Lucky Monkey? More like lucky me ...

You the saying, "never judge a book by its cover"? Well, in the case of this game, I wish I would've heeded a slight twist on that oft-used cliché ("never judge a game based on random screenshots") long before now.

Oh, well, at least I pulled my head out of my keister eventually, right?

And, really, it's at least somewhat understandable that I would've ignored Natsume's Lucky Monkey--released elsewhere as Spanky's Quest--for a certain period of time, as it's hardly the most attractive (in terms of graphics) GameBoy title out there.

Not helping matters was the fact that Natsume published a second game called Spanky's Quest in the West--this time for the SNES--which long led me to believe the GameBoy iteration was little more than a second-string bastardization of its 16-bit big brother.

So, what prompted me to change my mind about this oddly compelling (in the end) portable title? Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it was the Japanese version's box art:

Actually, its cart-label art is even better:

Lucky Monkey's Arabic-leaning logo (see the first photo, above, for the best view of it) also is pretty cool, if you ask me--as is the curvy, English version of the same logo that's plastered across the side of its box.



Thankfully, this GameBoy game's packaging isn't all that's attractive about it. Its gameplay--which basically involves clearing each stage of fruity (literally) baddies by bouncing bubbles on the titular monkey's head before tossing them at the aforementioned adversaries--is pretty great, too, once you get a hang of it.

Lucky Monkey is a game that can be enjoyed no matter which language(s) you understand, by the way, so feel free to pick up the Japanese version, the North American version (called Spanky's Quest) or any other version of the game you come across in your pursuit of portable, ball-bouncing, fruit-flaying action.

Do you know of any other GameBoy "gems" I should add to my collection? If so, let me know about them in the comments section below.

See also: 'Who you gonna call? HAL Laboratory's Ghostbusters 2 for GameBoy'