Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.
-Brian O’Driscoll
When I think of Hudson Soft from the NES era there are a few things that come to mind: Adventure Island and the iconic Hudson bee logo. Adventure Island is a game franchise that started on the NES and spawned two sequels on the console along with multiple games beyond that. You may also be familiar with a few other titles by this publisher: Bomberman, Lode Runner, Milon’s Secret Castle, Faxanadu, Robowarrior, or Jackie Chan’s Action Kung-Fu which were commercially successful. There are even a few middle-of-the-pack games you may have rented or heard of, like Xexyz, Felix the Cat, The Adventures of Dino Riki, and Raid on Bungeling Bay. What you probably don’t know about are a few of the obscure titles from this publisher, no, I am not talking about Nuts & Milk (yes, that is a real game). I am talking about Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom.
Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom was originally released by Hudson Soft in 1984 before the NES was even launched in the United States. It was ported to the Famicon in 1988 and then to the NES in 1991. The game is a point-and-click adventure game in the vein of Shadowgate, Deja Vu, Uninvited, and Maniac Mansion. Those particular three games were some of my personal favorites growing up so it is no surprise to me that I have a fondness for this game. I sadly have no memories of playing this game in that era but I did recognize it in my later years and remembered a lot of the strategies and gameplay. I asked my mom about it and she told me that she bought it or rented it for my sister to play and I was introduced to it that way.
You play as Sir Cucumber, a knight of the Salad Kingdom who is quested with the task of defeating Minister Pumpkin, the main antagonist of the story, unless you count the farmies (this is what the game labels humans as). You were given this task by King Broccoli before his death because Minister Pumpkin had kidnapped his daughter– you guessed it– Princess Tomato. While the plot is very cliche and boring I can assure you that this game is pretty far from what you might expect. If you look at the box art with its claymation anthropomorphic fruits and vegetables you might think this is one of the educational baby games like Fisher Price Perfect Fit or Sesame Street 1-2-3, but it is in fact a surprisingly adult game. There is a scene where you take an asparagus donut out of a trash can (Yuck!). There is another scene where the player gets placed into a cell at a police station that is set up to fill with water to drown whoever is inside. After escaping, you barter for a hand grenade made out of soap and tie up the police chief. Later in the game, when you enter a bathroom where someone that resembles the shape of a tomato is taking a shower, the game requires you to open the shower curtain while that person is naked inside. Does this sound like a cutesie kids’ game or a boring educational game that helps you spell or learn math?
Before I get into reviewing the game I feel that it is only fair to reveal that I am biased. In my early days in the NES content space, I was a speedrunner (and still am, kinda) and this game was one of the first world records I achieved. The record still stands today nearly six years later and was uploaded to a site called Speed Demos Archive. This was before the site Speedrun.com was founded. You can check the record out here. I suppose I will start with the graphics and sound. As far as graphics are concerned they are pretty serviceable. There are some really great-looking landscapes and towns along with above-average character sprites that really immerse you in the gameplay and connect you with the storylines of the characters. I particularly like the aforementioned police character that is a green pepper but gets mad and turns into a red pepper. It’s these types of little jokes and Easter eggs that make me really appreciate this game. As far as the soundtrack goes it is also above average and features catchy tunes that will get stuck in your head (in a good way, at least for me). The music fits the theme of the areas well and also adds to the tension in boss fights and dangerous scenes.
The gameplay is very fun if you like this genre and are adept at solving puzzles. Like most games in this genre, the only frustrating thing is knowing what to do. It often involves talking to all the NPCs multiple times to trigger specific dialogues and using nearly every item in your inventory in every section to progress. I personally find this type of thing very fun and it is so rewarding when you finally figure out how to pass a section of the game. There is no way to game over and the game provides you with a password system so that you can continue after each chapter so there is little to no difficulty in completing the game. Because the challenge comes in figuring out how to progress, once you know, it has little replayability other than to explore the game more and find things that are not required. If you are looking for some fun on the NES, I would certainly recommend this game to anyone and I think you might be surprised by some of the dialogues and content of the game.
Pixel Perfect
Recommended
8-Bit Steve is a Detroit native, NES Speedrunner, High Score chaser, and published author, holding well over 100 NES world records and climbing to the top of the NES high score rankings. Along with writing four books in his series “The Easy Way” (Friday the 13th, Festers Quest, Jaws, Mike Tyson’s Punch-out!!), which focus on beating hard NES games as easily as possible. www.8bitsteve.com
