Yume Penguin Monogatari |
Famicom |
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Review by Rob "Dire 51" |
Konami |
Platform |
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Graphics: 8 |
Sound: 7 |
Gameplay: 7 |
Overall: 7 |
![]() Yume Penguin Monogatari (referred to hereafter as YPM) is one of Konami's lesser known Famicom titles. The strangeness in YPM beats out just about any of Konami's weirdest to date. Let me set up the story for you: Penta - who may or may not be Pentarou, the heroic penguin from Konami's earlier games Antarctic Adventure (MSX/Famicom) and Penguin Adventure (MSX) (and who made numerous cameo appearances in other Konami games) - has finally settled down with his girlfriend, Penko (who bears a startling resmeblance to Hamako, the female penguin from Gokujou Parodius!). Apparently, all of the racing around Antarctica he did in both Antarctic Adventure and Penguin Adventure (that, of course, is if he really is Pentarou) has left him quite famished. So he's eaten... and eaten... and eaten. He's not the same svelte penguin he was before, and because of his constant overeating, Penko is no longer satisfied with him. Anyway she's decided to leave him for a much thinner (and more evil) penguin named Ginji, but who I've nicknamed "Pimpy". Why Pimpy? This guy wears a top hat and a pair of evil looking sunglasses, and I have to say that if I had to picture a penguin pimp, that's what I'd picture him looking like. So to get her back, Penta now has to lose weight - and keep it off. Of course, Ginji is determined to keep his flippers on Penko, so he's dispatched his goons to force feed Penta so that he stays huge. Weird, eh? All of this is explained in a fairly hilarious opening sequence, showing Penko breaking the news to Penta while Ginji looks on, grinning evilly (#1). The funny thing is, after the initial shock of her news wears off, Penta keeps shoveling food into his mouth (#2), prompting Penko to scream at him about still eating even while she's breaking it off with him (#3 and #4). Priceless. The actual game is pretty standard stuff on the surface. Penta has to go through several levels, acquiring diet drinks, and either avoiding or destroying enemies - and avoiding food at all costs. The more diet drinks he gets, the more weight he loses. This is represented by what I've dubbed the fatso meter. If it's full, Penta is a ball of blubber and can only do a belly flop as an attack. As you get more diet drinks, the meter empties. Several notches on the meter represent the points that Penta loses more weight - when you grab the diet drink you need to get to that level, a sign that says "Shape Up!" descends from the sky onto Penta, and he goes down several pounds. As he goes down further in weight, he gains more attacks. The first time he shapes up, he can move faster and kick things. After that, he can shoot things out of his mouth and go even faster. That's where it stops, though.
The platforming action only takes up the first half of the stage, though. There's a brief intermission where Penta calls Penko on the phone and tells her how much weight he's lost, or how much weight he still has. If he's still too heavy, the game can end right there, but if not it's on to the second half of the stage is, which is a shooter stage. In those, Penta gets in his plane and takes to the sky, and must fight his way to the boss of the level. The same dangers that are on the ground await Penta in the sky, and tend to be a bit harder then they are on the ground, although not by much. When Penta does reach a boss, he has to avoid the food they throw at him and nail it in its weak spot until it dies. All the boss fights are in 2-D, until you reach Ginji and fight him in his giant, Twinbee-esque ship - the fight is presented from a 3-D perspective. Standard stuff, like I said. Not very hard at all - in fact, I finished the game on my third try. It's pretty easy for Penta to keep the weight on. Seemingly, everything in this world is made of sugar. You fall in the water, and Penta goes back to looking like a beached whale. You get hit by an enemy or hit an obstacle while in the shooter stages, and Penta bloats up like he just ate a thirty course dinner. How he gains weight from taking damage is beyond me, but I guess Konami wanted to make the game just that much more challenging. The graphics and animation are quite good. Everything's bright and cartoony, and it's very easy to tell what you should avoid. Penta and the rest of the cast animate quite well. The music is typical Konami Famicom music - very good, but not quite as memorable as some of their other work. The controls can take a bit of getting used to - when Penta is huge, he waddles. Slowly. He can't jump very far then, either. As he loses weight, he becomes easier to control.
Or maybe I'm off the mark completely. As the one and only Flying Omelette pointed out to me recently, "It seems to me that the story is more trying to make a joke out of an observation of human behavior (even those these are cartoon penguins) rather than preach a moral." It could be... it very well could be. In fact, that's probably exactly what it is. ~shrug~ Regardless, it's not about the moral. It's about the game. Yume Penguin Monogatari is a fun, yet easy, sidescroller, and definitely one of the better Famicom games Konami created. It's worth tracking down if you're looking for a relatively obscure import to add to your collection - hell, it's worth tracking down just so you can expose people to the sheer weirdness of the story (those that haven't seen it before usually end up just shaking their heads in bewilderment). If you can't do that, then you can always dig up the ROM somewhere online and check it out. Visit the OPCFG for more import reviews! |