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

I think so.

Hey Boss, don't let me get too wet.

GAH!

Sadly, as despite really wanting to, we can’t abandon Percy while he’s in mid-drown, so we toss him the Water Wings he’s been strangely resilient to dropping for the past 4 Chapters.


I think I can get out! Oh, I thought I was going to die, Boss… Look, I found this in the pond! It’s some kind of Ornament! Got a towel?

Incidentally, I couldn’t throw the Wings to Percy until I dropped something first. Anyway, there is a distinct lack of Princesses, Tomato or otherwise, in the Garden. We take some Water and head back to the Hall and head to the Right.



Geez! A Guard! I wasn’t expecting there being anyone who was actually supposed to be in the castle! Time to use the same tactics employed in the Home Alone franchise!


Look out, Boss! He noticed us!


Look, the soldier slipped and hit his head! Okay, I tied him up with the chain!



And, after dispatching a guard off-screen, we’re in front of the jail! The door is locked, but a frantic series of LOOKing and CHECKing causes the guards’ keys to appear in the middle of the hall.



Looks like the castle’s one-room jail had as many inmates as Saladoria’s entire Prison.

Cabbage: Who are you? Leave us alone!
Lettuce: Can we trust you?
Garlic: You’re Farmies!
Bell Pepper: Get Lost!

Of course, it being that all the prisoners were arrested by Farmies, it stands to reason that they’re not entirely fond of anyone who looks like a Farmie right now. Might as well show them the Crest, so as to earn their trust.


You’re Resistance Soldiers!

That helped.

Cabbage: I still don’t trust you guys!
Lettuce: I’m not hiding anything!
Garlic: I have a nephew at the Saladoria Police Station
Bell Pepper: I’ll trade information for 1 Gold Coin.

I’m sure Garlic meant that he has a psychopathic relative in the Police Station. Anyhow, none of these jerks are overly helpful. Well, Bell Pepper’s advice was this:



Which I’m sure will be helpful in the near future. Anyway, looking in the room a couple more times brings the Barrel to Sir Cucumber attention, which therefore lets him look inside it. Inside the Barrel is a slightly wilted White Leaf. One splash of water later and…



J. Jonah Jameson?


You’re helping the Minister, aren’t you!

Man, I hope we get rid of these disguises soon, everyone is being overly unhelpful while I’m wearing it. Fine, we’ll show J.J. the stupid Crest.


You’re Resistance Soldiers! I am Lord White Leaf. We must stop the Minister and his son! His son is allergic to caterpillars! Good luck!

Wait, wait, wait… Pumpkin Jr. is allergic to caterpillars? How? I mean… Caterpillars don’t produce any kind of allergen that I'm aware of. I’m also not entirely sure that caterpillars eat pumpkins, and even if they did, I don’t quite know if that counts as an allergy.



As it would happen, doing CHECKing the inmates reveals that one of them has a Caterpillar in his head. I’m not sure if Sir Cucumber just took a quick, cursory glance across the room, and Mr. Lettuce just happened to have a big-damn caterpillar in his head, or if he went to each inmate and gave them a thorough parasite-search.

Either way, Caterpillar GET! Now, to the Lower Left Hand door in the previous hallway!

Sorry guys This took so long in Paint

D:

No apology can atone for that atrocity. I can't believe you would...



...oh, uh, hey Percy...I was just...



Wh-what are you doing? Why are you coming over here?! Get away! Get away from me!



AHHHH IT BURNNNNSSSS

AHHHHHHHH THERE'S BLOOD EVERYWHERE

NO NOOOO AHHHHHHHHGRRRRBLLHHHGHGLGLGHHGHH

I like how Percy has completely derailed the thread for the past while. Even outside of the game, he's leading OctoPrime off-track!

EDIT: Oh God, inverted Percy may be the most frightening version yet.

Wait 'til everyone reading the Daily Bugle hears about this!

If Sir Cucumber had dropped the contents of the jars as well as, somehow, a lit match, I would have awarded this game an automatic A+.

HEY BOSS! I picked up some stuff!

Because it's inverted

... shut up.

"Hey boss, I licked a funny stamp."

Hey boss! I swear she looked ripe to me!

Me next!

This thread is just getting surreal now. It's like 8% Princess Tomato LP and 92% Percy 'shops.

JUST AS PLANNED

Oh sweet Jesus Pappy has done something horrible.

I have never felt so uncomfortable and entertained at once.

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

What's the matter Boss? Don't you like me?

Equal parts horrifying AND prescient!

Well done, sir!

Percy's so awesome he's managed to distract everyone from Celery Hitler.

Pence gets it. I love this game and its insane logic and nonsensical world.

I’m inclined to agree, this is a curiously labyrinthine straight hallway.



Hey, she looks Tomato-esque! Let’s get rescuing!



Dangit. I want to save a princess! Well, let’s move through the room then (which, incidentally, you have to CHECK before you can attempt to walk through).



This room is a bit more brightly decorated. Good for it. Nothing in it, so we leave the room, and go back into the hallway. Then we re-enter the maids room, go through the bright room again, and then keep repeating that until the Maid wakes up. Then the other door in the Bright room will be unlocked, allowing me into the third room.
Because this game is just that sensible.



Okay, so this is where the Princess gets dressed. That’s cool, but why is there a wig on the counter? If Princess Tomato is a tomato, then human hair would look damn weird, and if she’s (roughly) human, like her sister… then does that mean that being half-Broccoli causes premature baldness?



And this just muddies the issue farther!

Dammit, this room’s minor details piss me off, I’m going to vent my frustrations on that stool!


Hey boss, this stool has a storage space! Boss, I opened the lid and found a diary!

Oh, I see. The old “Punch a stool until it is revealed to be a storage container, then read the carefully hidden diary” trick. Almost fell for it, too.


Day by day, I’m putting on thick make-up to make myself look ugly. But I’ve resigned myself to my fortune. Take care!

Is… is she aware that the King is dead? Which is why she’s being forced to marry Pumpkin Jr. in the first place? Well, that’s all there is in this room, so let’s leave the room, back into the hallway, and then go back through the maids room and into the brightly colored one again.



Oh hey, there’s another person with a large, red head in this room. Let’s say hello!


Who are you? I didn’t give you permission to come in!

Rude, and ugly as hell! Hey… you don’t think that this tomato-headed person is actually the Princess in disguise, do you? Let’s try showing this shriveled prune of a tomato the Crest.


But I don’t trust you, this could be a fake crest! You’re not going to fool me! Get out of my room!

Okay, well, I have to give her credit for being more astute then everyone else in the Salad Kingdom. Let’s try backing away from her and talking to her again, this time forcing her to eat Chameleon Grass.



Yeah, that’ll teach you to be rude to the people trying to rescue you, but are currently disguised as the same people who imprisoned you in the first place! Also, she looks significantly less human then her sister does.


I’m sorry, but since I was taken here, I couldn’t trust anyone. Please destroy Minister Pumpkin and bring peace back to The Salad Kingdom! Minister Pumpkin stole the Turnip Emblem from us. On behalf of all the vegetables I beg the favor of you to go get the Emblem back for us.

Okay, thanks for the help, but I was going to do that anyway. So… it’s back into the Hallway with us! And slightly farther ahead this time!

She's happy you made her beautiful after all the hard work she'd done getting ugly?!

Wouldn't it make more sense to restore her after you defeat Minister Pumpkin?

Oh wait I used the word 'sense' there... nevermind!

Pappy what have you done?

EEEEEEK!

I'm going to miss this thread when Minister Pumpkin finally meets his end.

Holy Moses! Yikes!

Pappy, you're making me dread my own LP!

It’s an Eggplant? Guarding a door? Such fallacy cannot be! Prepare yourself, monster, for the oblivion that awaits you!


In this Castle, I’m second only to Minister Pumpkin in Finger Wars!

An Eggplant with a porn-stache, no less. Give ‘em hell, Perce!



Contrary to his bragging, Eggplant is exactly as easy to beat as everyone else in the game. Keep picking Rock, and pointing up and he’ll lose. Now, into the Throne Room!



There’s nothing much in the Throne Room, actually, just an empty chair, an unexciting door, and a discarded suit. The suit is kind of weird, I guess. Anyhow, we glance about the room a bit until Sir Cucumber finally notices the door, allowing him to walk through it.



He tells Percy to steal the clothes. Because he’s a kleptomaniacal cucumber.



And here we are… in the Ministers Bedroom, which is curiously nicer then the Princesses. A quick (read: exhaustively repetitive) Look and Check reveals very little that’s exciting; The Trophy is hollow, but empty, and Bed is kind of strange and the bookshelf…



Has what I assume to be literature appropriate for someone with an inferiority complex over the fact that he’s a pumpkin.



Sir Cucumber is so disgusted that his enemy has a healthy reading habit that he instructs Percy to take an armful of them. Then he checks the hole in the Shelf again. Just to make sure there’s nothing left there.


The holes will help guide you… What could it mean, Boss?

Baby Monster? Oh crap, that’s probably foreshadowing, isn’t it? Well, nothing to worry about right now, I suppose. Percy, go rummage around that creepy old pumpkin-mans bed.



Let’s take a look! Hey! Oh, no!.... Someone pushed us down into the Basement! It’s totally dark!

Cunning bastard, waiting until we were distracted by a staircase to run over and push us down. Only a Pumpkin could be so sneaky. Yes, I’m falling back on the stereotype that all pumpkins are untrustworthy scoundrels.

Anyway, one more forward from a Totally dark room reveals a fully lighted…



GODDAMMIT NOT ANOTHER MAZE!

Luckily, this is the last maze before I am finally free of this infernal video game, so let’s make it count;



After moving/wandering/following a map through the maze for a short while, we encounter the first of its several guardians: The Baby Monster! It’s equal parts cute and kind of unpleasant. And now our hero makes up for saving a terrible baby so many weeks ago by killing a semi-adorable baby now;



Oh what the hell man? I already Rock-Paper-Scissored a man to death, and I exploded the Banana-Themed-Spinoff of Orochi, which had small child inside it. Why can’t I fight the Baby Monster? Fine, I’ll use the better part of valor and run away from the little bean-sprout.



After turning around, and running like hell from the teeny-tiny critter, our heroes encounter a hole in the middle of the floor. Could this be what that book faintly alluded to?

The hole asks if we just ran the baby monster, but asks no more. Fine, we don’t need advice from no disembodied voice! Or a talking hole. Or someone who is buried not very deeply in the basement. Or whoever was just talking.


This is the Second Hole, Keep Going!

I believe I just said we will be ignoring the advice of holes.

Also, at the behest of showing the entire monster family, I made it a point to track down the Moma Monster;



The Moma is pretty horrendous looking, but can be fought. There is no benefit for doing so, however.



Screw that noise, Third Hole in the Ground!



And, naturally, we encounter the Papa Monster after running through the gauntlet of monster-infested straight hallways that make up this basement. Unlike the Baby, we CAN fight the Papa Monster, and unlike the Mama, there IS a benefit to killing it.

So let’s us destroy the patriarch of the Non-Sexually-Dimorphic-Monster-Family!


Oh, there’s an Opening in the wall!

Unlike most opponents, The Papa Monster actually DOES randomize his guesses for the Rock Paper Scissors part. He almost always picks Rock, however, so just picking Paper time-and-time again will allow you to prevail. And since he lacks any optic muscles (I guess?), he can’t look in any direction but left.

Okay, that’s been taken care of, so lets exit the Basement and see the jerkass who knocked us into here in the first place;

D'Awww, he's kinda quite, in a monsterish sort of way.

And you went and murdered his papa. You fiend.