A Questionable Grasp of Botany: Let's Play Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom!

The observant LP viewer may notice that I like adventures games, NES games, and combinations thereof. So it should come as no surprise that an NES adventure game wherein all the characters are vegetables is right up my alley. Well, maybe not so much the anthropomorphic vegetable part. But I digress, because here’s an NES adventure game wherein all the characters are vegetables.

Who’dathunkit?




Let’s get this show on the road!


Chapter One: The Melon Massacre!
~Part 1: The Thirsty Baby~




One day, Minister Pumpkin betrayed King Broccoli. He kidnapped Princess Tomato and stole the Turnip Emblem. He took them to his castle in the Zucchini Mountains. He sent his cruel Farmies to terrorize all the vegetables in the Salad Kingdom. Shortly thereafter, the poor king died from the loss of his beautiful daughter.

But he promised you, Sir Cucumber, the Princess’ hand and the Kingdom if you bring them back safely.

God Speed, Sir Cucumber!

From this we can extrapolate the following-
First: If the Princess is a Tomato, and the King is made of Broccoli, that would imply that the Queen must also a Tomato, and, like having red hair, Broccoli-dom is a recessive gene.

Second: Presumably the King and Princess had a symbiotic relationship, and without her nearby, the king was doomed to death.

Third: The Princess has no problem marrying someone she presumably never met assuming he is capable of defeating a nefarious Pumpkin.



Assuming that the Zucchini Mountains are those hills in the background, one might notice that none of the three vegetables that comprise the mountains are a Zucchini. The reasonable assumption is that the Zucchini Mountains were named after who discovered them rather then what they are actually made of.

There’s also a flower there in the middle of the path. It’s kind of weird to see a flower just lying there in the middle of what is clearly a well-travelled road, so let’s remove the offending flora.



Nice to know.

It would also seem that while fruits and vegetables are anthropomorphic in the Salad Kingdom, other bits of plant matter are not. The only logical assumption is that THE FLOWER IS MADE OF MEAT!



Moving forward brings us into the Celery Forest and brings us face to face with a baby Persimmon. Also, the ground is covered with small Broccoli crowns, which adds to the mystery of the royal families’ genealogy.





Aww, I hate to see a persimmon cry, especially a baby persimmon which is apparently dying of dehydration. That’s just cruel. Of course, the only items in my inventory are the flower and 3 gold coins, neither of which being immediately useful for giving the Persimmon a drink. So we abandon the dying baby for now.

Sir Cucumber is a hero!



The Spinach Heights are not very high, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on the Spinach status.



The Signpost is kind enough to point out what each of the three paths lead to, but not which path leads where. Still, Lake Quench sounds like the kind of place to go to if you wanted to get a drink.

I also picked up some Spinach, since… well, why not?

Lake Quench, besides being full of water, also has a Fern Bird nest nearby. I’m a bit more concerned about getting that baby some drink before it dies. Or wilts. Or whatever.



Anyway, I take some Water in a non-existent Pot, a Pot which is only large enough to offer three drinks. It is presumably a small pot.



Looking inside the Nest gives me another Gold Coin. Which is nice.



Back in the Celery Forest, the Baby Persimmon is still sitting in the middle of the path, crying, or vomiting, it’s hard to tell.

Giving the Water to the Persimmon causes it to make a different, but still revolting, face. The Baby is also more talkative.



I just escaped from the Farmies! My friends are in the Melon Patch. The Farmies have stopped giving them water. The Farmies are so cruel. We must go help the Melons!

GAH! That is one ugly baby! Percy, the Horrible Persimmon Creature now joins me in my quest to save the Princess. He can give me hints on how to proceed should I get stuck. Getting stuck is a certainty, and some puzzles can only be solved by talking to Percy.

First we must go to the Melon Patch to save the Melons.

It’s nice to know that Melons and Persimmons have been able to look past their physical differences to become friends.

~fin~

の の
..V

The Salad Kingdom freaks me out. Some of the vegetables are people, but some are trees? And others are mountains? If our world worked that way, we'd have mountains made of people. Just sitting there in the distance...pulsating. This is disturbing! I have disturbed myself!

Somewhere, somehow during this LP I will make a Kakarot joke. It is my destiny.

Finally. I've been waiting for this LP to start since ever.

Don't let me down, 'pus.

This gets much more fundamentally disturbing before this ends.

Also, if updates on this one seem more sporadic then my previous LPs, well... you can blame Gamemaster Arino and the two-headed beast that is Dragon Quest and Street Fighter.

Awww ruckus. PM for editing sent.

It's PEOPLE!

GIVE GRAPE JUICE TO THE GRAPE MAN OH GOD WHY DID YOU RESORT TO CANNIBALISM???

I'm so happy! Also just to scar your soul a little bit more, the only thing Percy is wearing is a fundoshi.

Oh my god! I always thought this was some kind of platformer. I am going to play this now.

So did I! D:

The "Farmies?" Was this game intended to be a commentary on the cruel conditions vegetables endure in crowded hothouses before they're consumed by humans?

We're such a greedy, cruel society. Anyone can subsist on air if they'd just try.

"The Farm" by Upton Sinclair

Lake Quench: Because Lake Poison Ground Water just did not sound right :\

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmK0bZl4ILM

You go, brave little cucumber man.

Chapter One: The Melon Massacre!
~Part 2: To Save a Melon Patch!~



Not that I can help, since the Farmies have used their diabolical sciences to construct a barrier preventing all entry!



There’s also a sign informing that No Vegetables are allowed in. So… since Persimmons are fruits, Percy should be allowed to come and go as he pleases, shouldn’t he? Of course, Sir Cucumber is a vegetable, and the game is from his viewpoint, so we can’t go in.



Maybe later we can find some way to outwit that fence. In the meanwhile, lets head to the Town of Saladoria.



The Turnip refuses to allow Sir Cucumber into Saladoria without first presenting a pass. I’m not entirely sure whether it’s that you need a ticket to enter this particular town, not unlike travelling through an amusement park, or The Salad Kingdom’s borders are so closed that you even need a passport to travel inside it.

Of course, that’s a moot point, since I don’t have a pass either way. I can’t bribe the Guard and he’s too tough to feel you hitting him. Percy chimes in, eventually, that his friends in the Melon Patch might be able to help.

So… back to the Patch I guess




Looking at the Sign causes some Cherry-Birds to flutter past, and checking the Bush reveals a sleeping individual.



The Bush contains Prince Lettuce! Who is probably the son of King Broccoli and the Brother of Princess Tomato. Clearly, King Broccoli kept a number of wives which he spent up until one would bear him a Broccoli heir.



The unconscious, partially buried prince awakens when we poor water on his head. Only one sprinkle of water left.


There is a passage under the fence. The Melons need your help. I’m alright, please save the others. Minister Pumpkins Farmies will destroy all of us vegetables. We must stop him!

Whatever you say, my liege!



It would seem that the Melon Patch is inhabited by some Bok Choy, some lettuce, what appears to be a cantaloupe (or perhaps Honeydew Melon) and an unidentified green creature with a handkerchief. Assuming that last one is also a melon, then that would mean that the Melon Patch has a mere 50% Melon population. This is either the result of a horrific campaign of ethnic cleansing on the Farmies part… or the Melon Patch is just a misnomer.

The game insists that they are a Nappa Cabbage, Cantaloupe, Honey Dew and Watermelon, respectively. I’m willing to accept that one is a Watermelon, and I’ll give the benefit of the doubt that the first one is a Nappa instead of Bok Choy, but there is no freakin’ way that that lettuce is ANY kind of melon.

Anyhow, like Percy mentioned earlier, the Melons are being denied water, and consequently, are not at their most talkative at present. I’ve got one drink of water left, so I might as well use it on them.



My third and final drink of water rejuvenated the Melons, and Lettuce-Related Vegetables, inspiring the Cantaloupe to give me a Pass for getting into Saladoria. Neat!

First I head back to Lake Quench to refill my Water Pot, just in case I need it again. I also check out that shrine that was waaaay back in the background.



The Shrine looks lonely, and is apparently colored wrong. I don’t think many rocks are the appropriate shade of red for an apple statue, myself, but then the Salad Kingdom has a fairly unusual ecosystem, so maybe the fact that the statue isn’t red IS unusual.

I give the Shrine my Meat-Flower and it looks much prettier. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything else that can be done here now, so off we go, to give that Guard my pass.



Oh frig; I’m going to have to shave a cat or something, aren’t I?

The Guard confiscates the pass and still refuses to let me pass. What a jerk. However, talking to Percy informs me that the Guard sometimes falls asleep.



Sure enough, leaving the screen and coming back reveals that the Guard is now fast asleep, and I can slip past him easily. So the whole Gate Pass thing was a total waste of time.

Also, the guard will remain ever vigilant UNTIL Percy mentions that he sometimes falls asleep. Making this the only adventure games I know of where you HAVE to use the hint feature to advance. Well, I think one of the Space Quest games did that too, actually, but whatever.



While entering the town, Percy trips and drops everything except my Gold. Friggin’ pear.



And So Ends the First Chapter of Princess Tomato In the Salad Kingdom. Sir Cucumber managed to outwit a narcoleptic, ignore and later save a starving child, and didn’t rescue a mostly buried Prince.

What perils await him in the future? Is Saladoria a place of friends, or foes? What of the Turnip Emblem? How has the public reacted to the death of the national patriarch? All this and more*… Next Time!

*None of these questions may be answered

Oh look, my area of expertise!

Space Quest IV did, except the "Space Quest IV Hint Book" was basically a gag item with one or two genuine hints in there. And the other hint in there told you to get yourself killed in increasingly creative ways before it told you that it's a dead end and to go another way.

Me too!

Chapter 2: The Town Without Pity




The bored “Garlic” (apparently) informs me that there is a scholar on the mountainside. I guess that’s valuable information.



The Garlic sleeps on a bench, incidentally, so I’m not sure how useful (or indeed, lucid) his advice is likely to be. Unless the Garlic was forced out of his home by the Farmies, in which case I feel bad for presuming he is strung out on whatever passes for recreational narcotics in the Salad Kingdom.

No, screw it, that Garlic is strung out on goof-balls.

Also, he won’t give me any more info until I get him some coffee. Presumably to sober him up.



By God! So they do!

Moving ahead puts us in the Main Street, and shopping district of Saladoria. And what is on this abandoned street?



All right, Coffee, Juice, and Electronic shops I can understand. I get what those are. But Ant Shop? No idea what that is.



Oh, an Antique Shop. That makes some sense, I guess. Why it’s one of the only shops to not close down is a mystery though.


“The Minister kidnapped Princess Tomato! We must save her!”

I’m not sure who that second line was spoken by.



And I can’t buy anything here since Gold isn’t recognized tender in Saladoria, apparently, I need Saladorian Coins.

Hopefully there’s a money exchange nearby. In the meantime, let’s head to the Coffee Shop.



Err… the Coffee Shop is managed by a shriveled, hideous plum, named Lady Plum. It also contains a broken telephone, what the game assures me is good smelling cup of coffee.

Excuse me, a damn good cup of coffee.



Sir Cucumber is totally incapable of knocking an old lady unconscious. I don’t know how confident we should be that he can overthrow Minister Pumpkin.

I’ve got the feeling that we’ll be similarly incapable of doing anything in either of the other shops, so we might as well head off to see that Scholar that the Garlic mentioned.



I choose to interpret that as a cry of horror.



Mr. Corn is hard of hearing, and he hates the city. He doesn’t say much else, so I question his status as the Scholar we were looking for.




Talking to him a few more times gives some useful information, however!

Also, the ground is covered with Clover, I take one. Nothing else here, so I head back into town and head into the Deli, off the entrance way.



Well ain’t that a peach?

There’s nothing in the Deli right now, I just wanted to make the pun.

Every game would be better with an Angelo Badalamenti soundtrack. And goodness knows this one looks surreal enough for Lynch to have worked on it.

Um ... am I crazy or is the "deli" back wall advertising fruits and vegetables for sell? To eat. And presumably thin-slice for sandwiches.

Freaking cannibal plant creatures. They probably all have mad-fruit disease.

Sir, that is only the beginning.

Town Without Pity: Part 2



Looking at the fountain gives me sarcastic comment about hitting it. Hitting the Fountain causes a coin to pop out.

Adventure Game Logic!



I use the coin to buy some Coffee, which will hopefully make the surly Garlic bulb a bit more gracious.



Maybe not. The Donut shop, incidentally, was one of the first businesses that the Farmies forced closed when they took over. They certainly know how to prioritize.



Looking at the Main Street twice, after being told of the Donut Dilemma, causes another shop to appear, that you wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. Seriously, that is how this games puzzles work.




No part of either of those statements makes a lick of sense. Like everything else in Saladoria, I can’t enter the building without any Saladorian currency. Since we advanced the plot, slightly, maybe we can finally get out money exchanged at the Antique Shop?


Please take this letter to Miss Peachy. It’s very important.
Well, that helped. You really have to put yourself into the right frame of mind for this game.


Please take this sandwich.
Oh… kay, that’s a peculiar reward. Did anyone want a sandwich?



Mr. Pear didn’t want the Sandwich, but now he’ll exchange worthless gold for valuable coins! I don’t have many coins, though, so I’d best spend them sparingly. First stop: Cabaret!

Nice!

Why is the baby allowed in the fruit salad whorehouse?

I think those are the prices for the customer. Like, it isn't saying "Bellpeppers - $1.00", it's saying that Bellpeppers only pay $1.00 for their food.

Some Japanese restrooms are BYOTP, so they have people selling TP with advertisements on the street.

I'm reasonably sure that in the JP version, the cabaret is supposed to be a host club. Have fun sleeping tonight!

So what you're saying is that they aren't cannibals, but they have race-based pricing for food? That's... better?

And the host club thing weirds me out on so many levels.

Not better, just different.