 1997), and all those very well-written little comments and asides from Arkham's finest criminals when Batman falls in Rocksteady's spectacular series. All great ways to go, and all available to enjoy (or rage quit over) from the comfort of a Switch console, no less.

Today, though, instead of going with the more obvious choices, I want to pick out a bunch of the weirdest (or what I consider to be the weirdest) game over screens out there - and available to experience on Nintendo systems, if not your Switch. What are the strangest, darkest, oddest, most confusing, unusually brutal, or just-plain weird Game Overs I've seen with my poor little peepers (for research)?

Let's find out!

Disco Elysium: The Final Cut (Switch eShop)

Ten of the Weirdest Game Over Screens
Image: ZA/UM

Disco Elysium is up first here because it's sort of a cheat for this kind of list, given just how many ridiculous ways there are to get a game over screen, which is represented in-game as a newspaper clipping detailing your demise and/or downfall.

From ending a run because you got your tie stuck in a ceiling fan, or because a street urchin called you a slur, to taking too much psychic damage because of a romantic rejection, there's a lot to choose from. Honestly. Endless ways.

For me, though, the weirdest ending I've had is because I went to sleep in a dumpster. I mean, COME ON. I was tired.

Catherine: Full Body (Switch)

Ten of the Weirdest Game Over Screens
Image: Atlus

I think it's fair to say that Catherine: Full Body is a terrifying game for many reasons. It's a weird one, a real oddball puzzler that had me squirming in my seat during sequences where demons are chasing me though my perverted, sweaty dreams. Or when I've suddenly turned into a very evil-looking goat.

However, it's the game over screen — which at a glance is totally unremarkable — that has stayed with me long after wrapping the game up.

Firstly, Vincent is lying in his pants (and they have hearts on them, cringe) in a pool of blood. Nightmarish enough, but then he also proclaims that "now's not the time to be dead" as Zigeunerweisen plays in the background and he resurrects.

What an absolute torturous nightmare of a scenario for the poor guy, a vicious circle of perverted poverty. Love is over, indeed.

Disney's Tarzan (N64)

Ten of the Weirdest Game Over Screens
Image: Eurocom

Disney's Tarzan! Now what on earth is a game like this doing on a list of weird, oddball dark endings? A colourful family jaunt from the good old days that all the kids can play, as Tarzan makes his way through a lovely cartoon jungle full of friendly animaDIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! DIE TARZAN, DIE! DIEEEEEEEEEEE!

Sorry about that. But this is how it feels to die in this game, because the devs decided (and full marks by the way, it's a blinder of a surprise) to give us a selection of game over screens, the worst of which is your lifeless body being dragged away by a crocodile.

Yes, Tarzan, you are about to be dinner, and then toilet material. Dreadfully sorry, old chap.

We Love Katamari REROLL + Royal Reverie (Switch)

We Love Katamari REROLL treats us to a wonderfully weird (and shifting) game over when we fail its tasks. No time is wasted before a very angry King of the Cosmos is shooting lasers at us whilst berating everything about us and wishing he'd chosen our stupid cousins for the mission instead.

Oh, and those lasers make you shrink. So be afraid.

Chrono Trigger (SNES)

Chrono Trigger served up a real eye-opener with a game over screen that displays "...But The Future Refused To Change" upon death at the hands of Lavos.

This stark message conveys, very brutally, that the future is doomed and there's not a damn thing you can do about it now. You are dead and you have failed in the biggest way possible. Ouch!

Virtual Bart (SNES)

In the classic slice of 90s chaos, Virtual Bart, you play a level as Bart who has turned into pig form. Die as said pig and you'll be treated to a game over screen that sees Homer tucking into a box of corndogs.

He picks out one shaped as Bart, then goes ahead and eats him, quickly followed by another regular one on top. That is cold, man.

Final Fight (SNES)

Final Fight makes the cut here due to the sheer brutality of game over screens that see whatever character you happened to be pummelling everyone with tied to a pole. What's more, they are surrounded by dynamite which is about to explode.

So yeah. Punishment by being exploded. Wow.

Friday the 13th (NES)

This golden oldie was way ahead of its time in terms of cutting directly to the bleeding point (quite literally) by welcoming your demise with a game over screen that reads "You and your friends are dead."

I can tell you that, as a young child having a go at a game you probably shouldn't, that message certainly leaves an imprint.

Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! (SNES)

There are lots of weird ending screens in the Donkey Kong Country series, and some of this (I reckon) is just down to the era's grubby-looking graphics.

However! Nightmare fuel is provided most especially in Donkey Kong Country 3, as when you come a cropper, you're seen imprisoned in the sort of nasty-looking toy box you'd expect to pull out of a scary lake.

Goemon's Great Adventure (N64)

Okay, look. What if I just say, "Small pants muscle man rotating under disco lights, very small pants, sweaty...seems like it's going on in a dingy, smoky room. Please make it stop now."

Does that jog any memories? The Mystical Ninja/Goemon games have a tradition. They've got form with these weird game over screens, but they went a step further in Goemon's Great Adventure, getting the game over dancer right down to a very small pair of underpants. And he's dancing.

Why is this happening?

The Punisher

Brutal with a capital B, you can find The Punisher on the Marvel vs Capcom Arcade Fighting Classics Collection for Switch, and it's made the cut here because I have genuinely never forgotten it after having witnessed it first time in ye days of yore.

The scene in question involves you having CPR performed on your lifeless body by a desperate doctor as a timer counts down. Fail to continue and the doc is overcome with grief. Fairly dark stuff for a jaunt down the arcade, lads. Jeezo.

A big shoutout to GameOverContinue for most of the embedded vids above. Got any favourite off-kilter endings or death screens to share? Let me know!

Which of these is the most punishing game-over screen for you?