Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom

Once upon a time, I was thumbing through a game magazine, when a picture of a crying tomato-esque baby caught my eye. Another picture beside it showed an angry pepper-headed man. What was this? I wondered. I read the title: Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom. As a kid, that was so delightfully bizarre to me. I had to play this game!

"Oh God! Does anyone have any peanut butter?"

Unfortunately, Princess Tomato must not have been very popular, because I never saw it in a store. Of course, I was seven at the time so I didn't get out to the gaming shops very often. My mom did take me to our local video store every weekend to rent NES and Genesis games, but Princess Tomato was not on the shelf.

So fast-forward 19 years later: I came home from work and, bored, I decided to play a video game. Nothing on my shelf looked too appealing, so I decided to browse through Wii's Virtual Console service. Maybe they've finally released Final Fantasy VI, I thought. Well, as of this entry, that still hasn't happened, but wait! Imagine my surprise when I saw Princess Tomato in the New Additions section! At $5, there was no hesitation. I promptly purchased it and spent the rest of my evening playing it.

The first thing I learned: the baby tomato? It's actually a persimmon fruit. Percy the Persimmon to be exact. Well color me red, because I didn't even know what a persimmon fruit was until I Googled it just now.

A persimmon, apparently.

Moving on...

The premise of this game is that you take the role of the noble Sir Cucumber, a traveling knight, who has been promised the beautiful Princess Tomato's hand in marriage - if you can rescue her from the evil traitor, Minister Pumpkin, that is. This is the final request of King Broccoli (Tomato's father) before he passes away from the grief of it all.

Don't let the beetles get you!

So I guess I'll stop right there: How does a broccoli have a tomato as a daughter? The answer is: I have no freaking clue. I think "Princess Broccolini" would be more appropriate. But hey, if you think that's strange, look at this picture:

Who is this random human woman? Why, that's none other than Lisa, Tomato's sister and Broccoli's OTHER daughter, obviously! Why is she a human and Tomato is a, um, tomato? Well, we never really solve that mystery. Maybe they're both adopted? I hope Lisa is strictly carnivorous. Anyway...

The game play itself works sort of like a text adventure. You have a set menu of commands that you can use to investigate each scene. You'll look for clues, collect items, and speak with other vege-citizans to figure out where Minister Pumpkin hid the Princess. On the way, you'll flirt with a pretty eggplant, free some lettuces from wicked "Farmies", and escape from a couple of other tight pickles you'll find yourself in. (Get it? 'Cause it's Sir Cucumber, and he's in a pickle, and..... oh, nevermind.)

So many anthropomorphic vegetables, and not one ounce of educational value.

The game thankfully utilizes a password save system, which means no hard work down the toilet, and no accidentally erasing a save file because you forgot to hit START and RESET at the same time. (I once accidentally erased a friend's Legend of Zelda game that she had been working on for, and I quote, "My entire life!" She was none too happy.)

There is no combat, per se, in the game. The few skirmishes take the form of "finger wars", a rock/paper/scissors mini-game. Most of the game is spent investigating areas and figuring out more pieces of the story, so if you're looking for something more action-packed, you probably want to skip this one. The game can also get frustrating as you sometimes have no idea what you're supposed to be doing to progress the story, and hitting random commands isn't always enough. There was one part of the game that involved exiting a screen twice before the correct action you needed had any effect. This can sometimes make the game tedious.

Combat = rock, paper, scissors.

Despite some of the shortcomings, the charm and appeal of the vegetable characters and their salad-y world, along with a fun story, definitely makes this worth the purchase. I can fairly say that it's a standout title in the NES library; I can't think of any other NES games quite like this one. It's definitely worth the $5 download, and if you ever come across it at a yard sale or a flea market, I'd pick this up because the cartridge has become somewhat difficult to find. I would attribute that to the niche appeal of the title paired with the fact that Princess Tomato wasn't released in the United States until 1991. NES was slowing down in the wake of the Genesis, and Nintendo was preparing to launch its new system, the Super Nintendo. It's great that Nintendo chose to re-release this little-known gem on the Virtual Console. Play it, enjoy it, and appreciate your vegetables a little more before you smother them in bacon ranch dressing and shove them down your gullet.      

Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom is currently available for the Virtual Console for 500 Wii Points ($5). It is also available used and new on Amazon.com for a variable price.