NES Games I (and Mayabb) Beat #58: Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom

What can be said about the obscure less common NES games like this one? While there isn’t much information out there its clear some of these games have gained a cult status in the age of retro emulation. Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom, developed and published by Hudson Soft, it released to seemingly mild praise in February of 1991 making it one of the later titles on the console. In terms of genre, its along the lines of a text/point and click adventure. But why has this game garnered a following? What’s so special about it?
The most common thing that draws someone like myself to this game is just how impressive it is for an NES title. PCs at the time had a lot in this genre to offer but NES players had the Kemco trilogy and Nightshade and that was really about it. Also given its kiddy, cutesy style and vegetable/ fruit characters it’s not surprising hardcore gamers passed on this release. Also, this was right around the SNES was looming in the distance so games like this got swept under the rug. Despite this it got a measly two page spread in Nintendo Power Issue #22 with a very vague and unhelpful walkthrough of the first few levels.
The gameplay is that of a text based adventure in that you can use a set number of functions to navigate like move which gives directions the player can move, look to examine the room, check is used to examine objects in a room, talk, take, use for items, give, buy, hit, fight, praise to flatter, dump for getting rid of inventory items, since you can only carry a limited number, item, and Percy to get aid from your sidekick Percy Persimmon. From there it’s pretty much up to the player to use these functions to explore and find items to satisfy requirements and help people out or to make your way through various obstacles. These are essentially the puzzles you have to work through in your mind and solve in order to progress. They all have answers that aren’t too cryptic and for the most part this game isn’t weighed down with bullshit like some cryptic games of this style and era. Also the characters here are lively and filled with useful information, items, and humor making this world feel alive. Each command also can generally lead to some humorous observations and events that the writers cleverly put at every turn to keep even mistakes lively and fun. Even gag items are put into the game with no purpose but to deceive you and Percy tosses them at the end of each level anyway.
Movement of areas will quickly show the massive variety in areas of this game. While the backgrounds are just static images to set the mood and item layout, they’re really very well detailed and the graphical art style is at times happy, cheerful and vibrant as well as other settings being dark, moody, and somber. Looking at this game’s world and it’s plethora of vegetable races and characters is a treat at every moment because of how good the presentation of these elements is. It’s just a really clean, vibrant art style that invokes the feelings of a fantasy world. Not to mention the music and it’s rhythmic, soothing nature ranging into eerie, desolate tones as well that perfectly complements the art to a T. On three instances the game’s world will even shift to a first person dungeon which can make the player feel helpless and lost.
Some enemies do take the player on in a combat setting but all this is is a game of rock, paper, scissors and then a look away game to decide the winner. This is admittedly a cheap combat system but it’s mostly reserved to boss fights and isn’t a huge hindrance on the experience. Though it does lead to the one way to die in this game which in turn leads to having to restart the current level after inputting a password. Luckily the passwords are short the levels won’t take long if you remember how their done. While there are 9 levels total, the game takes over 2 hours if you know it and about 5-7 hours or longer for the uninitiated. Loosely following a walkthrough can also make it a tad less frustrating if you’re not opposed to such things.
The story is pretty basic, the princess is kidnapped, go save her but the underlying themes here actually lead to some pretty dark stuff. There’s an overlying war between the Resistance and the Farmies embedded in nearly all the things you do, you get captured at one point and have to break a bunch of others out, you’re nearly drowned for not talking in torture, you defile a grave to find a giant blender robot to take on the Saladians, and the capture a little peanut girl by a banana lead to you murdering that banana and pulling her out of it piece by piece dismantling its body and carrying it and the girl back to her parents to prove its dead. The way villages feel suppressed and at every turn the enemy seems to have captured more innocent vegetables to kill (especially since some Farmies higher up are humans) reminded me of (and I’m serious here) World War 2 and the Holocaust in terms of theming as through metaphors the game seems to be hinting at this parallel very strongly. I guess that would make the last guy Hitler, in which case we killed Hitler with rock, paper, scissors.
Overall this game is a really gem that has a beautiful world, an excellent art style, an atmospheric and amazing soundtrack, surprisingly deep/dark tones, environments, and story, good humor, memorable characters, fun puzzles, and a charming and cute overall aesthetic. While it can go some weird places and the play style is not for everyone, it’s still highly recommended as a rom download and for collectors. It’s very obtainable today surprisingly through Virtual Console but a really cart is not really easy to come across as it goes for $70+ online.
In the end I really enjoyed this game so I’m going to give it a 9/10. While it’s kind of sad this may be the very last NES game Mayabb and I will ever beat together, this game will always remain even stronger in my soul for this reason and will assuredly become nostalgic for this fact as well some day.