How are you not more popular?! I discovered your channel by this video and have binged almost everything. You deserve a million views per video! There aren’t a lot of people making videos on retro video games or at least they stopped and you are keeping this genre alive. Thank you for your dedication! Hungry Goriya Supremacy!
You're too kind! People keep trickling in over the years and it's nice to meet more people who love video games as much as me. Thanks for checking out the rest of the channel too! I really appreciate it :)
@@hungrygoriya Thank you, for making your videos appealing in both a visual format and auditory since I mostly like to listen to TH-cam videos and then rewatch if what I heard was really appealing. With your style of reviews I find myself watching the videos again to see the gameplay and dang you got more skill than I ever could! Watching you play really hypes me up to try these old games!
@@Wizthefurbo Awww thanks! I'm all self-taught with editing and I'm always trying to learn a new trick or two with every video, so it means a lot to know that the visuals are coming across well. With respect to the gameplay, I have patience of steel and see almost every game I start through to the end. I hope you'll give a few of these a try sometime. Every game I played has some good in it and is worth experiencing.
I remember seeing this game in a retail store when I was just a kid. I thought it was the most ridiculous title and premise for a game that I had ever heard, despite the fact that sub-consciously I really wanted to at LEAST try it out. By the mid 90's, emulation for NES had made great strides and I finally got to try it. I only played it for about 30 minutes and planned to come back to it. A few years prior to this, I fell in love with the RPG and adventure genres, and couldn't get enough of them. Anyway, here we are, nearly 30 years later and this is still on my bucket list. Thanks for your insight and for reminding me there's no time like the present to go enjoy it.
I hope you have a wonderful time with it. Better late than never, as long as you're willing to think outside the box a bit in the later parts of the adventure. Good luck to you!
A pleasant surprise after playing this game as a kid was studying in Japan in HS and finding out that the pointing part is how rock-paper-scissors is played there. "Kizyr you seem to already know the rules, where did you learn them?" "Ah... ...a persimmon taught me...?"
I finished this one a few months ago! It can be obtuse at times, so I eventually just started using every command on every object in each room I entered. It was entertaining and did boast a great soundtrack :)
Yeah, there came a point when I just got stuck over and over again, probably after the first few chapters if my memory serves. The soundtrack is sooooo good. I listened to it on repeat while writing up this review and I never got tired of listening.
I believe this was another entry on the sadly long list of NES games that never had an official release here in my country, the UK. In the pre-internet days, it was not easy to find out about games that were only published in other regions, so until recently I had no knowledge whatsoever of this game's existence. More than that, I had no idea that there were any games of this type on NES, so seeing Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom played during the livestream was a revelation! What a wonderful little review this is, summing up all aspects of the game beautifully. And those post-script musings... haha, such a Hungry Goriya touch! I love it!
I'd really love to see a list comparing the two region libraries someday. By the sounds of it, there were very few things that made it to PAL regions that didn't make it here. Sorry you folks missed out on so much there! And thanks about the ending bits. It really bothered me!
@@hungrygoriya @Hungry Goriya The song in the first area gives me such a warm nostalgia feeling. This game was released on pc-88 before this version and the graphics are even more bizarre. There's supposedly a Japan-exclusive mobile re-make, but that might be lost to time.
@@radioactivechimp I've had that tune stuck in my head for days now. It's the price of listening to a soundtrack while writing/editing I suppose. I've seen some "weird" screenshots of Princess Tomato-related stuff, and I guess that's the game you're referring to then! I wondered if it was a fan game but that makes more sense.
Yet another cool retro game I would have never seen without you streaming it! 😁 Those rock paper scissors parts looked quite challenging but I loved the music that played during them, haha.
If it had been a longer loop of music, it would've made it into this review too! Thanks again as always for stopping by. It's always nice to see you in the comments here!
I can’t forget the very brief review I saw of this in Nintendo Power back in the day lol. I rented it, while sick as a kid, and had a great time. Thanks hungry Goriya!
Thanks very much! There are lots of songs from this soundtrack that I love, but Minister Pumpkin's is phenomenal. It's the one that gets me snapping my fingers the most, that's for sure!
I see u have some earth bound vids from like 5+ years ago, you should make one of these videos about it. Ik that games expensive, I’ve never seen it’s gameplay either
The soundtrack is so great! There's one song in particular that sounds like it belongs in Faxanadu that gets me all pumped up. I think it's the Level 8 music, according to a playlist I listen to often.
I played this game from start to finish maybe a year or so ago, only having remembered it's existence vaguely from my childhood. I absolutely loved everything about it! The closest thing to a complaint would be the rock paper scissor battles, but I wouldn't even go that far. The storyline, music and graphics were all excellent and immersive. Percy is just adorable. The exploring and puzzles were wonderful. Btw, after completing this I read about it online to find out it was a port from the original, released for the MSX. Interesting!
The rock paper scissors battles are pretty weird, for sure. It's great that you got a lot out of the game as a whole. I wish some of the later puzzle solutions weren't so abstract sometimes, but on the whole, I really liked the adventure here. I did hear that there was something Princess Tomato-related on the MSX, but I didn't realize it was an original and that this was a port. Interesting!
One of my favorite games as a kid! Not only because it's a fun game, but also because it was the only game I could get my dad interested in. I never considered your point about some vegetables being used as building material, furniture, etc. (now that I think about it, you can even buy different kinds of fruit/vegetable juice also)... I guess I always figured that only some vegetables in this universe are actual sentient beings. Like, pretty early in the game there is a spinach patch that you can pick spinach from, and it's just regular old spinach, not... spinach people.
So glad to see a review of this. This game holds some special kid memories and so few have even heard of it. Rented it from the local Video store based solely on that claymation cover and was far from disappointed. That music and the art style has stuck with me for like 30+ years. Also I can never forget the ridiculous puzzle of finding a donut in the club bathroom then giving it away for a puzzle... only adventure game logic. :)
Awww I'm glad you found the video then! The music's so good. I still listen to the soundtrack regularly and the music's always popping in and out of my head. Some of the puzzles were frustrating towards the end of the game as I mentioned, but their quirkiness is definitely something I won't forget any time soon. Thanks for sharing!
glad to see I shouldnt feel stupid for ending up trying every command everywhere whenever I got stuck :D Always had a real soft spot for first person pixel adventures like these. And yes the music is in fact AMAZING
Haha well, if you're stupid then we both are I guess! Just kidding of course. I genuinely think that this game's really got a nonsense streak in it towards late game when the solutions make absolutely no sense more and more often. And this soundtrack is on in my house quite regularly. There's some Faxanadu-esque sounds in it that make me feel like the music could be an extension of that game and that's a win in my book!
You really hit the nail on the head with "Logic Rarely Prevails.." . I really wanted to love this game with its adorable nature and amazing soundtrack, which just caresses your ears with warm feelings of childhood.. but I ended up loathing the experience of mindlessly trying everything possible until something inexplicably works. Great call with how it starts with so much cute promise, yet ends up in a ditch of frustration. Thank you for this.. I now feel validated in wanting to sucker punch Percy in the gut.
Yeah! All my best-intended ideas fell short and it was frustration after frustration towards the end of the game. I remember seeing the menu in the mansion with all of the doors and hallways to go down and just breathing a sigh of "are you serious" with how many little places I had to check and probably re-check later on to get through that section. And I will consume extra persimmons to spite Percy when they're back in season here soon. I can't wait!
They called it "moon logic" in the old Sierra PC point and click adventure games. Some of the solutions to puzzles were so outlandish that players were expected to either try everything, no matter how nonsensical, or just buy a guide book.
@@mr.pavone9719 I've played some of those Sierra games and have definitely experienced that. I can recall a few games where they even put jokes about buying guide books into their later games. I think they did something like that in Space Quest. Very cocky!
@@hungrygoriya Dude, YEP. Seeing places with all those doors, rooms, hallways etc to check, just fills you with sorrow haha Enjoy that juicy gnashing of Percy.
@@mr.pavone9719 I've had plenty of experience of what you speak, and that can also be frustrating.. but I found this game even worse, because at least with moon logic, you just have to try different things, as strange as they might seem. With this game, it's that you have to try the same things over and over, just at different times after some trigger has been tripped off, even when you have no idea what that trigger was. Just so unfun.
This was one of my favorite rentals from childhood. I never progressed past chapter 2 or 3 but it was my first experience with this style of game. The humorous tone was what drew me to it but the concept of interacting with a game through more than just the standard attack/dodge pattern that was common at the time. Looking back it probably helped spark my love toward RPGs and story based games in general.
I can see just why this game would spark a love for adventure games. I fell in love with King's Quest V on NES when I was younger for all the same reasons you mentioned here. Princess Tomato's soundtrack plays in my head a lot these days. It's so good!
I played this a long time ago, what most stuck with me is its really weird tone, it's literally like dreaming. The game has a very fancy-free style where it seems to actually forget what it was doing a few minutes ago, and the Farmies are like something straight out of an anxiety dream.
The tone is all over the place! Things felt so desperate at times but you always had that silly friend along making you laugh when everything felt bleak. Definitely a unique experience! And yeah, the Farmies were definitely a terrifying idea. The whole idea of someone busting in and overthrowing the kingdom and bringing in a force like the Farmies to destroy anyone who doesn't comply... pretty serious overtones!
i discovered this game a long time ago through a very early walkthrough posted here. i was intrigued, seemed kind of scary and forboding. the music is a true gem! i personally love the last area theme in pumpkins place.
Princess Tomato's got some real atmosphere and the music builds up most of that. There's one song in particular that sounds like it belongs in Faxanadu, and I think that's the one you mean... just a great soundtrack all around!
I would love to see a remake for this! And I love persimmons. After how mean Percy was to me, I will enjoy eating them when they're back in season here, haha
I really wish we had more games like this, and the Macventure trilogy that got ported to the NES. That blend of point-and-click mixed with text adventure works REALLY well
I remember seeing screenshots of this game, but never got a chance to play it, such a unique game for the NES! The image of Percy has been forever burned into my brain.
His smug little grin! I remember when I first saw someone streaming this and they got to the part with his big head, I immediately recognized it too. I can't remember where I first saw it though!
The box art is what drew me in when I saw it at the rental store. Princess Tomato is one of my favorite NES games especially because of the music and I enjoyed NES point and click adventures. TubaHero37 has tuba covers of several tunes form the game. I'm sure I have the game, but didn't see it when I was recently looking through boxes in the garage. It must be in another box. The quest begins!
I'll have to check out that music cover channel. I love the tunes so much and I haven't been down the rabbit hole of fan covers yet. That sounds like a great place to start! I hope you can find your game! It must be around somewhere!
oh my goodness lol thanks once again... I think your channel might just become my soundtrack for a few days. I rented this one back in the day and loved it, played til I finished it. It's also very high on my NES collecting wish-list, probably #2. I've got 530 titles and still no Princess Tomato! --btw, #1 is Bandit Kings of Ancient China, if you've never played that I HIGHLY recommend it!!
I hope you can find a copy of this! I bit the bullet on an eBay copy about three or four years ago and I'm glad I did. Also, how is it that today I've learned of an NES game I've never even heard of before? I'm shocked that I'm still finding out about new games this deep into collecting. Thank you for that little nugget of knowledge! I'll check into it!
Did you finish it? I enjoyed it overall but there were a few sections that frustrated me when I had a hard time figuring out exactly what to do. Most of the time I'd missed speaking to someone twice.
@@hungrygoriya I didn't finish it. Maybe that is why I remember liking it? HA!. This was a rental that I spent some time with over the weekend, then never played again, thinking, that wasn't that bad. But, maybe I just didn't get far enough to be annoyed.
A couple friends and I did a TH-cam commentary on this on a good decade back. I thought it was a great pick, with my rose-colored glasses of my youth when I had finished it once before. It wasn't too far in that we started getting frustrated with moon logic befitting a Sierra game. As you say, it starts out pretty well, but it wasn't long before Percy became our adversary as much as the puzzles. Point and click adventures is a genre that has only improved over time. Most developers today have taken a few notes from the outstanding LucasArts adventures and puzzle design is leaps and bounds better than most of the titles you'd find in the 80's and 90's.
The unfairness and cryptic nature of this one is concealed pretty well until you have enough time into it to feel like you need to see it through! I've played quite a few point and clicks back in the day and even nowadays and I don't mind a little bit of trouble, but this game seemed way more frustrating than most older stuff I've enjoyed to date.
My brother still has his copy of this. We play this, Bad Dudes and Pinbot whenever we see each other. Nothing quite like retro games for this old dude. If you're into this kind of game you ought to try ShadowGate,Deja Vu and The Uninvited.
It's great to hear that those games bring you two together! Very nice! I've played Shadowgate, but not Deja Vu or Uninvited yet. One of these days I'd like to try the others.
I really feel like a guide would help out a lot in a couple of spots. I made it through without one, but I got stuck a lot too. Good luck with it if you try it out!
It's definitely worth playing if you go in with appropriate expectations about the difficulty. I thought it'd be a bit more approachable but I still enjoyed it overall.
1:27-1:44 Mind if I share this with the Ludomusicology Discord? I'm curious if other people are familiar with this game. I remember seeing you play it on Twitch once.
Awww! I feel that way about King's Quest V's soundtrack on NES as well. It's extremely nostalgic for me to sit by the weeping willow or near a desert oasis and listen to the music at those two parts.
I was wondering if there were boss battles. I didn’t expect rock, paper, scissors though; I would have thought you’d be armed with a vegetable peeler and a cutting board shield🤭
The enemies were usually the ones with unspeakable weapons of vegetable torture. The Farmies are farmers which is pretty sinister in this world. Then there is Saladtron, see at 2:49, the unspeakable horror with utensils for extremities and the bits of corpse from their fallen foes INSIDE THEIR HOLLOW HEAD!
I fell in love with this game as a boy. My parents got it on Famicom actually intended for my sister but she had no interest in it and I played it so much. As you've noted, the music was a huge appeal to me. That first stage music is unforgettable to me and sounds so happy but also sad to me. It's "bittersweet". This contrast of what seems like a very happy quality with something that seems so very sad and sentimental always struck me back then. I compare it to the cutscene music of Willow on the NES which is also forever stuck in my head. Also at least a boy, I found it so dark in a way despite its cute vegetable and fruit characters. It was actually scarier and darker to me in a way than even similar games like Shadowgate or Deja Vu which seemed to inherently lend themselves to a darker tone. I played the game originally in Japanese and the game used only Hiragana and Katakana making it one of the few adventure Famicom games I could read in primary school without asking my parents to translate any Kanji. It is one of those games forever etched in my mind as a monumental part of my childhood.
I enjoyed reading about your thoughts here, especially about the music. Some music just sticks to your soul and this game definitely has a soundtrack I've listened to a lot since I finished the game. Willow on NES also has some fantastic music. It's funny how serious the actual plot of this game is and how they put such a shiny and cute wrap over all of it. I agree: it's very dark once you look past all the shine of the graphics and lighthearted humour. I'm glad this game had such a profound impact on you.
@@hungrygoriya I tried to upload my rendition of the song on TH-cam so to see if it'll accept at least TH-cam links. I am usually so reluctant to share my amateur efforts at music with people but you sold me with your appreciation of the game. th-cam.com/video/FSI5S-7J_hs/w-d-xo.html
@@hungrygoriya One of the things I was thinking is that this is still a "textual" adventure game and the type I think is sadly working towards extinction. I consider it more textual than visual because even though it's accompanied by illustrations of each scene and doesn't have us literally typing in commands, the bulk of the focus of the player is text-based. We don't have to point our mouse cursor and click on something visually specific to take an action on a specific visual representation of an object in the scene. Instead we choose textual commands and choose new commands opening up based on the text as our primary source of observation. So there's a "reading-heavy and visually-lite" aspect to the gameplay which I miss sometimes as games have evolved over the future to something more "visually-heavy and reading-lite".
Apparently that Acchi Muite Hoi (Look Over There) game is often combined with Rock-Paper-Scissors in Japan. It shows up in Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, but without instructions so I was also confused.
I'm glad it wasn't just me! It makes a little more sense now that I'm through the game but going into it, I was extremely confused! I still think a lot of the patterns here are random too. You just have to guess and hope you learn a pattern before you game over.
I forgot all about this game. I loved it when I was a kid, and I didn't even realize how bizarre and rarely played it was when I played it. I recently got it again (emulator). I wish I still ad my original cart.
It's a pretty strange little adventure. I hope you enjoy your time with it again! Maybe you'll get your hands on a cartridge again someday too. I spent a long while hoping I'd find a copy and eventually did.
Oh man, this game. I think it was the first adventure game I ever played, must've been 5 or so. The concept of the 3D maze section was far beyond my grasp at the time. The ominous music struck me hard as well. It wasn't until a few years later that I even attempted to beat it, since the first maze was walling me off. I moved on to uhh... easier, less scary games... like Shadowgate and Uninvited, hah. I loved that you displayed the old lady as one of the "What do I even do?" puzzles. It's strange that this game has not one, but TWO old ladies who love to the Hit command. Random anecdote: The first time I ever said the word "hell" was because of Percy. I remember using the Percy command before even meeting him. The game displayed "Who is Percy?" and me, being a child who loved PG-13/R rated films, said "Yeah, who the hell is Percy?" My mom heard me and brought me to my grandparents, who lived a few houses down, to have me repeat myself to them. I could not tell if I was in trouble or if they found it funny. Thanks Percy.
i love the art- even the wonky bits, but i never have made it to the end... maybe its time i give it another try. thanks for reminding me of this weird little game :)
I remember seeing a Game Center CX episode on this game, the lack of logic on how to progress made me glad to experience the game through Arino instead, lol.
It's always neat when classic point-and-clicks made their way to the NES. Come to think of it, I feel like they more or less skipped the 16-bit consoles, huh? I remember Myst on PSone being a pretty big deal. Anyway, I remember seeing screens of this in Nintendo Power as a little one, it always looked so unusual and charming, and even today, I feel like it really stands out. Also, for that last part, my rationale is that both sentient and non-sentient vegetables (i.e. like veggies in our world) exist in this universe, sort of as if they are less "materials" that existence has to work with, so living creatures are made from the same stuff as plants. Yes, I have also overthought this xD
I hadn't really thought about this genre skipping the next generation. You're so right! I wonder why... there was clearly a lot of success found in these kinds of games so it's surprising to me that they didn't continue on their legacy. And that's an interesting point! I guess it's no different than us humans as animals raising animals for food and infrastructure, right? ... but for some reason, a grape drinking grape juice feels weird...
I remember seeing the article for this in Nintendo Power back when it came out, and wasn't particularly enthused about it. Later videos made me wonder if I hadn't made a mistake, so it's interesting to know that the game does use so-called Moon Logic, which I am not a fan of. Thank you! This was a great video!
Thank you for watching, as always! It felt like a lot of solutions were achieved in a very roundabout way. Nothing felt direct and everything was hard-earned. It was very frustrating at times and all my best thoughts were usually met with some snarky remark from the game. There are definitely better games in this style to enjoy.
If I were younger and had more time on my hands I might have given this one a go, but unfortunately I don't even seem to have the time for playing through some of my favs such as Faxanadu, Willow, or Battle of Olympus again.
Lovely! This was the "meme game" of the first streamer I hang with in Twitch 5 years ago, memories... Did you know Percy loosing stuff is actually the game's way of getting rid of items that no longer have any use? 🍅
This was my favorite game as a kid because it was the only NES game I was skilled enough to play. So I'd just play it over and over. This review is very accurate, flags to continue in the game sadly become more and more obtuse as the game progresses. I theorize the existence of so many commands is a symptom of this being a remake of a game that used to have a text parser on the PC.
I'm glad it wasn't just me that found the difficulty get worse towards the end. I'm honestly not sure about this game's history, but it wouldn't surprise me if it started out on PCs. So many point and clicks do!
Back in the day, I traded a lot of games, and got a copy of Dragon Warrior 4, before my time, and as old RPG console games go it was one of the heavy hitters... Point was, I did a ton of housework, and traded in my copy of Bigindine, and stayed on that game for hours. But! While I was being a selfish little brother, my older sister started playing Nintendo ROMs for the first time, it was 98, but for the longest time, and it still lasts into her current years, she fell in love with this game, and I never played it. Great video, but this one is her's.
Thanks very much for your kindness. I'm glad your sister had a blast with this game! I think I would've liked it a lot as a kid. I played a ton of King's Quest V on NES because it was one of the only games I had back then and I fell in love with it too!
@@hungrygoriya Yes the ending was actually so stupid. Princess Tomato has a twin sister named Lisa who is human for no reason when everyone else is some kinda food lol
This is an all-time favorite of mine; I rented it many years ago, largely because the box art was so inscrutable that I HAD to see what this even was. The world just flooded into me; I found myself constantly thinking about it, and dreaming about what was beyond its boundaries, like the woods behind Mr. Corn's shack. Though it was well over a decade before I found a copy of my own, finding it was a very long obsession for me. But MAN, Chapter 7 was infuriating; I've played through this game many times, and I'm still not 100% sure what the exact solution is. For me, the game's world more than made up for its frustrations, but they certainly were frequent. I'm not 100% sure, because I haven't played it (don't think it's been translated yet), but the original on the PC-88 had some funky artwork, and I think part of that was brought over here, which might explain the inconsistent aesthetic.
I wondered those things a lot as well. It's such an immersive little world (the music really made it extra special for me!) and I was sad that there wasn't more to see, especially in the first few chapters. I'd like to see what the PC-88 version's all about. I've seen some screenshots from it but didn't realize that it was an actual release. I thought it was a fan game!
@@hungrygoriya The music truly was wonderful; it's a shame Tomotsue Maeno didn't get to work on much else of note, other than Neutopia. The PC-88 version, from what I can remember, was also a first-person Adventure, but with a text parser; I remember reading about it at Hardcore Gaming 101 years ago, but my memory's failing me on the finer details.
This is cool, mainly because this was one of 'very' few Japanese adventure games we got back in the day. Unfortunately, as with most of them, the moon logic is pretty prominent. Still, from what I could glean, in Japan it is quite well regarded. If you want a game in this style that's somewhat less cryptic, I'd recommend Ripple Island by Sunsoft or maybe Idol Hakkenden by Natsume (the latter being more of a VN). There were also lots of murder mystery games on the system, inspired by Portopia, but this genre is not very popular in the West; at least not the JP games. Famicom Detective Club games got remade for Switch, I'd recommend those perhaps.
This sums up why I stopped playing all Zelda games. The wind waker castles were so stupid that you almost had to get Nintendo Power Magazine. You literally had to look at every article in every single room and try all your tools on it. Like am I supposed to boomerang that bat up there or throw harpoon at that rock, or blow a bubble on that cactus? It just got stupid so I never played another Zelda since. I'm sure I missed out on a lot of amazing hours of gaming but I just couldn't do it. I even tried to go back in twice. It came out when I was about 23, then I tried again around 30 and one more time when my daughter was old enough, about 40, a couple years ago.
You know, I had an experience like this recently with a Zelda game, and it was Oracle of Ages for the Game Boy Colour. It made me want to scream at times, between moving through different time periods, getting stuck behind obstacles that don't exist in other ages, and some of the puzzles... just... ugh. I have a very short list of favourite Zelda games and I'll tell you: Wind Waker isn't one of them. I started it twice and never finished!
@@hungrygoriya wow, yeah very similar experiences then. the Super Nintendo one was my all time fave. Then maybe Ocarina, I just didn't like the graphics all that much. Neat to be in 3D finally but it was hazy. Fun though.
I first played this when I was in highschool so that was 20 years ago (wow) and I didn't understand it at all which is a shame because I love Shadowgate and I figured I'd love this too but it was not the case. I remember I would tell people to play it as a troll/insult. It's wild whenever this game comes up in anyway.
High school was just about that long ago for me as well. Wow indeed! It's got a pretty confusing way of progressing sometimes, so I can understand why you got stuck a bunch. I got stuck too, mostly for the reasons I mentioned, but especially the checking and checking again really gets out of hand towards the end of the game. Do you think you'll play it again sometime and try to get through it?
@@hungrygoriya I don't know, I see a lot of your reviews and put them in my "someday" pile but going back to the Salad Kingdom? I won't say it's impossible but it's very unlikely
@@AL_Talks Fair enough! Sometimes I watch a review and I'm fired up about finally taking something down I never finished so I always wonder if folks feel the same. But there are so many good games to play. Might as well enjoy those instead!
I remember renting this game when I was somewhere around 10 to 12 years old and getting stuck so many times, not knowing what to do to progress. I called the Nintendo help line at least 10 times and my parents were not happy about it when they got the bill lol.
There's one tune in this soundtrack that reminded me a lot of Earthbound as well. The humour's very similar too. Definitely see where you're coming from!
Hopefully your metaphorical beard isn't too strung out from Percy's berating comments! This art is so classic, and j think I could get invested into the dramatic lives of organic produce!
Saw this cartridge at a used game store in my town and the artwork puzzled me. They wanted $500 for it though so I had to look the game up to figure out why
I'm glad I'm not the only one that finds this game really punishing and quite frustrating leaving the game after completing the first section of the game
Interesting game. you've reviewed one I have zero knowledge of, apart from your review of course heh. .. and yet, those characters have a certain familiarity to them... hmm, Great Review. Edit: OH! The Box Cover!! I saw it at rental places all the time and wondered about it! hahaha
I look up one obscure nes game some caveman amicon or something and on my feed this pops up Good work, don’t know a lot of nes games tbh that ain’t on NSO so gonna be fun to check out some stuff I never would’ve seen before
How are you not more popular?! I discovered your channel by this video and have binged almost everything. You deserve a million views per video! There aren’t a lot of people making videos on retro video games or at least they stopped and you are keeping this genre alive. Thank you for your dedication! Hungry Goriya Supremacy!
You're too kind! People keep trickling in over the years and it's nice to meet more people who love video games as much as me. Thanks for checking out the rest of the channel too! I really appreciate it :)
@@hungrygoriya Thank you, for making your videos appealing in both a visual format and auditory since I mostly like to listen to TH-cam videos and then rewatch if what I heard was really appealing. With your style of reviews I find myself watching the videos again to see the gameplay and dang you got more skill than I ever could! Watching you play really hypes me up to try these old games!
@@Wizthefurbo Awww thanks! I'm all self-taught with editing and I'm always trying to learn a new trick or two with every video, so it means a lot to know that the visuals are coming across well.
With respect to the gameplay, I have patience of steel and see almost every game I start through to the end. I hope you'll give a few of these a try sometime. Every game I played has some good in it and is worth experiencing.
I've been straight binging your videos. They are super fun to watch. Thank you
"All of his exclamation marks on his comments have a special place in hell" is one of the funniest grammar pet peeves I've heard in a while!
When you have someone yelling at you and they really emphasize it with their punctuation, it cuts deep!
Back of the box: 'You're a cucumber...' "Yeah, tell me something I DON'T know!"
I remember seeing this game in a retail store when I was just a kid. I thought it was the most ridiculous title and premise for a game that I had ever heard, despite the fact that sub-consciously I really wanted to at LEAST try it out. By the mid 90's, emulation for NES had made great strides and I finally got to try it. I only played it for about 30 minutes and planned to come back to it. A few years prior to this, I fell in love with the RPG and adventure genres, and couldn't get enough of them. Anyway, here we are, nearly 30 years later and this is still on my bucket list. Thanks for your insight and for reminding me there's no time like the present to go enjoy it.
I hope you have a wonderful time with it. Better late than never, as long as you're willing to think outside the box a bit in the later parts of the adventure. Good luck to you!
A pleasant surprise after playing this game as a kid was studying in Japan in HS and finding out that the pointing part is how rock-paper-scissors is played there.
"Kizyr you seem to already know the rules, where did you learn them?"
"Ah... ...a persimmon taught me...?"
I bet that was a great icebreaker!
Thanks! I greatly appreciate your diving into games from my childhood, both well-known and (like this one) less well-known. Keep up the good work!
Wow! Thanks so much for the tip and for your kind words. I really appreciate it!
I finished this one a few months ago! It can be obtuse at times, so I eventually just started using every command on every object in each room I entered.
It was entertaining and did boast a great soundtrack :)
Yeah, there came a point when I just got stuck over and over again, probably after the first few chapters if my memory serves. The soundtrack is sooooo good. I listened to it on repeat while writing up this review and I never got tired of listening.
I've played that game 30 years ago and i still remember the music clearly. Amazing channel, congrats! :)
As salad has been my favorite food from early in my childhood, this game's title always intrigued me.
Food-based interests are always good ones.
Seriously, this channel deserves 100k more subscribers. Never stop! I love this show
Awww thank you! That's really kind!
I believe this was another entry on the sadly long list of NES games that never had an official release here in my country, the UK. In the pre-internet days, it was not easy to find out about games that were only published in other regions, so until recently I had no knowledge whatsoever of this game's existence. More than that, I had no idea that there were any games of this type on NES, so seeing Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom played during the livestream was a revelation!
What a wonderful little review this is, summing up all aspects of the game beautifully. And those post-script musings... haha, such a Hungry Goriya touch! I love it!
I'd really love to see a list comparing the two region libraries someday. By the sounds of it, there were very few things that made it to PAL regions that didn't make it here. Sorry you folks missed out on so much there!
And thanks about the ending bits. It really bothered me!
you my favorite retro reviewer! so good, as always
Awww thank you!
Thanks for having an amazing review without any spoilers. Great chanel to find out everything about the game without ruining it.
Hey thanks! There are a few reviews where I mention spoilers, but it's usually noted in the description/in the video before I say anything!
Ill never forget taking 5 different city busses to get a copy of this when i was 9 or 10
What a fun memory! I hope you didn't get lost on the way there and needed to take extra buses!
Naw i was pretty seasoned by then. Me n my little brother were fiends for point n click games!
This game has so much charm and weirdness. I have a copy for the famicom and it's bright cucumber green
It's very funny. If nothing else, I loved the music and it made me laugh a lot.
@@hungrygoriya @Hungry Goriya The song in the first area gives me such a warm nostalgia feeling. This game was released on pc-88 before this version and the graphics are even more bizarre. There's supposedly a Japan-exclusive mobile re-make, but that might be lost to time.
@@radioactivechimp I've had that tune stuck in my head for days now. It's the price of listening to a soundtrack while writing/editing I suppose.
I've seen some "weird" screenshots of Princess Tomato-related stuff, and I guess that's the game you're referring to then! I wondered if it was a fan game but that makes more sense.
Yet another cool retro game I would have never seen without you streaming it! 😁
Those rock paper scissors parts looked quite challenging but I loved the music that played during them, haha.
If it had been a longer loop of music, it would've made it into this review too! Thanks again as always for stopping by. It's always nice to see you in the comments here!
I can’t forget the very brief review I saw of this in Nintendo Power back in the day lol. I rented it, while sick as a kid, and had a great time.
Thanks hungry Goriya!
I'm glad you have such fond memories with it. And you're very welcome!
Oh man this is the game with the nightmare inducing image of an orange either smiling or winking popping our from a shower door
Hahaha yeah, she makes a fuss about you peeping at her.
I fell in love with the soundtrack to this game from watching your and Ren’s streams of it! Minister Pumpkin’s theme is my favorite 😄 Great review 😃
Thanks very much! There are lots of songs from this soundtrack that I love, but Minister Pumpkin's is phenomenal. It's the one that gets me snapping my fingers the most, that's for sure!
I love seeing what these obscure and expensive old video games are all about. This game’s hilarious , good vid.
I see u have some earth bound vids from like 5+ years ago, you should make one of these videos about it. Ik that games expensive, I’ve never seen it’s gameplay either
@@WSFM_Rex It's been a long while since I played Earthbound but I will think on this. I might be able to get something together.
My favourite NES game. Best music of all the system, in my opinion
The soundtrack is so great! There's one song in particular that sounds like it belongs in Faxanadu that gets me all pumped up. I think it's the Level 8 music, according to a playlist I listen to often.
I played this game from start to finish maybe a year or so ago, only having remembered it's existence vaguely from my childhood. I absolutely loved everything about it! The closest thing to a complaint would be the rock paper scissor battles, but I wouldn't even go that far. The storyline, music and graphics were all excellent and immersive. Percy is just adorable. The exploring and puzzles were wonderful.
Btw, after completing this I read about it online to find out it was a port from the original, released for the MSX. Interesting!
The rock paper scissors battles are pretty weird, for sure. It's great that you got a lot out of the game as a whole. I wish some of the later puzzle solutions weren't so abstract sometimes, but on the whole, I really liked the adventure here.
I did hear that there was something Princess Tomato-related on the MSX, but I didn't realize it was an original and that this was a port. Interesting!
Just discovered your channel. Gladly subbed as I really like your in depth review. Great job on this review.
Awww thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying the channel here.
Thanks!
Wow thank you so much! That's very generous :)
@@hungrygoriya It's a secret to everyone.
One of my favorite games as a kid! Not only because it's a fun game, but also because it was the only game I could get my dad interested in. I never considered your point about some vegetables being used as building material, furniture, etc. (now that I think about it, you can even buy different kinds of fruit/vegetable juice also)... I guess I always figured that only some vegetables in this universe are actual sentient beings. Like, pretty early in the game there is a spinach patch that you can pick spinach from, and it's just regular old spinach, not... spinach people.
At least you don't think it's spinach people... but... is it?
Thanks for your insights though. It still bugs me!
This is like something you’d describe from a dream. “I was playing some weird retro game.. you’re a tomato knight and buildings are eggplants..”.
It would be closer to a nightmare in my opinion, haha
This brings back so many memories. I can’t even
It's a great little game. I wish I'd played it when I was younger.
So glad to see a review of this. This game holds some special kid memories and so few have even heard of it. Rented it from the local Video store based solely on that claymation cover and was far from disappointed. That music and the art style has stuck with me for like 30+ years. Also I can never forget the ridiculous puzzle of finding a donut in the club bathroom then giving it away for a puzzle... only adventure game logic. :)
Awww I'm glad you found the video then! The music's so good. I still listen to the soundtrack regularly and the music's always popping in and out of my head. Some of the puzzles were frustrating towards the end of the game as I mentioned, but their quirkiness is definitely something I won't forget any time soon. Thanks for sharing!
Always great content, thanks!
Thank you for stopping by!
Your channel is my nighty night soundtrack.
Oh good! That's nice to know!
It's amazing this game exists at all, given how rarely Japanese-style adventure games got localized in the West.
Totally! It's a pretty rare experience on NES.
Great video! I've ben hoping you'd do a video on this one!
Happy to oblige! It's been on my mind a lot since I finished it and I finally got some words down about it. Thanks for checking it out!
glad to see I shouldnt feel stupid for ending up trying every command everywhere whenever I got stuck :D
Always had a real soft spot for first person pixel adventures like these. And yes the music is in fact AMAZING
Haha well, if you're stupid then we both are I guess! Just kidding of course. I genuinely think that this game's really got a nonsense streak in it towards late game when the solutions make absolutely no sense more and more often.
And this soundtrack is on in my house quite regularly. There's some Faxanadu-esque sounds in it that make me feel like the music could be an extension of that game and that's a win in my book!
You really hit the nail on the head with "Logic Rarely Prevails.." . I really wanted to love this game with its adorable nature and amazing soundtrack, which just caresses your ears with warm feelings of childhood.. but I ended up loathing the experience of mindlessly trying everything possible until something inexplicably works. Great call with how it starts with so much cute promise, yet ends up in a ditch of frustration. Thank you for this.. I now feel validated in wanting to sucker punch Percy in the gut.
Yeah! All my best-intended ideas fell short and it was frustration after frustration towards the end of the game. I remember seeing the menu in the mansion with all of the doors and hallways to go down and just breathing a sigh of "are you serious" with how many little places I had to check and probably re-check later on to get through that section.
And I will consume extra persimmons to spite Percy when they're back in season here soon. I can't wait!
They called it "moon logic" in the old Sierra PC point and click adventure games. Some of the solutions to puzzles were so outlandish that players were expected to either try everything, no matter how nonsensical, or just buy a guide book.
@@mr.pavone9719 I've played some of those Sierra games and have definitely experienced that. I can recall a few games where they even put jokes about buying guide books into their later games. I think they did something like that in Space Quest. Very cocky!
@@hungrygoriya Dude, YEP. Seeing places with all those doors, rooms, hallways etc to check, just fills you with sorrow haha Enjoy that juicy gnashing of Percy.
@@mr.pavone9719 I've had plenty of experience of what you speak, and that can also be frustrating.. but I found this game even worse, because at least with moon logic, you just have to try different things, as strange as they might seem. With this game, it's that you have to try the same things over and over, just at different times after some trigger has been tripped off, even when you have no idea what that trigger was. Just so unfun.
This was one of my favorite rentals from childhood. I never progressed past chapter 2 or 3 but it was my first experience with this style of game. The humorous tone was what drew me to it but the concept of interacting with a game through more than just the standard attack/dodge pattern that was common at the time. Looking back it probably helped spark my love toward RPGs and story based games in general.
I can see just why this game would spark a love for adventure games. I fell in love with King's Quest V on NES when I was younger for all the same reasons you mentioned here. Princess Tomato's soundtrack plays in my head a lot these days. It's so good!
I played this a long time ago, what most stuck with me is its really weird tone, it's literally like dreaming. The game has a very fancy-free style where it seems to actually forget what it was doing a few minutes ago, and the Farmies are like something straight out of an anxiety dream.
The tone is all over the place! Things felt so desperate at times but you always had that silly friend along making you laugh when everything felt bleak. Definitely a unique experience!
And yeah, the Farmies were definitely a terrifying idea. The whole idea of someone busting in and overthrowing the kingdom and bringing in a force like the Farmies to destroy anyone who doesn't comply... pretty serious overtones!
i discovered this game a long time ago through a very early walkthrough posted here. i was intrigued, seemed kind of scary and forboding. the music is a true gem! i personally love the last area theme in pumpkins place.
Princess Tomato's got some real atmosphere and the music builds up most of that. There's one song in particular that sounds like it belongs in Faxanadu, and I think that's the one you mean... just a great soundtrack all around!
Wow, this brought back some memories. This game taught me what a persimmon was.
Princess Tomato deserves a polished remake like Shadowrun received.
I would love to see a remake for this! And I love persimmons. After how mean Percy was to me, I will enjoy eating them when they're back in season here, haha
And, of course by Shadowrun, I mean Shadowgate. :-)
@@Zirbip Totally... I get those two names confused all the time. No worries!
What a great review - subbed!
Thanks very much! I'm glad you enjoyed the video here.
I really wish we had more games like this, and the Macventure trilogy that got ported to the NES. That blend of point-and-click mixed with text adventure works REALLY well
There are the Sword of Hope games on Game Boy if you haven't heard of those before. I think that has some turn-based battles as well!
@@hungrygoriya oh yes! I found those by chance recently. They're a really neat mix of like Shadowgate with RPG elements hahah
Unfortunately we didn't get all the detective games that Japan had for the NES. SOme of them however got remade for the Switch.
@@Maverynthia Oh? Care to suggest a few?
@@wardrich Good to know! I've been looking for a copy of Sword of Hope 2 for ages. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
I saw the title and went "what? Lol"
Then saw the game and went "I need this"
Thanks for the video :)
You're very welcome! I hope you enjoy if you decide to play it.
Love the concept and art direction ❤
It's quirky eh? I enjoy the artwork quite a bit too, even though it's so over the top weird sometimes.
I remember seeing screenshots of this game, but never got a chance to play it, such a unique game for the NES! The image of Percy has been forever burned into my brain.
His smug little grin! I remember when I first saw someone streaming this and they got to the part with his big head, I immediately recognized it too. I can't remember where I first saw it though!
The box art is what drew me in when I saw it at the rental store. Princess Tomato is one of my favorite NES games especially because of the music and I enjoyed NES point and click adventures. TubaHero37 has tuba covers of several tunes form the game.
I'm sure I have the game, but didn't see it when I was recently looking through boxes in the garage. It must be in another box. The quest begins!
I'll have to check out that music cover channel. I love the tunes so much and I haven't been down the rabbit hole of fan covers yet. That sounds like a great place to start!
I hope you can find your game! It must be around somewhere!
oh my goodness lol thanks once again... I think your channel might just become my soundtrack for a few days. I rented this one back in the day and loved it, played til I finished it. It's also very high on my NES collecting wish-list, probably #2. I've got 530 titles and still no Princess Tomato!
--btw, #1 is Bandit Kings of Ancient China, if you've never played that I HIGHLY recommend it!!
I hope you can find a copy of this! I bit the bullet on an eBay copy about three or four years ago and I'm glad I did.
Also, how is it that today I've learned of an NES game I've never even heard of before? I'm shocked that I'm still finding out about new games this deep into collecting. Thank you for that little nugget of knowledge! I'll check into it!
I didn't mind this game when I was a teen. I don't remember much of it, but I remember having fun with it.
Did you finish it? I enjoyed it overall but there were a few sections that frustrated me when I had a hard time figuring out exactly what to do. Most of the time I'd missed speaking to someone twice.
@@hungrygoriya I didn't finish it. Maybe that is why I remember liking it? HA!.
This was a rental that I spent some time with over the weekend, then never played again, thinking, that wasn't that bad.
But, maybe I just didn't get far enough to be annoyed.
@@JohnZyski Well perhaps it's best to hold onto those fond feelings. The end really felt a lot harder than the beginning to me.
A couple friends and I did a TH-cam commentary on this on a good decade back. I thought it was a great pick, with my rose-colored glasses of my youth when I had finished it once before. It wasn't too far in that we started getting frustrated with moon logic befitting a Sierra game. As you say, it starts out pretty well, but it wasn't long before Percy became our adversary as much as the puzzles. Point and click adventures is a genre that has only improved over time. Most developers today have taken a few notes from the outstanding LucasArts adventures and puzzle design is leaps and bounds better than most of the titles you'd find in the 80's and 90's.
The unfairness and cryptic nature of this one is concealed pretty well until you have enough time into it to feel like you need to see it through! I've played quite a few point and clicks back in the day and even nowadays and I don't mind a little bit of trouble, but this game seemed way more frustrating than most older stuff I've enjoyed to date.
My brother still has his copy of this. We play this, Bad Dudes and Pinbot whenever we see each other.
Nothing quite like retro games for this old dude.
If you're into this kind of game you ought to try ShadowGate,Deja Vu and The Uninvited.
It's great to hear that those games bring you two together! Very nice!
I've played Shadowgate, but not Deja Vu or Uninvited yet. One of these days I'd like to try the others.
Always wanted to like this one. Good to know to run thru it with a guide.
I really feel like a guide would help out a lot in a couple of spots. I made it through without one, but I got stuck a lot too. Good luck with it if you try it out!
The artificial difficulty is a very fair criticism, but the positives you listed plus childhood nostalgia makes this game so amazing.
It's definitely worth playing if you go in with appropriate expectations about the difficulty. I thought it'd be a bit more approachable but I still enjoyed it overall.
1:27-1:44 Mind if I share this with the Ludomusicology Discord? I'm curious if other people are familiar with this game. I remember seeing you play it on Twitch once.
Share it wherever you like!
Oh my goodness! I didn't think anyone else knew about this game. I remember renting it when I was a kid, and finding it so strange.
It's definitely strange but also very fun too! Most of the time, anyway.
Probably one of the very first video games I ever played. I tear up hearing its soundtrack.
Awww! I feel that way about King's Quest V's soundtrack on NES as well. It's extremely nostalgic for me to sit by the weeping willow or near a desert oasis and listen to the music at those two parts.
Same, the music from the jail, banana village, and castle levels has been burned into my skull for thirty years.
just wanted to say hello and i love your channel
Thank you very much! I'm glad you found me here.
I was wondering if there were boss battles. I didn’t expect rock, paper, scissors though; I would have thought you’d be armed with a vegetable peeler and a cutting board shield🤭
That would've been way cooler!
The enemies were usually the ones with unspeakable weapons of vegetable torture. The Farmies are farmers which is pretty sinister in this world. Then there is Saladtron, see at 2:49, the unspeakable horror with utensils for extremities and the bits of corpse from their fallen foes INSIDE THEIR HOLLOW HEAD!
@@SomeIdiota All of this is true!
I fell in love with this game as a boy. My parents got it on Famicom actually intended for my sister but she had no interest in it and I played it so much.
As you've noted, the music was a huge appeal to me. That first stage music is unforgettable to me and sounds so happy but also sad to me. It's "bittersweet". This contrast of what seems like a very happy quality with something that seems so very sad and sentimental always struck me back then. I compare it to the cutscene music of Willow on the NES which is also forever stuck in my head.
Also at least a boy, I found it so dark in a way despite its cute vegetable and fruit characters. It was actually scarier and darker to me in a way than even similar games like Shadowgate or Deja Vu which seemed to inherently lend themselves to a darker tone.
I played the game originally in Japanese and the game used only Hiragana and Katakana making it one of the few adventure Famicom games I could read in primary school without asking my parents to translate any Kanji. It is one of those games forever etched in my mind as a monumental part of my childhood.
I enjoyed reading about your thoughts here, especially about the music. Some music just sticks to your soul and this game definitely has a soundtrack I've listened to a lot since I finished the game. Willow on NES also has some fantastic music.
It's funny how serious the actual plot of this game is and how they put such a shiny and cute wrap over all of it. I agree: it's very dark once you look past all the shine of the graphics and lighthearted humour.
I'm glad this game had such a profound impact on you.
@@hungrygoriya I tried to upload my rendition of the song on TH-cam so to see if it'll accept at least TH-cam links. I am usually so reluctant to share my amateur efforts at music with people but you sold me with your appreciation of the game.
th-cam.com/video/FSI5S-7J_hs/w-d-xo.html
@@hungrygoriya One of the things I was thinking is that this is still a "textual" adventure game and the type I think is sadly working towards extinction.
I consider it more textual than visual because even though it's accompanied by illustrations of each scene and doesn't have us literally typing in commands, the bulk of the focus of the player is text-based. We don't have to point our mouse cursor and click on something visually specific to take an action on a specific visual representation of an object in the scene. Instead we choose textual commands and choose new commands opening up based on the text as our primary source of observation.
So there's a "reading-heavy and visually-lite" aspect to the gameplay which I miss sometimes as games have evolved over the future to something more "visually-heavy and reading-lite".
Wonderful to finally see this game. I remember hearing about it when it was released, but as a kid I thought it sounded silly and never played it. :)
It's a pretty solid game as long as you don't mind getting stuck. I think it'd be extra fun playing with a guide!
Apparently that Acchi Muite Hoi (Look Over There) game is often combined with Rock-Paper-Scissors in Japan. It shows up in Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, but without instructions so I was also confused.
I'm glad it wasn't just me! It makes a little more sense now that I'm through the game but going into it, I was extremely confused! I still think a lot of the patterns here are random too. You just have to guess and hope you learn a pattern before you game over.
I see - the devs needed to spend more time addressing the salad kingdom's lore with more kernels of truth. But they sure produced a charming game.
Definitely charming and fun except when I got stuck the entire time. Sigh.
I forgot all about this game. I loved it when I was a kid, and I didn't even realize how bizarre and rarely played it was when I played it.
I recently got it again (emulator). I wish I still ad my original cart.
It's a pretty strange little adventure. I hope you enjoy your time with it again! Maybe you'll get your hands on a cartridge again someday too. I spent a long while hoping I'd find a copy and eventually did.
Oh man, this game. I think it was the first adventure game I ever played, must've been 5 or so. The concept of the 3D maze section was far beyond my grasp at the time. The ominous music struck me hard as well. It wasn't until a few years later that I even attempted to beat it, since the first maze was walling me off. I moved on to uhh... easier, less scary games... like Shadowgate and Uninvited, hah.
I loved that you displayed the old lady as one of the "What do I even do?" puzzles. It's strange that this game has not one, but TWO old ladies who love to the Hit command.
Random anecdote: The first time I ever said the word "hell" was because of Percy. I remember using the Percy command before even meeting him. The game displayed "Who is Percy?" and me, being a child who loved PG-13/R rated films, said "Yeah, who the hell is Percy?" My mom heard me and brought me to my grandparents, who lived a few houses down, to have me repeat myself to them. I could not tell if I was in trouble or if they found it funny. Thanks Percy.
i love the art- even the wonky bits, but i never have made it to the end... maybe its time i give it another try. thanks for reminding me of this weird little game :)
The wonky art bits definitely made me chuckle. It was a really interesting game visually. I thought it was very charming!
I remember seeing a Game Center CX episode on this game, the lack of logic on how to progress made me glad to experience the game through Arino instead, lol.
Oh man... I need to watch that!
@@hungrygoriya Any excuse to watch more Game Center CX is a good one!
It's always neat when classic point-and-clicks made their way to the NES. Come to think of it, I feel like they more or less skipped the 16-bit consoles, huh? I remember Myst on PSone being a pretty big deal.
Anyway, I remember seeing screens of this in Nintendo Power as a little one, it always looked so unusual and charming, and even today, I feel like it really stands out.
Also, for that last part, my rationale is that both sentient and non-sentient vegetables (i.e. like veggies in our world) exist in this universe, sort of as if they are less "materials" that existence has to work with, so living creatures are made from the same stuff as plants. Yes, I have also overthought this xD
I hadn't really thought about this genre skipping the next generation. You're so right! I wonder why... there was clearly a lot of success found in these kinds of games so it's surprising to me that they didn't continue on their legacy.
And that's an interesting point! I guess it's no different than us humans as animals raising animals for food and infrastructure, right? ... but for some reason, a grape drinking grape juice feels weird...
@@hungrygoriya It's definitely going for whimsy, but if you think on it, it can be totally jarring, for sure xD
omg, I loved this game as a kid!!
It's definitely very charming!
I remember seeing the article for this in Nintendo Power back when it came out, and wasn't particularly enthused about it. Later videos made me wonder if I hadn't made a mistake, so it's interesting to know that the game does use so-called Moon Logic, which I am not a fan of.
Thank you! This was a great video!
Thank you for watching, as always!
It felt like a lot of solutions were achieved in a very roundabout way. Nothing felt direct and everything was hard-earned. It was very frustrating at times and all my best thoughts were usually met with some snarky remark from the game. There are definitely better games in this style to enjoy.
If I were younger and had more time on my hands I might have given this one a go, but unfortunately I don't even seem to have the time for playing through some of my favs such as Faxanadu, Willow, or Battle of Olympus again.
If you don't mind playing with a guide when you get stuck, this is definitely a quick game. I'd much rather be playing the other three you mentioned!
Lovely! This was the "meme game" of the first streamer I hang with in Twitch 5 years ago, memories...
Did you know Percy loosing stuff is actually the game's way of getting rid of items that no longer have any use? 🍅
Yeah! He'd always be so cute about shaking away half my inventory. Definitely a unique way to transition between the chapters!
Great review. I've never heard of this game.
Thanks!
This was my favorite game as a kid because it was the only NES game I was skilled enough to play. So I'd just play it over and over. This review is very accurate, flags to continue in the game sadly become more and more obtuse as the game progresses. I theorize the existence of so many commands is a symptom of this being a remake of a game that used to have a text parser on the PC.
I'm glad it wasn't just me that found the difficulty get worse towards the end. I'm honestly not sure about this game's history, but it wouldn't surprise me if it started out on PCs. So many point and clicks do!
i played this game in the early 90s....and then again as an adult......it was a weird, but fun, game.
It's very funny and quirky. I liked it despite the logic going off the rails after a while.
Back in the day, I traded a lot of games, and got a copy of Dragon Warrior 4, before my time, and as old RPG console games go it was one of the heavy hitters... Point was, I did a ton of housework, and traded in my copy of Bigindine, and stayed on that game for hours. But! While I was being a selfish little brother, my older sister started playing Nintendo ROMs for the first time, it was 98, but for the longest time, and it still lasts into her current years, she fell in love with this game, and I never played it.
Great video, but this one is her's.
Thanks very much for your kindness. I'm glad your sister had a blast with this game! I think I would've liked it a lot as a kid. I played a ton of King's Quest V on NES because it was one of the only games I had back then and I fell in love with it too!
I loved this game when I was a kid!
Did you ever end up finishing it? I really liked the beginning of the game especially!
@@hungrygoriya Yes the ending was actually so stupid. Princess Tomato has a twin sister named Lisa who is human for no reason when everyone else is some kinda food lol
This is an all-time favorite of mine; I rented it many years ago, largely because the box art was so inscrutable that I HAD to see what this even was. The world just flooded into me; I found myself constantly thinking about it, and dreaming about what was beyond its boundaries, like the woods behind Mr. Corn's shack. Though it was well over a decade before I found a copy of my own, finding it was a very long obsession for me. But MAN, Chapter 7 was infuriating; I've played through this game many times, and I'm still not 100% sure what the exact solution is. For me, the game's world more than made up for its frustrations, but they certainly were frequent. I'm not 100% sure, because I haven't played it (don't think it's been translated yet), but the original on the PC-88 had some funky artwork, and I think part of that was brought over here, which might explain the inconsistent aesthetic.
I wondered those things a lot as well. It's such an immersive little world (the music really made it extra special for me!) and I was sad that there wasn't more to see, especially in the first few chapters.
I'd like to see what the PC-88 version's all about. I've seen some screenshots from it but didn't realize that it was an actual release. I thought it was a fan game!
@@hungrygoriya The music truly was wonderful; it's a shame Tomotsue Maeno didn't get to work on much else of note, other than Neutopia. The PC-88 version, from what I can remember, was also a first-person Adventure, but with a text parser; I remember reading about it at Hardcore Gaming 101 years ago, but my memory's failing me on the finer details.
Hahahaha “all the exclamation points have a special place in hell”
He's such a little jerk, haha
This is cool, mainly because this was one of 'very' few Japanese adventure games we got back in the day. Unfortunately, as with most of them, the moon logic is pretty prominent. Still, from what I could glean, in Japan it is quite well regarded. If you want a game in this style that's somewhat less cryptic, I'd recommend Ripple Island by Sunsoft or maybe Idol Hakkenden by Natsume (the latter being more of a VN). There were also lots of murder mystery games on the system, inspired by Portopia, but this genre is not very popular in the West; at least not the JP games. Famicom Detective Club games got remade for Switch, I'd recommend those perhaps.
Thanks for the recommendations! I'm glad we got this game but the lack of logical progression at times made me feel a little nuts.
Oh man, I have been looking for this game for about two years or more. Can't fine it anywhere.
I got mine a few years ago and didn't really get much of a deal on it at the time. I hope you find yourself a copy someday.
I'm new to this channel. Good work here!
Welcome! And thanks very much!
Ok let's be honest... the theme "Saladoria and orange park" AKA level 2 City is the best in the game.. I even have it set as my alarm
It's an extremely catchy one, that's for sure!
This sums up why I stopped playing all Zelda games. The wind waker castles were so stupid that you almost had to get Nintendo Power Magazine. You literally had to look at every article in every single room and try all your tools on it. Like am I supposed to boomerang that bat up there or throw harpoon at that rock, or blow a bubble on that cactus? It just got stupid so I never played another Zelda since. I'm sure I missed out on a lot of amazing hours of gaming but I just couldn't do it. I even tried to go back in twice. It came out when I was about 23, then I tried again around 30 and one more time when my daughter was old enough, about 40, a couple years ago.
You know, I had an experience like this recently with a Zelda game, and it was Oracle of Ages for the Game Boy Colour. It made me want to scream at times, between moving through different time periods, getting stuck behind obstacles that don't exist in other ages, and some of the puzzles... just... ugh. I have a very short list of favourite Zelda games and I'll tell you: Wind Waker isn't one of them. I started it twice and never finished!
@@hungrygoriya I really enjoyed seasons, but ages frustrated me too.
@@hungrygoriya wow, yeah very similar experiences then. the Super Nintendo one was my all time fave. Then maybe Ocarina, I just didn't like the graphics all that much. Neat to be in 3D finally but it was hazy. Fun though.
🍅🙃Thanks for the change of pace.
Would love to see a remake of this title!
Me too! I love how charming the graphics are here, but it'd be neat to see what a remake would look like.
I adore this game. It's like Wizardry for kids.
I'm watching a friend play through Wizardry right now and it looks so cool!
@@hungrygoriya wizardry 1 through 3 are best on NES. It has original art and music.
I first played this when I was in highschool so that was 20 years ago (wow) and I didn't understand it at all which is a shame because I love Shadowgate and I figured I'd love this too but it was not the case. I remember I would tell people to play it as a troll/insult. It's wild whenever this game comes up in anyway.
High school was just about that long ago for me as well. Wow indeed! It's got a pretty confusing way of progressing sometimes, so I can understand why you got stuck a bunch. I got stuck too, mostly for the reasons I mentioned, but especially the checking and checking again really gets out of hand towards the end of the game. Do you think you'll play it again sometime and try to get through it?
@@hungrygoriya I don't know, I see a lot of your reviews and put them in my "someday" pile but going back to the Salad Kingdom? I won't say it's impossible but it's very unlikely
@@AL_Talks Fair enough! Sometimes I watch a review and I'm fired up about finally taking something down I never finished so I always wonder if folks feel the same. But there are so many good games to play. Might as well enjoy those instead!
I remember renting this game when I was somewhere around 10 to 12 years old and getting stuck so many times, not knowing what to do to progress. I called the Nintendo help line at least 10 times and my parents were not happy about it when they got the bill lol.
Awww! One copy of Nintendo Power might've saved them thousands of dollars in phone charges haha
@@hungrygoriya lol this is true!
This is pretty cool for an NES game!
It's definitely a neat one!
bring back weird games! Games need to be weird sometimes, I think that's the antidote for a lot of modern no-risk gaming blahs.
This one definitely qualifies for weird! A pretty serious backstory told through such a bright and whimsical presentation is strange all on its own.
Wooow it reminds me of Earthbound somehow... I've never Heard of this game before. Thanks for reviewing it
There's one tune in this soundtrack that reminded me a lot of Earthbound as well. The humour's very similar too. Definitely see where you're coming from!
I wonder... is the Salad Kingdom adjacent to the Mushroom Kingdom?
This is a good question 🤔
Hopefully your metaphorical beard isn't too strung out from Percy's berating comments! This art is so classic, and j think I could get invested into the dramatic lives of organic produce!
Haha not too strung out, but might as well be! There's definitely some humour and drama to be had here. It's worth playing once I think!
I remember the last time I played this game, the cavern looking for the banana creature sucked lol
Yeah, it was pretty confusing in there!
Saw this cartridge at a used game store in my town and the artwork puzzled me. They wanted $500 for it though so I had to look the game up to figure out why
Personally, I don't think the experience is worth $500. It's great and all, but not THAT great.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that finds this game really punishing and quite frustrating leaving the game after completing the first section of the game
It lures you into a false sense of security and then suddenly feels like it goes off the rails with its puzzling. You're definitely not alone!
@@hungrygoriya yeah now I don't feel that bad after leaving the game haha
I remember getting this game on the Wii Virtual Console, and I didn't get past the first level.
It gets pretty convoluted pretty quickly. I struggled with parts of the first level too.
@@hungrygoriya Well it IS an old game. It was originally released on the MSX in 1984 and ported to the NES in 1990.
In Japan, if you at Rock Paper Scissors, you point up or down and if the other person looks that way, you win again.
That's so interesting! I'm Canadian and hadn't ever heard of this before this game.
A fair review
Interesting game. you've reviewed one I have zero knowledge of, apart from your review of course heh. .. and yet, those characters have a certain familiarity to them... hmm, Great Review.
Edit: OH! The Box Cover!! I saw it at rental places all the time and wondered about it! hahaha
Thanks very much! The box art is pretty different from other stuff from the time. I'm not surprised you remembered it!
Great review as always. Thanks!
Thanks for stopping by!
"A broad array of flavors" I see what you did there.
I am a monster.
I look up one obscure nes game some caveman amicon or something and on my feed this pops up
Good work, don’t know a lot of nes games tbh that ain’t on NSO so gonna be fun to check out some stuff I never would’ve seen before
Are you thinking of Amagon? And thanks for taking a chance on the channel here. I hope you enjoyed the review.