The Great Gaymathon Review #67: Kitchen Panic (GameBoy)

Game: Kitchen Panic

Genre: Action

Developer: Bits Laboratory

Publisher: Coconuts Japan

System: GameBoy

Release date: 1991

Let's not beat around the bush--or maybe I should say blender--here: if Kitchen Panic were edible rather than playable, it would be a McDonald's Happy Meal instead of a four-course meal from a three-star restaurant.

That's not me saying this Japan-only GameBoy title deserves to be dumped in the trash along with the spoiled leftovers, by the way. On the contrary, it's actually a pretty cute, "enjoyable enough" little game--just don't look for it to blow you away. And for crying out loud, don't go dropping a wad of cash on it (unless you're one of those crazy collector-types, of course). Go into it with the right expectations, though, and I think you'll have a reasonably good time.

As for what you'll be doing during that "reasonably good time," well, you'll be running around kitchen-themed levels of various sizes--they start off taking up a single screen but quickly grow to many times that--spraying insects of all sorts (cockroaches, mosquitos, worms and more) with Raid until a door appears and whisks you off to another one.

If that sounds less than totally thrilling, well, I can't blame you. Kitchen Panic is, after all, a pretty basic experience. Still, it all becomes kind of enjoyable after you've spent a bit of time with it. Also, the slightest smidge of depth enters the fray when you discover that the sun-, star- and moon-branded blocks that seem to randomly appear (I haven't figured out what prompts them to pop up, at least) after killing certain insects can be pushed together to boost your health, allow you to become invincible and more.

Toss into the mix a couple of bonus stages and boss fights, and you've got yourself an arcade-style action game that's sort of repetitive but also sort of fun--and sports some rather nice "cart art," if I do say so myself.

See also: some photos of Kitchen Panic's packaging, scans of its entire instruction manual, plus previous 'Great Gaymathon' reviews

Shall We Do It? (I'm back in Seattle, and back to sashaying my way through Bravely Default)

Some of you may have noticed that I've published fewer posts than usual over the last two weeks. Don't worry, this recent dip in output has had nothing to do with a corresponding dip in my blogging interest or anything like that. Rather, it had to do with my husband and I traveling to Palm Springs, California, to take in a little sun and a lot of professional tennis. (A few photos of both experiences can be seen here, if you're interested.)

Sadly, we're back in Seattle now, which means I'm not only back to publishing blog posts five or six times a week but I'm also back to playing as many video games as I'm able. (Although I took my North American 3DS XL with me, I barely touched it during our week-plus vacation.)

It also means, of course, that I'm back to playing Bravely Default--a game that had nabbed more than 40 hours of my life before Palm Springs et al stole my attention.

Anyway, last time I checked in, I was just about to complete this 3DS RPG's fourth chapter, right? Well, I finally did just that in the days before my recent travels began. Currently, I'm meandering my way through the game's controversial fifth chapter.

I don't want to spoil for any latecomers what happens at this juncture in the game, so all I'll say here is that initially it had me rolling my eyes. I've since moved past my annoyance, thankfully, and I'm now back to mostly enjoying the experience.

I say mostly, of course, because I'm still a bit irked by this game's obsession with conversation. Every time someone starts speaking, my eyes glaze over. I feel kind of bad admitting that, as clearly a number of people spent a lot of time localizing Bravely Default's text, but I can't help but wish they'd simply removed, rather than translated, a good portion of it.

Other than that, though, I'm liking it well enough and I'm curious as to where this journey is going to take me in subsequent chapters.

Oh, one thing I should have mentioned earlier: in the days leading up to my vacation, I gained access to the game's "vampire" job--which, of course, caused me to obsessively scour the globe in search of "genome abilities." (The vampire job in Bravely Default is a lot like the "blue mage" one in Final Fantasy V, for those of you who've played the latter. And for those of you who haven't played it, the vampire occupation enables party members in Bravely Default to learn certain moves and spells from enemies.)

With that done, I completed the chapter and ... continued obsessively scouring the globe in search of genome abilities. (This will make a lot more sense once you've gotten to this part of the game, believe me.)

I've also been completing the other tasks that are required of players in chapter five, mind you, so it isn't like my last five to 10 hours with the game have been a total waste of time.

Aside from that, I'm not sure what else to say about Bravely Default at the moment--other than I'm kind of looking forward to finishing it so I can start playing Yoshi's New Island and a bunch of other games that have fallen into my lap in the last couple of weeks. (More on those in an upcoming post or two, of course).

In the meantime, are any of you still plugging away at Bravely Default? If so, what is your current opinion of it? And if not, what games are you playing instead?

See also: previous 'Shall We Do It?' posts

Manual Stimulation: Painter Momopie (GameBoy)

Now that I've published a review of Painter Momopie--as well as a few photos of my recently acquired copy of this import-only GameBoy title--I guess the only thing left to do is share some scans of its adorable instruction manual.



Those of you who examined this game's cover art with a magnifying glass may have noticed that its character designs were created by someone named Gen Satou. Unfortunately, that name doesn't ring any bells for me, and Google has done little to clarify things, so I can only assume it meant something to the small community of Japanese folks who bought copies of this Pac-Man clone back in the day.

Regardless, the design he came up with for Painter Momopie's protagonist is pretty darn cute, if you ask me.



The right-hand page above shares the game's backstory, by the way. Sadly, I can't understand a word of it. Hopefully it explains why this little witch (I mean that literally) is painting the floors of someone's home?



Admittedly, these first few pages are far from exciting. At least they feature a couple of cute illustrations, though, right?

I guess you could say my life is now complete

Why, you ask? Because the sweet "Yaranaika?" t-shirt my podcasting pal shidoshi bought me while in Japan late last year finally is in my grubby little hands.

Please accept my apologies for the rather crappy nature of the photo below. Apparently the camera on my MacBook doesn't like sunny mornings. (How Seattle of it!)

Hopefully you can make out enough of it to see that the shirt bears the same image found on this blog's header.

In case I haven't said it before, the text on the shirt is Japanese for “shall we do it?” and it comes from a  rather dirty--and gay--manga called Kuso Miso Technique that was first published back in 1987.

The Great Gaymathon Review #66: Painter Momopie (GameBoy)

Game: Painter Momopie

Genre: Action

Developer: Sigma Entertainment

Publisher: Sigma Entertainment

System: GameBoy

Release date: 1990

I've mentioned this game in so many posts over the last six months that I thought I finally should write and publish a formal review of it.

So, what's the first thing you should know about this little-known import? I'd say it's that the game, at its heart, is a late-to-the-party Pac-Man clone. Actually, a better way of stating things might be to say that it plays like an inverted version of that Namco classic. After all, rather than ridding each stage of something (pellets in the case of Pac-Man), in Painter Momopie your aim is to fill each stage with something--specifically, you're tasked with painting the floors of someone's home. (The titular Momopie's? I would guess so, but I'm not entirely sure.)

Sigma's "clone" apes its main source of inspiration in another important way, too--that being that the witchy protagonist is forced to avoid, as best she can, a slew of baddies who "kill" her upon touch. Unlike their counterparts in Pac-Man, though, the enemies found in Painter Momopie aren't simply color swaps of one another. Here they're distinct creatures with similarly distinct personalities and routines. A few examples: the blubbery ghosts that float through walls, the tittering mice that occasionally leave behind footprints that have to be cleaned up and the odd-looking baddies known as "ojari" that drop deadly puffs of dust in their wake.

That isn't the only example of how this portable effort differs from its quarter-munching predecessor. Another: Painter Momopie's stages aren't abstract realities like those that appear in Pac-Man. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, the ones in the former seem to be the actual rooms of someone's house. The whole she-bang begins in the kitchen, for instance, then moves to the hallway, a couple of bedrooms and more. I wouldn't go so far as to describe these constructions as being anything close to ornate, but they get the job done and they're more visually intriguing than Pac-Man's neon-colored corridors, so I'm not about to complain.

Momopie's individual levels also are far less rigid than the ones found in Namco's genre king, with rooms laid out in a more organic and asymmetrical fashion. That's generally a good thing, by the way, but not always, as sometimes I find myself longing for even a couple of them to be a bit more structured so I can zone out like I do when I play, say, Ms. Pac-Man. (Because, really, who plays Pac-Man when they have access to his wife's game?)

What else should you know about Painter Momopie before spending your hard-earned dollars on a copy of it (or, you know, before you search for and download the ROM--hey, I'm not judging)? Well, it looks quite nice, even if it's far from a stunner. I especially like Momopie's sprite, for whatever reason.

Its soundtrack isn't quite so impressive, sadly. The tunes are jaunty enough, but they stick around too long--you have to listen to the same one over and over again for seven stages before a new one pops up. Granted, games like Bubble Bobble force you to listen to the same track from start to finish, so it seems harsh to complain about Momopie's situation, but then again the latter's music can't hold a candle to former's so maybe that's the real issue here.

The only other thing I can think of to say here is that you've got to stick with Painter Momopie a bit before it shows its teeth, so to speak. The first seven stages are a veritable cakewalk, but things do become more difficult after that. So, if your only quibble early on is that it's a bit too easy, play a few more levels before deciding to hang on to it or give it the heave-ho.

See also: photos of the Painter Momopie box and cartridge, and scans of the Painter Momopie manual