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In the magazine business, the Back Page is where you’d find all the weird goofs that we couldn’t fit in anywhere else. Some may call it “filler”; we prefer “a whole page to make terrible jokes that are tangentially related to the content of the mag”.
We don’t have pages on the internet, but we still love terrible jokes — so welcome to our semi-regular feature, Back Page. This one’s about cows.
Are you ready to be moo-ved? Willing to be taken to the udder limits? Well then, you’re in the right place, dear friends, because this is perhaps the pinnacle of my work here at Nintendo Life: A semi-definitive top 12 cows in video games, based on a proprietary and top-secret grading system that I will not be revealing at this time.
I was going to make it all cows in video games but then I started counting all the Harvest Moon games, and I wanted to throw myself off a cliff, so I’ve narrowed it down to just 12 (plus honourable mentions). You’re wel-cow-me.
Resident Evil 4
Did you know Resi 4 had a cow? Well, now you do. Yes, the inhabitants of Valdelobos have a lot on their plates, what with the Los Illuminados and the Plagas and Salazar going nuts, plus some boyband-looking weirdo and his useless friend stealing all their ammo and valuables, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still engage in some good old-fashioned animal husbandry.
This rather emaciated cow lives in the village with all its little cow friends and offers a brief respite from all the Things That Want You Dead. This cow could not care less if you lived or died, Leon, as long as you don’t try to kill it first. It’s just living its happy little cow life, completely unaware of the terror that awaits you, because cows don’t know what zombies are. I envy this cow and its blissful ignorance.
Stardew Valley
Why so low down, Stardew? Well, these cows are just… fine. They’re just fine. They only come in two varieties — white and brown — and they don’t have any fun milk flavours. Even Stardew’s chickens come in blue, black, and gold!
Clearly, ConcernedApe is not a cow guy, and that’s okay, you know? But considering that ConcernedApe has specifically said that he was influenced by early Harvest Moon games… where’s the cuteness? Where’s the adorably round nose? I’m sorry, Mr. Barone, but if you can put dinosaurs in a game, you can make your cows at least 20% rounder.
Divinity: Original Sin 2 – Definitive Edition
If you’ve played Baldur’s Gate 3, then I implore you to check out Larian Studios’ previous work, Divinity: Original Sin 2, an RPG with all the heart of BG3, but with less of a Dungeons & Dragons influence. In DOS2, you can summon gore blobs to help you in combat, make out with a skeleton, and invade the dreams of a lizard — oh, and you can save two humans that have been polymorphed into cows.
Now, these cows aren’t particularly cute or loveable. Their names are Geraldine and Mabel, and they’re just normal people who got turned into bovines. You’ll need to deal with exploding rats, electric frogs, potion making, and a battle with a witch to save them both, which doesn’t sound too hard, but surprise — it’s actually one of the hardest fights in the game, and you’re probably only level 5 at this point. And then, once you’re done with that, come back to the cow-people and restore them to regular human life.
The reason they’re on this list is that they’re very funny. It’s fun to listen to two cursed cow-people bicker about whether or not to talk to you, and even more fun if you come back without the ability to talk to animals, which will result in the two of them bickering just the same, but in moos. There’s even a bonus surprise that you get when you successfully return them to human form — but I won’t spoil that.
Oh, and if you drink the potion yourself? Congratulations, idiot. You are now a cow. Permanently.
Minecraft
Minecraft cows are not cute. In fact, their wall-eyed stare makes me want to avoid them as much as possible. But I can’t deny that they’re iconic, and better yet, they have flavours. There’s your basic cow, which comes in brown-and-white, wanders the fields, and waits to be turned into beef. There’s also the wonderful, unique variant of Mooshrooms; these fellas come in red and brown variants and are the sole inhabitants of the mushroom fields biome, where no other mobs can spawn.
I’ll tell you a quick story: in Nova Scotia, where I live, there is a place called Sable Island. It’s a small crescent-shaped spit of sand in the Atlantic, and nothing lives there… except about 500 feral horses. These gentle creatures roam freely, unbothered by most humans, doing whatever it is horses do. I think that’s beautiful. Mooshrooms remind me of the Sable Island horses. They know nothing of conflict or woe. They just vibe, man. I think that’s beautiful.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Most of the cows on this list are here because they are adorable. This cow — and it is one particular cow from Ocarina of Time — is here because I admire it. Because it raises deep and thoughtful questions about life. Because it teaches us the value of perseverance and determination.
This is the cow in the hole. Specifically, the cow that lives in the Secret Grotto, which can be found in Death Mountain and Hyrule Field. Every other cow in the game lives at Lon Lon Ranch, except that one cow that lives in a cage in Kakariko Village (poor thing), and this cow, the cow in the hole, the cow that lives by itself in a cave. How did the cow get there? How does the cow stay alive? Is the cow okay?
If you play Epona’s Song to the cow, she’ll actually talk to you before giving you milk, saying that the song “reminds me of the pasture”, which is surprisingly touching dialogue from a mystery cave cow. Then she says “have some of my refreshing and nutritious milk”, which makes things weird again. Still, free milk.
Side note: Did you know there’s actually a Cow% OoT speedrun? And that the current record is 28m 48s? Video games are so great.
Mario Kart series
Apologies to Moo Moo Meadows and Moo Moo Farm fans — I know you’re out there, and you’re probably my main audience for this list — but I’m going to be smooshing together the three cow versions for this one. First, there are the Moo Moo Farm cows from Mario Kart 64: rotund, blank-eyed, and very obviously a 2D billboard in a 3D world, these are close to the platonic ideal of a Good Cow, but their flatness combined with their inability to get out of the gosh darn road makes them more of a liability than a friend.
Taken from the 2D realm into the 3D at last, the Moo Moo Meadows cows from Mario Kart Wii were an incredible update on a timeless cow classic, but… well… they’re just quite cow-shaped, you know? I love a cow-shaped cow, but as you’ll find out from the rest of this list, I like a cow that’s been taken to cartoonish cuteness extremes even more. The Wii Moo Moos are good cows. They’re just not great cows.
Luckily, Mario Kart 8 split the difference, making the Moo Moo Meadows inhabitants much rounder, and much stupider. Do they still block the road? Of course, that’s the point of Moo Moo Meadows. But they seem less like they’re doing it out of spite (like the Wii ones) and more like they’re just much too dumb to live. I like it. I like these cows.
Contin-moo on to page two to dis-cow-ver my top six cows in games… 🐮