Is it a game? Is it a fortune teller? Is it worth trying? That is debatable, but one thing I know it is. It is called Taboo: The Sith Sense.
This program( I can not really call it a game) was released in 1989 on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Developed by Rare (yes, THAT Rare) and published by Tradewest, it was billed as “your personal link to the future, your window onto the unknown!” Sounds thrilling. It also has a disclaimer that it is not intended for kids under 14 and no mystical or magical claims are guaranteed or inferred. Seems like a window onto the unknown is kind of a mystical and magical claim to me.Then again, who am I to say what is magic and what is marketing?
So what is this thing about? Well, you enter in your name, birth date, gender, and question into the application, and it does a tarot reading for you. After that, it asks what state you are in and it generates lotto numbers for you. How handy! So what else does it do? Well… more than one person can get a reading, what a party game adventure! No, really, that is about it.
Controls do what they need you to do. Enter information, submit entered information, erase mistakes, it truly does it all to the amazement of onlookers. The thing just feels slow, and even though it takes about 5 or so minutes per person per question, it feels like an eternity.
The sound is basic and mostly forgettable musical sounding beeps and boops, and the sound effects are just there. The graphics are okay for what they do. You see cards, they have a little 8-bit image of the symbol on the card, and some text. When you enter the text at the start with your information, there is a spiffy scroll and quill on the screen to write it out, and now and then, there are some seizure inducing flashing squares as a background, so that is nice.
So does this really give authentic, exciting, hours of fascinating play for me and my friends? No, not really now. It is slow, it beeps and boops, and I would rather play Mario. If you are REALLY into Tarot and you need to own every Tarot based product, then have it. For the rest of us, hard pass. Just because a game is weird, doesn’t make it good.
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