Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom (サラダの国のトマト姫 Sarada no Kuni no Tomato Hime?) is a video game by Hudson Soft originally released in 1984 for the NEC PC-9801, NEC PC-8801, NEC PC-6001, FM-7 and MSX Japanese home computers.
It was ported on May 27, 1988 to the Famicom and February 8, 1991 for the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America. It was also released on the Wii's Virtual Console in Japan on January 19, 2010 and in North America on February 8, 2010.
The characters are primarily cartoon-like anthropomorphic fruits and vegetables.
Plot[]
Taking the role of Sir Cucumber, a knight, the player is assigned by King Broccoli (now deceased) to defeat the evil Minister Pumpkin who has kidnapped Princess Tomato. Early on, Sir Cucumber gains a sidekick, Percy the baby persimmon, who offers advice and helps throughout the quest (and always refers to Sir Cucumber as "Boss").
Gameplay[]
Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom is a graphical text parser adventure game, with the player being required to type in commands in order to execute actions. The screen is divided into upper and lower halves: the upper part, which occupies 4/5 of the screen, is the graphic display area, and the lower part, which occupies 1/5 of the screen, is the text display area.
The NES version plays similarly to a text adventure, though due to the NES's lack of a keyboard accessory, the possible commands are represented by buttons which line both sides of the screen. The commands are fixed and do not change during gameplay. Primarily, the game consists of still screens with the exception of the "finger wars" (rock, paper, scissors), mazes and occasional animated character, such as the octoberry and fernbirds. Players can issue commands to the game's protagonist. The only way to "lose" is by not being able to determine which action is required to advance or by failing to defeat end-game boss, Minister Pumpkin, in a game of "finger wars".
Trivia[]
- Princess Tomato appears as a playable character in Quiz Caravan Cult Q and Super Bomberman R.
- Princess Tomato appears as nonogram puzzles in Pixel Puzzle Collection.
- Princess Tomato, Sir Cucumber and Minister Pumpkin appears in the chapter 30 from the manga Otoro Club.