From AlphaDream and Graphic Research, Tomato Adventure is an RPG released only in Japan. Taking place in a kingdom with tomatoes abound, the gameplay is similar to that of the Mario & Luigi series. Tomato Adventure, in terms of gameplay mechanics, is the predecessor of the Mario & Luigi series of games, even having its engine reused in the first installment on the GameBoy Advance. Originally developed for the Game Boy Color, Tomato Adventure transitioned to its successor, the Game Boy Advance, when the latter was released. The main difference between the two versions is believed to lie in the quality of audio and graphics, although little substantial information exists on the Game Boy Color version. Tomato Adventure incorporates a number of RPG standards such as leveling up and travelling to various places to advance the plot. However, the battle system itself is substantially different than most games in the genre, as players have a more active role in how the fights turn out. During the player's turn, they can select a character's attack and then their target. From there, they must perform one of a number of different minigames which determines how successful the attack is. These range from simple button mashers to stopping a meter at a specific point. While attacks can land without reaching the optimal point, their effectiveness tends to be severed in the process. Additionally, each attack has a separate amount of usage points which dictate how many times the player can use that specific attack before needing to revitalize themselves.
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Given that this is the Japan-exclusive game Alpha Dream made for Nintendo before they made the first Mario & Luigi game, I went into this game expecting it to be an okay sort of proto-M&L experience. While to a certain degree that is absolutely true, I was nevertheless routinely surprised at how mechanically interesting and narratively clever this game was. It's not super long at only 15-ish hours, but it was still absolutely worth the time and the 700 yen I paid for it on the Wii U Virtual Console.
The story of Tomato Adventure is about Demiru, a little rabbit-like boy in a vegetable/food land of the Tomato Kingdom. While on a search for his girlfriend Pasaran's robot, she's kidnapped by the evil King Abira, who plans to use her energy to turn the kingdom from food into toys. Fighting through his 6 Super Kids one at a time, you aim to save your girlfriend with the help of some wacky friends you meet along the way. The story is fairly self-aware, irreverent, and silly, with a tone that struck me as something between an early 2000's gag anime and a Loony Toons cartoon. It's got a tone more irreverent and less serious than Superstar Saga, for example, and that combined with the relatively short length keep it from getting stale. Being a 2002 JRPG aimed at kids, it doesn't have any sort of serious message to get across, but its protagonists and antagonists were fun and silly enough that it kept the story interesting for me regardless.
The presentation is a bit of a mixed bag. I didn't have as much of a problem with this playing it on a wide-screen TV on my Wii U, but this game must've been a nightmare to play on the original GBA in 2002. Demiru is quite small on the screen, and the environments themselves tend to be very colorful and loud in their presentation. That on top of relatively small text made me routinely thankful to not be playing this on an unlit 3" GBA screen XD . The music is also really nothing to write home about. The boss themes are pretty nice, but there's only one or two, a standard battle theme, and then the final boss has not one but TWO unique tracks. Each area you go to has one or two themes for its main areas and dungeon parts respectively, but nothing really memeorable. The music and sound design sounds much closer to something like Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire than Superstar Saga in terms of quality and style (at least to my ears). Very much Early GBA Chic.
The gameplay is where the ideas that would go onto make Mario & Luigi start to really shine through though. There is no jumping or platforming the way the M&L games have in the overworld, and first strikes on enemies aren't a thing, but there are still environmental puzzles galore and no random encounters (enemies walk around and you touch them to initiate combat). This game has tons of puzzle and action mini-game segments that, while some are pretty pants, all tend to be very different and you'll rarely see something similar more than once. There are some that are so frustrating the game definitely would've benefited from an option to just skip them and move on after you'd failed a bunch, but that's difficult to reasonably expect from a game from 2002.
The combat, like M&L, revolves around fulfilling action commands around the "Gimmick" (literally what they're called) devices you find throughout the game. Demiru meets 3 party members over the course of his journey, and while only one of them can be active at a time (Demiru must always be in your party), each of them has their own gimmicks only they can use, with Demiru having the most as to give him more variety. The gimmicks themselves are subject to power creep pretty badly (really no reason not to at least try out new ones as you get them as they tend to be reasonably more powerful than your old ones), but none of their timed mini-games are the same. Some are quite similar, but no two are exactly alike, even between characters, although the instructions on how to perform their mini-games are sometimes quite annoyingly vaguely explained. The game rolls out the gimmicks pretty slow at the start as well as their related mechanics, and the game has a pretty dang slow and easy start in general, but you'll have dozens of gimmicks by the end of the game and the final boss or two really don't mess around.
Very similar to how Superstar Saga has difficulties for Bro Moves that you can increase to use less BP and deal more damage, you can change the difficulty of gimmick's action commands between battles to deal more damage at the risk of failing the command. It creates a neat risk/reward system that incentives getting really good at the newest gimmicks to do more damage. Additionally, very similar to what would be used for Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story's Bro Badge mechanics, you have "Incredible" points that you can build up by successfully completing gimmick action commands, and you build them up far faster by completing higher difficulty gimmick commands. You only unlock this feature once you get your first party member, but each of the 3 party members has two possible Incredible Actions they can do (one at 3/4ths Incredible bar, one at full bar) for different effects ranging from a full-party heal to massive AOE damage to your enemies. To balance this, each gimmick has a certain number of times you can use it before you need to use other of your 4 equipped gimmicks (you must have as many as you can equipped up to a maximum of 4), which balances out the risk/reward by encouraging you to use gimmicks you can complete reliably, and not just ones that do a lot of damage.
However, this is where that mechanic stumbles a bit. If you fail an action command JUST one time, your entire stock of Incredible points drops to 0, meaning you are punished pretty hard for not succeeding at an action command. There's also no way to practice action commands outside of real combat, meaning there's no way to tell for sure what a new gimmick's action command will be, let alone exactly how upping the difficulty of a certain gimmick will affect the possibility of its completion. One or two gimmicks (including Demiru's 4th acquired one) are entirely down to luck, which can make building up Incredible points super irritating if you lose your entire bar because you guessed wrong. Some have higher difficulties that are absurdly difficult and bordering on impossible to complete on purpose, and there were many I found I had no chance to complete even by accident on power levels past 4 (each has 7 levels of difficulty). This is further complicated by the strange way this game decides to do character leveling.
Leveling your actual character through combat only ups their speed and maximum health. Your defense is tied to the armor you're wearing, and you'll rarely find new armor outside of buying it at the new town's shop (although money is basically never an issue if you just fight everything you see like I did). And your attack power is tied entirely to the gimmick you're using, and gimmick power level is decided by 3 things: the specific gimmick (some are simply more powerful than others as their base power rating), the 1-7 action command difficulty you've chosen for that gimmick, and finally how much you've increased that gimmick's power through batteries.
There are 4 types of gimmicks and their action commands revolve around the theme of their type: Timing, Renda (button mashing), Speed (do commands within a time limit), and Dokidoki (basically an "Other" category, usually revolving around memorization and/or abject luck). You can find in chests and from enemy drops (and in the much later game, outright buy for large sums of money) batteries that will increase the power level of a gimmick. It can't be done infinitely, but it's a good way to make a gimmick you like continue its usefulness even when other newer gimmicks have higher base power levels. This also smartly incentivizes spreading out the types of gimmicks across the characters you use, as while you may be able to very reliably do the action commands for most button mashing gimmicks and speed ones, that means you'll have a ton of unused timing and dokidoki batteries and relatively underpowered overall gimmick strength. Ultimately, all this means that while you can't necessarily grind levels for more power, you can grind money to power up your favorite gimmicks for the end-game (and the final boss is a proper blighter, so you'll need them at max power, lemee tell ya). It also fortunately means that you aren't really punished that much for avoiding combat, since levels don't affect your overall power level that significantly (compared to traditional JRPGs at least).
Verdict: Highly Recommended. I was very pleasantly and regularly surprised by the quality of this game. The slow and very easy start had me a bit worried it'd be pretty boring, but I hit a stride around the first boss of the game that really had me hooked. While the last two dungeons go on for a bit too long, the game otherwise has really nice signposting and good overall pacing, and a nice difficulty curve to boot (although the highest spots of it are a bit weirdly high for a game that says its geared towards kids). This is now one of my favorite games Alpha Dream has done, and one of the Japan-exclusive games I've most enjoyed playing. It's absolutely worth your time with a fan translation or to help practice your Japanese ^w^
The story of Tomato Adventure is about Demiru, a little rabbit-like boy in a vegetable/food land of the Tomato Kingdom. While on a search for his girlfriend Pasaran's robot, she's kidnapped by the evil King Abira, who plans to use her energy to turn the kingdom from food into toys. Fighting through his 6 Super Kids one at a time, you aim to save your girlfriend with the help of some wacky friends you meet along the way. The story is fairly self-aware, irreverent, and silly, with a tone that struck me as something between an early 2000's gag anime and a Loony Toons cartoon. It's got a tone more irreverent and less serious than Superstar Saga, for example, and that combined with the relatively short length keep it from getting stale. Being a 2002 JRPG aimed at kids, it doesn't have any sort of serious message to get across, but its protagonists and antagonists were fun and silly enough that it kept the story interesting for me regardless.
The presentation is a bit of a mixed bag. I didn't have as much of a problem with this playing it on a wide-screen TV on my Wii U, but this game must've been a nightmare to play on the original GBA in 2002. Demiru is quite small on the screen, and the environments themselves tend to be very colorful and loud in their presentation. That on top of relatively small text made me routinely thankful to not be playing this on an unlit 3" GBA screen XD . The music is also really nothing to write home about. The boss themes are pretty nice, but there's only one or two, a standard battle theme, and then the final boss has not one but TWO unique tracks. Each area you go to has one or two themes for its main areas and dungeon parts respectively, but nothing really memeorable. The music and sound design sounds much closer to something like Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire than Superstar Saga in terms of quality and style (at least to my ears). Very much Early GBA Chic.
The gameplay is where the ideas that would go onto make Mario & Luigi start to really shine through though. There is no jumping or platforming the way the M&L games have in the overworld, and first strikes on enemies aren't a thing, but there are still environmental puzzles galore and no random encounters (enemies walk around and you touch them to initiate combat). This game has tons of puzzle and action mini-game segments that, while some are pretty pants, all tend to be very different and you'll rarely see something similar more than once. There are some that are so frustrating the game definitely would've benefited from an option to just skip them and move on after you'd failed a bunch, but that's difficult to reasonably expect from a game from 2002.
The combat, like M&L, revolves around fulfilling action commands around the "Gimmick" (literally what they're called) devices you find throughout the game. Demiru meets 3 party members over the course of his journey, and while only one of them can be active at a time (Demiru must always be in your party), each of them has their own gimmicks only they can use, with Demiru having the most as to give him more variety. The gimmicks themselves are subject to power creep pretty badly (really no reason not to at least try out new ones as you get them as they tend to be reasonably more powerful than your old ones), but none of their timed mini-games are the same. Some are quite similar, but no two are exactly alike, even between characters, although the instructions on how to perform their mini-games are sometimes quite annoyingly vaguely explained. The game rolls out the gimmicks pretty slow at the start as well as their related mechanics, and the game has a pretty dang slow and easy start in general, but you'll have dozens of gimmicks by the end of the game and the final boss or two really don't mess around.
Very similar to how Superstar Saga has difficulties for Bro Moves that you can increase to use less BP and deal more damage, you can change the difficulty of gimmick's action commands between battles to deal more damage at the risk of failing the command. It creates a neat risk/reward system that incentives getting really good at the newest gimmicks to do more damage. Additionally, very similar to what would be used for Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story's Bro Badge mechanics, you have "Incredible" points that you can build up by successfully completing gimmick action commands, and you build them up far faster by completing higher difficulty gimmick commands. You only unlock this feature once you get your first party member, but each of the 3 party members has two possible Incredible Actions they can do (one at 3/4ths Incredible bar, one at full bar) for different effects ranging from a full-party heal to massive AOE damage to your enemies. To balance this, each gimmick has a certain number of times you can use it before you need to use other of your 4 equipped gimmicks (you must have as many as you can equipped up to a maximum of 4), which balances out the risk/reward by encouraging you to use gimmicks you can complete reliably, and not just ones that do a lot of damage.
However, this is where that mechanic stumbles a bit. If you fail an action command JUST one time, your entire stock of Incredible points drops to 0, meaning you are punished pretty hard for not succeeding at an action command. There's also no way to practice action commands outside of real combat, meaning there's no way to tell for sure what a new gimmick's action command will be, let alone exactly how upping the difficulty of a certain gimmick will affect the possibility of its completion. One or two gimmicks (including Demiru's 4th acquired one) are entirely down to luck, which can make building up Incredible points super irritating if you lose your entire bar because you guessed wrong. Some have higher difficulties that are absurdly difficult and bordering on impossible to complete on purpose, and there were many I found I had no chance to complete even by accident on power levels past 4 (each has 7 levels of difficulty). This is further complicated by the strange way this game decides to do character leveling.
Leveling your actual character through combat only ups their speed and maximum health. Your defense is tied to the armor you're wearing, and you'll rarely find new armor outside of buying it at the new town's shop (although money is basically never an issue if you just fight everything you see like I did). And your attack power is tied entirely to the gimmick you're using, and gimmick power level is decided by 3 things: the specific gimmick (some are simply more powerful than others as their base power rating), the 1-7 action command difficulty you've chosen for that gimmick, and finally how much you've increased that gimmick's power through batteries.
There are 4 types of gimmicks and their action commands revolve around the theme of their type: Timing, Renda (button mashing), Speed (do commands within a time limit), and Dokidoki (basically an "Other" category, usually revolving around memorization and/or abject luck). You can find in chests and from enemy drops (and in the much later game, outright buy for large sums of money) batteries that will increase the power level of a gimmick. It can't be done infinitely, but it's a good way to make a gimmick you like continue its usefulness even when other newer gimmicks have higher base power levels. This also smartly incentivizes spreading out the types of gimmicks across the characters you use, as while you may be able to very reliably do the action commands for most button mashing gimmicks and speed ones, that means you'll have a ton of unused timing and dokidoki batteries and relatively underpowered overall gimmick strength. Ultimately, all this means that while you can't necessarily grind levels for more power, you can grind money to power up your favorite gimmicks for the end-game (and the final boss is a proper blighter, so you'll need them at max power, lemee tell ya). It also fortunately means that you aren't really punished that much for avoiding combat, since levels don't affect your overall power level that significantly (compared to traditional JRPGs at least).
Verdict: Highly Recommended. I was very pleasantly and regularly surprised by the quality of this game. The slow and very easy start had me a bit worried it'd be pretty boring, but I hit a stride around the first boss of the game that really had me hooked. While the last two dungeons go on for a bit too long, the game otherwise has really nice signposting and good overall pacing, and a nice difficulty curve to boot (although the highest spots of it are a bit weirdly high for a game that says its geared towards kids). This is now one of my favorite games Alpha Dream has done, and one of the Japan-exclusive games I've most enjoyed playing. It's absolutely worth your time with a fan translation or to help practice your Japanese ^w^
This game is magic, but it's kind of like a magic show that goes on for too long, where you want the magician to stop and let your parents take you home.
AlphaDream's pre-Mario & Luigi outing is somehow even zanier than a lot of things in that series.
(I'll get this out of the way too, the final dungeon goes on for waaay too long.)
However, this feels like unfiltered creative energy, while Superstar Saga feels like it's more filtered, polished and focused creative energy. Like water put through a sieve and partially de-mineralized, thus more digestible.
As a result, the game can fly too close to the sun with regards to how nonsensical and unapologetically left-field it is - and it often wears thin later on in the game. It felt like they were a desperate street magician always pulling thousand of tricks out of their hat in order to get passerby's attention. Impressive, but ultimately 'clingy' if that makes sense as an adjective for a game.
The story is interesting but majorly confusing - and not that it has to be the most well written for a JRPG intended to be excessively lighthearted. Still, I came out of this at the end kind of bone-weary of all the jokes, and really, really wishing for some of the plot points to be explained or even a dredge of character development. Characters like Rellek and Sofubi (names in the wonderful English translation) don't really have that much depth to begin with, or motivations other than "this journey sounds cool, I'll join you now K?"
The battle system is not all fun and games either. You basically attack only with techniques called Gimmicks, and you get more Gimmicks as you progress through one way or another (there are multiple ways to attain them). All of the Gimmicks require you to do a kind of Warioware-esque microgame in order for them to have much power.
Yet, I just really wasn't a huge fan of this system. Imagine a Mario & Luigi game where you can only use Bros Attacks. Then add that there are like (at least) 35 different Bros Attacks to choose from and ones for each character + you have multiple party members to juggle. I don't think this is the most optimized or polished RPG system, not by a long shot.
Yet, despite all these faults, it's a three star game because it's quite amazing, for AlphaDream's "first" attempt at this kind of thing. Yes, they had another amazing debut game for the Game Boy Color, "Koto Battle", but I'd say this is the first game of theirs in this kind of extremely zany style. I wonder how they managed to imbue this game with the kind of stylistic organization that would become a hallmark of all their later games (until the companies sad alleged going-away recently)? It's undoubtedly wondrous. It's really hard to describe, and you can only understand by playing it. The bouncy music, the feeling that I'm in the imaginings of a strange and unique child (like I was). Whimsical, almost mad genius-like (like I wasn't). Daydreaming their own strange fairy tale based on the ones they hear in school.
It's not without cliche though, and it actually has a lot of those damsel-in-distress plot points, but overall for it's stylistics alone it's bumped up half a star from what it would be.
Overall, I'd recommend you play this after you experience at least a few of the Mario & Luigi games - for then you will appreciate how far AlphaDream had come since this release, and you'll also see a lot of the lineage of those games here.
It's ultimately a pretty imperfect and sometimes annoying game - but endlessly charming, surprising and enjoyable. If the PS1 game "moon", as the story goes, was a deconstruction of RPG's from without, this game is a deconstruction from within and using RPG mechanics. It's about as flawed as something attempting that can be - yet it's worth taking a look at, even a brief one, for seeing an attempt at that sort of thing, a really colorful attempt.
(My play time upon completing the game was about 14 hours 53 minutes)
AlphaDream's pre-Mario & Luigi outing is somehow even zanier than a lot of things in that series.
(I'll get this out of the way too, the final dungeon goes on for waaay too long.)
However, this feels like unfiltered creative energy, while Superstar Saga feels like it's more filtered, polished and focused creative energy. Like water put through a sieve and partially de-mineralized, thus more digestible.
As a result, the game can fly too close to the sun with regards to how nonsensical and unapologetically left-field it is - and it often wears thin later on in the game. It felt like they were a desperate street magician always pulling thousand of tricks out of their hat in order to get passerby's attention. Impressive, but ultimately 'clingy' if that makes sense as an adjective for a game.
The story is interesting but majorly confusing - and not that it has to be the most well written for a JRPG intended to be excessively lighthearted. Still, I came out of this at the end kind of bone-weary of all the jokes, and really, really wishing for some of the plot points to be explained or even a dredge of character development. Characters like Rellek and Sofubi (names in the wonderful English translation) don't really have that much depth to begin with, or motivations other than "this journey sounds cool, I'll join you now K?"
The battle system is not all fun and games either. You basically attack only with techniques called Gimmicks, and you get more Gimmicks as you progress through one way or another (there are multiple ways to attain them). All of the Gimmicks require you to do a kind of Warioware-esque microgame in order for them to have much power.
Yet, I just really wasn't a huge fan of this system. Imagine a Mario & Luigi game where you can only use Bros Attacks. Then add that there are like (at least) 35 different Bros Attacks to choose from and ones for each character + you have multiple party members to juggle. I don't think this is the most optimized or polished RPG system, not by a long shot.
Yet, despite all these faults, it's a three star game because it's quite amazing, for AlphaDream's "first" attempt at this kind of thing. Yes, they had another amazing debut game for the Game Boy Color, "Koto Battle", but I'd say this is the first game of theirs in this kind of extremely zany style. I wonder how they managed to imbue this game with the kind of stylistic organization that would become a hallmark of all their later games (until the companies sad alleged going-away recently)? It's undoubtedly wondrous. It's really hard to describe, and you can only understand by playing it. The bouncy music, the feeling that I'm in the imaginings of a strange and unique child (like I was). Whimsical, almost mad genius-like (like I wasn't). Daydreaming their own strange fairy tale based on the ones they hear in school.
It's not without cliche though, and it actually has a lot of those damsel-in-distress plot points, but overall for it's stylistics alone it's bumped up half a star from what it would be.
Overall, I'd recommend you play this after you experience at least a few of the Mario & Luigi games - for then you will appreciate how far AlphaDream had come since this release, and you'll also see a lot of the lineage of those games here.
It's ultimately a pretty imperfect and sometimes annoying game - but endlessly charming, surprising and enjoyable. If the PS1 game "moon", as the story goes, was a deconstruction of RPG's from without, this game is a deconstruction from within and using RPG mechanics. It's about as flawed as something attempting that can be - yet it's worth taking a look at, even a brief one, for seeing an attempt at that sort of thing, a really colorful attempt.
(My play time upon completing the game was about 14 hours 53 minutes)
superstar saga’s gummier, chewier, older-younger brother. a proving grounds for ideas that would be explored more thoroughly, more successfully, and eventually worn thin in alphadream’s subsequent spiritual sequels. it’s cute! my save got corrupted!
feels like superstar saga literally from the first sound effect lol. This probably has some of my favorite combat of any turn-based game. They get really unique with the attacks and being able to change the difficulty of them is really cool. There are some attacks where it's like I meet my limit and others where it pushes me to get better at the gimmicks, it's fun. Also the vibe is just so colorful, I love it. Oddly enough, this game reminds me of the feeling I get during the ending of TTYD when you get that one cutscene you know the one. It really is a tomato adventure <3
My only complaint is it feels like it drags on for like one zone too much, maybe.
My only complaint is it feels like it drags on for like one zone too much, maybe.
Evil emperor forces local population to eat tomatoes and everyone that dislikes tomatoes is banned to a secluded village, also he kidnaps your girlfriend and you must travel the world acquiring MacGuffins to enter his castle and rescue her. This game manages to feel both creative and cliche at the same time. But while there isn't much of a story, the game still has a charming simplicity, fun characters/dialogues and colorful locations, just don't expect anything more than that- unlike mother series or legend of the seven stars, this game never takes itself seriously, as such its hard to really care about anything that is going on.
The combat relies on the gimmick system, in which before you attack, you must play a mini-game that can vary from memorization, to tapping a button really fast, or stopping a circle in the right spot or even inputting a specific sequence really fast. And you can adjust the difficulty, making more damage to the enemies the more difficult you set the gimmick, that is, if you succeed. Sadly I can't say the gimmick system is much of a success, as the gimmicks get progressively more intricate and the enemy encounters keep getting more frequent, thus the combat gets annoying. A faster and simpler timed button press system like the ones used in Shadow Hearts or SMRPG are still the better option imo. The two character party(there are three partners, but only one can be active) is also naturally restrictive and there isn't much in terms of strategy.
The level design also tries to be constantly innovating, but it only can do so much against the inherent repetitiveness of long JRPG dungeons in a game with very simple turn-based combat & mini-game repetition. And the dungeons are huge. It also doesn't help that the game was originally made for GBC, so the maps are more limited, feeling somewhat flat and horizontal.
Overall it's enjoyable, but far from the best.
The combat relies on the gimmick system, in which before you attack, you must play a mini-game that can vary from memorization, to tapping a button really fast, or stopping a circle in the right spot or even inputting a specific sequence really fast. And you can adjust the difficulty, making more damage to the enemies the more difficult you set the gimmick, that is, if you succeed. Sadly I can't say the gimmick system is much of a success, as the gimmicks get progressively more intricate and the enemy encounters keep getting more frequent, thus the combat gets annoying. A faster and simpler timed button press system like the ones used in Shadow Hearts or SMRPG are still the better option imo. The two character party(there are three partners, but only one can be active) is also naturally restrictive and there isn't much in terms of strategy.
The level design also tries to be constantly innovating, but it only can do so much against the inherent repetitiveness of long JRPG dungeons in a game with very simple turn-based combat & mini-game repetition. And the dungeons are huge. It also doesn't help that the game was originally made for GBC, so the maps are more limited, feeling somewhat flat and horizontal.
Overall it's enjoyable, but far from the best.
First GOTM finished for July 2022. Weird and quirky little game from the same developers of Mario and Luigi. You can feel M&L roots in this one. The combat is really great, as the "gimmick" system allows you to adjust the difficulty level and power of your weapons on the fly. The writing felt a little childish at times, and the last two dungeons were a slog, but still came away feeling charmed by this game. Think I would've loved it as a kid, but still appreciate it as an adult. Great game!