Taboo The Sixth Sense

Taboo: The Sixth Sense is an unusual NES release from 1989, built less around traditional action and more around the appeal of a digital fortune-telling parlor. Developed by Rare and published by Tradewest, it presents a virtual tarot-reading experience in which you enter personal information and a question before the game lays out cards and interprets their meanings.

The central appeal is curiosity. Rather than controlling a character through stages, you consult the game for guidance on subjects such as love, money, work, or other personal concerns. The NES handles the selection and presentation of the tarot cards, then provides written interpretations based on the resulting spread. Its atmospheric presentation, mysterious subject matter, and deliberately serious tone make it a distinctive example of the broader range of software released for Nintendo’s console.

Taboo: The Sixth Sense is designed for one player, although it is easy to imagine passing the controller around while friends compare readings and debate how well the results fit. The experience is slow-paced and menu-driven, with the fun coming from choosing a question, seeing which cards appear, and deciding what to make of the advice. It is not a conventional adventure or role-playing game, and players looking for reflex-based challenges will find little here. For anyone interested in tarot, early console oddities, or the more experimental side of the NES library, however, it remains a memorable curiosity.

Today, RetroCloud offers a convenient way to revisit this distinctive release and play online on your browser. Whether approached as a genuine fortune-telling tool or simply as a fascinating snapshot of late-1980s game design, Taboo: The Sixth Sense has an identity unlike almost anything else on the NES.