-a rom hack of "Little Nemo – The Dream Master" for the NES-
review by: Dr. Boogie

It's been a while since I've brought you all a quality rom hack review. Some would say that I've never presented a quality rom hack review, and to those people, I say "eat me." For the rest of you, I've chosen a very special rom hack with which to make my triumphant return to the world of drugs and genitalia. No doubt many of you are familiar with the Capcom game, Little Nemo – The Dream Master, which followed a young man as he journeyed through the land of dreams, feeding candy to dinosaurs and eventually swatting tiny penguins with a giant wand. Well my friends, this is the story of one man's shameless debasement of the classic, which he has labeled Little Remo – The Child Abuser.

I've got to give Jomb some credit. He did a decent job readjusting the title to fit his disturbing needs. The average rom hacker would have been content to simply replace the original title graphic with some ugly generic text, as was the case with Schoolvania, but this guy did 110% and gave us a new title graphic. Of course, it was still part of his overall garbage, so that 110% is really 110% of crap. Which I guess would be ten pounds of crap in a five pound bag. I mix metaphors, but I'm sure I know what I'm talking about.

What's most striking about all this, though, isn't the visual elements. Right away, what you'll notice is that Jomb has found a way to offend your sensibilities in a way that no other rom hacker has ever done before: he's corrupted the original music. I have no idea how he managed to do this, as I assumed that all you could change was the visuals in the rom, but lo and behold, he found a way.

For reference, and because I'd like to give you, the humble reader, every opportunity to suffer along with me, here's the game's original theme song:

little-nemo.mp3

And here's the Little Remo remix:

little-remo.mp3

Sounds great, doesn't it? Luckily, you can always turn your speakers down to shield yourself from the awful noise. The awful sights, on the other hand, are all but unavoidable.

Jomb learns the hard way what any experienced rom hacker knows, namely that it is hard to express nudity when you only have 8 bits to work with. Anyway, as you can see, Little Remo has been invited to be the princess's rapist, which technically doesn't make him a rapist at all. Still, that's just a minor detail. The point is that he's off to Kiddieland to scare up some booty, in the non-buried treasure sense.

I'm sure you can imagine what he says next. That pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the game. On the left is our "hero" Remo, nude and with what appears to be a large, cylindrical hump on his back. A side effect of all that child abuse? Who knows.

What the clown doesn't tell you is that on each level, you'll need a number of keys to unlock a door at the end. Only this time around, the keys are dildos, and the locks are tessellations done by Georgia O'Keefe.

Now, regarding keys and locks, a lock needs a key of a specific size and shape to be unlocked, and in this case the "keys" don't appear to have the… girth needed to operate the "locks." In fact, one might suggest that you would need multiple keys for each of these locks, but that's the sort of activity better left to a separate rom hack.

As in the original game, Remo will have to make use of the local color to overcome the many obstacles in his path. Going off of the hack's title, the useable creatures have been replaced with odd little children. Observe:

A small green-haired child with snappy matching shorts. Just pop three candies into his mouth, and he'll be ready to service you in your quest to become someone's willing rapist. He's pretty muscular for a kid his size. Granted, Remo shrank prior to attaching himself to the boy, but still, the fact that he's able to walk around and jump well over five times his own height while being ridden by a naked lad is remarkable. Especially since he's somehow able to see with Remo… occupying his face like that.

Though only found in the first area, the second fellater is no less important than the first. Remo grabs those pigtails and drives his point home with such force that even the ground itself is moved in the process. No jumping, though. The poor girl just can't get any leverage in that position.

What can I say? It just wouldn't be a rom hack without at least one giant penis. This one you can ride, and not in the way you're thinking; you feed it some candy and then hop on it like rodeo rider. Not only can this incredibly well-drawn member jump using only its accompanying testicles as propulsion and change colors at will; it can climb walls as well. I'm sure there's a joke in there about how the giant penis is able to stick to walls, but let's keep it classy, shall we?

I've seen this next character on a few novelty greeting cards at Spencer Gifts. Despite the notable absence of legs, she is quite able to move about and jump around. She can even climb up sheer walls, too, perhaps by oozing her generous folds into the myriad crevices in the walls like some sort of flabby grappling hook and hauling herself upwards with her meaty paws. And if the creatures of Kiddieland get too friendly, she can break their necks with a single swing of her flabby breasteses. I think I saw that trick once on an episode of "Real Sex," but that was a while back, and I'm sure the persons involved have moved on by now.

Just as the boy in the green shorts wowed audiences with his ability to move about freely whilst fellating Remo, the blonde girl steps it up a notch by not only moving this way and that; she can fly for a brief period of time and fire off some sort of wavy projectile, all while engaged in the 69 position with Remo. Given all the movement associated with flight, you'd think that Remo would be a little more cautious about what he inserts himself into. Why, all it would take is a sudden blow to the girl's head, and Remo would be shouting, "Argh, bris!"

The hermit crab from the original game has been swapped out in exchange for a green-haired girl with no arms. It's interesting to see that, to dig into the sandy deposits in the level, Remo must raise his hand as if to make a pledge, and flip upside-down. Now, I know that the idea in this hack is to make everything sexual, but all I could think of upon seeing the girl with the green hair was the little girl from The Ring.

See what I mean?

In the same area as the creepy green-haired girl is an extremely pale girl out for a swim. They say you should wait at least a half hour after eating before you go swimming, but that doesn't stop Remo from hurling giant pieces of candy into her mouth until she falls asleep. After that, he hops on her and urges her forward with a stern tug on her ponytail. Nothing very sexual about that. Then again, this particular helper doesn't really do anything except swim around, possibly due to the candy-induced cramping.

I was a little confused when I saw this combination: A naked guy squatting on the head of a boy wearing a blue beret. Like a Robert Maplethorpe class photo, or something. Luckily, Jomb brings it home with another staple of rom hacks: the Nazi reference. To attack, the boy raises his arm in a seig heil-type fashion and unleashes a beige spray from his fingertip. Sure, one might conjecture that the mysterious spray is meant to be semen, but I prefer to think that it's heroin or some other illicit drug. That way, you get the trifecta of rom hackery: sex, drugs, and National Socialism.

Jomb has also gone to the effort of changing all the bad guys in the game.

Level 1 – Peniscap Forest

As was the case with the allegedly friendly creatures, the less friendly creatures have been changed with ribaldry in mind. For instance, the snail has been given a new purple shell which, at first glance, appears to be a layer of purple slime a la Ghostbusters II. However, upon closer inspection, one can see that the short wavy lines are actually errant spermatozoa. Tre chic! And look, instead of a giant bumblebee, Jomb has inserted a nude Billy Gibbons. Finally, there's a naked midget. Not since my review of Cum Fu have I encountered the naked midget, and oft overlooked avenue of titillation in a rom hack.

Furthermore, Jomb went so far as to change the level itself to add... well, not originality, but something like that, in the context of a rom hack:

For me, it was a throwback to the unforgettable Gauntlet hack, Mauntlet. Therein, we saw how some rom hackers will take the original backgrounds and not necessarily change them, but instead dumb them down for no better reason than to enhance their crummy works. In this case, erase those white spots, draw in a tiny urethra, and add a little turkey neck at the bottom, and viola: crapola. Luckily, Jomb's interest in changing the levels sputtered out after only the first level. After that, he was content to stick with just changing the names of all the levels.

Level 2 – Hairy Pussy

These next ones were a bit more troubling than the last. To begin with, you have an older naked fellow who springs out of the ground and lurches towards you. Beyond him, you'll find the flying nude woman: nothing particularly noteworthy about that, apart from the coffee can on her back, but she attacks by ripping off her own teet in a shower of blood and dropping it on you. Even worse than the airborne self-mutilator is this next character: At first, I just dismissed it as merely a hung man (pun intended), but this was no ordinary dead schmuck; it's Ernie from Sesame Street! But why kill him, I wondered? The answer would come much later on…

Level 3 – House of Toys

Despite the name, all this level only gives you is one crummy prosthetic. Or maybe it's a cigar tube, or some lipstick, I can't really tell. The NES is not a good medium for small, detailed things, especially when in the hands of one as nefarious as a rom hacker.

Level 4 – Skinny Dip

The underwater level holds a wide variety of inappropriate enemies. There's a boob... Meh, forget about the boob. Instead, take a look at the midget wearing the dunce cap and 3D glasses. Now there's something you don't see every day. There's quite a propensity for the nudes in this hack to be bearded. Not all of them, but many do sport unkempt beards. Perhaps Jomb is aiming to be a trendsetter in the world of rom hacking; to get ratty beards the same prestige as the swastika, or the male member. Well, good luck with all that. In contrast to the bearded ones is the bald man in the Fred Flintstone vest, and the mysterious creature on the far right. I'm assuming it's something sexual, but it looks like a person precariously riding a whale with gingivitis. I guess Jomb wanted us to use our imaginations for that one.

Level 5 – Remo's House

The fifth level is mostly full of repeats, but you'll also be seeing a flying pair of scissors, and most notably, a man in drag. I can't quite make out what he's doing, but he appears to be waving a spine around in one hand, and holding his other hand on his hip in a gesture of frustration, perhaps. As he sways back and forth drunkenly, he takes a few shots at Remo by hurling what appear to be tiny exclamation points. Perhaps those are meant to symbolize the angry swearing of a drunken transvestite. Ah, the wonders of life. And last but not least, there's the airborne dump-taker and his mobile droppings. They move all by themselves and without any sort of incline to boot. I mean, they say that shit rolls downhill, but not in the world of Little Remo.

Level 6 – Night Voyeur

More repetition in Level 6, but the one new creature you'll meet is the blowup doll. It patiently lies in wait on the ceiling until Remo gets close. Then, it strikes, floating down from the ceiling and launching headfirst at our intrepid hero. Now, I've heard that some blowup dolls have hard plastic heads, but that was always in reference to... you know what, never mind what I've heard about blowup dolls.

Level 7 – Sticky Feet

This level is appropriately named Sticky Feet because you're constantly menaced by giant sperm from the sky. Though I hesitate to mention it, I'm sure you're all way ahead of me on this one: the angels up in heaven have found some spare time to polish the pearly gates, if you know what I mean. The giant sperm, though devoid of any other feature, have furrowed brows. I suppose I'd be angry too if I had to fall hundreds of miles down to the earth like airplane toilet waste. Surely it is that same anger that makes the sperm want to land in the hair of a nude boy with a giant zit on his back.

Level 8 is the last one in the game, albeit broken into three sections so that it's more like there are ten levels in the game, but let's not get hung up on technicalities. Point is, you get a brief introduction:

The princess tells a meandering tale of sodomy, molestation, and most importantly, bondage. It seems her father, the king, was molested by the king of Bondage Land. Originally, it was the Nightmare King of Nightmare Land, and seeing Jomb's take on the new ruler was quite a treat:

Ah, MS Paint at its finest. But there's more where that came from; to slay the mighty Bondage King, you must make use of what else but the Magic Dildo.

Fantastic. With that, Remo is off to tackle the sweaty legions of S&M using only his wits and an enchanted personal massager. Before he can take on the Bondage King, however, he'll need to overcome his two guardians.

Okay, this one isn't any different from the original king of the penguins, but I'm sure Jomb had a good reason for overlooking him. I mean, the giant penguin releases smaller penguins from beneath a roll of fat on his feet. That must be the reason he remained in the hack: asexual reproduction. Certainly an impressive feat, but not really up to snuff with what we've all come to expect from rom hacking.

This guy, on the other hand… that's more along the line of what I'd expect from a guy like Jomb: a giant flying penis. What's more, this one spews fireballs at Remo. It would seem that the looming specter of a urinary tract infection is one of Remo's arch nemeses.

But all this is just a lead-in to the final showdown with the big man: the Bondage King.

And an epic battle ensues. Remo, with his trusty dildo, and the Bondage King, with finger laser and deadly bubbles. He also seems to have a row of gills on his chest, which explains why his mouth is constantly opening and shutting like that of a fish out of water.

After a few dozen blasts from your mystic rod, the king explodes, and then there's another cutscene with more talk of molestation, deflowering, and fellating one's father. And so, Little Remo must return to the waking world, with the promise that he can come back any time to rape whomever he chooses. For now, though, it's time to get up and enjoy life.

It's touching, really.

The hacking doesn't end there, though. Jomb has replaced the credits with personal messages, explaining that he made this hack in response to the hack, Ernie and the Muppets Take It All Off! So that explains the hereto forth unexplained hung Ernie back in Level 2. It is good to know just who's to blame for any particular rom hack, but there's an additional, and highly controversial, bit of text that Jomb has included:

Your eyes do not deceive you. Jomb decided to put into his hack something far worse than any bastardization of a Nintendo classic: a slam on Wilford Brimley. I'm sure that the anger felt by those rom hackers responsible for such Brimley modifications as Wilford Brimley Battle and Wilford Island is matched only by the righteous fury of the Man himself.

In summation, this hack has broken new ground in the world of rom hacking. Countless rom hacks are offensive to the eyes, but Little Remo - The Child Abuser is the first rom hack to be offensive to both the eyes and ears. It takes a special someone to show such contempt for the source material as to profane the aesthetic AND the audio, and Jomb has shown that he is just the boob for the job. Here's hoping he has a chance to see his vile creation lampooned before Wilford Brimley finds him and crams him full of oats.