Like Popeye, Burger Time has always been a classic arcade game I really like even if I’m pretty bad at it xD. When I saw that Burger Time Deluxe had been added to the Switch Online GameBoy service, I saw a great opportunity to just sit back and relax with a game that probably went on forever, as it was an arcade game, after all. You can imagine my surprise when the game ended and I saw credits after finishing world six! XD . It took me about 1.5 hours to beat the Japanese version of the game on my Switch not using save states or rewinds at all.

The conceit of Burger Time is pretty simple, as is the case for most old arcade games. Peter Pepper owns a burger shop, but the evil owner of the donut shop next door wants him out of business! Rather than simply coexisting (as surely a burger shop and a donut shop could, as they hardly fill the same niche. If anything, surely one being dinner and the other being dessert, they complement one another?) or out competing him, he sends a bunch of living food to destroy Peter Pepper. Pete has to walk over giant burgers to complete them and avoid food along the way, because this is presumably a means to an end <w>. It’s a big of a silly story, but it’s a good enough excuse as any to walk all over giant burgers that are presumably then served to people X3. There are also fun little cutscenes every 4 stages between worlds that illustrate little antics between Pete and the living food, many of which contain tons of completely unique animations and assets which are otherwise not in the game at all, which I found neat and worthy of mention~.

The mechanics of Burger Time are, befitting an arcade game, simple to get a hold of but contain some very difficult design and tricks to lean within it. To complete a level, you need to complete all the burgers. You walk over the entire length of it and drop it down to the next platform. If it lands on another ingredient, it’ll knock that one down too, and that one can knock down the one below itself, and so on and so forth. How they interact with the evil food you’re after is important too though. Of course, if an enemy is under a falling ingredient, it’ll get flattened to death and have to respawn. If you have to take an enemy head-on by yourself though, you’ll need to spend a charge of pepper, which is difficult to get back, but at least it’ll temporarily stun enemies long enough to get away. Every level has a maximum number of enemies that can be out at any time, so you’ll need to weigh the consequences in the moment if the devil you do know (the enemies as they’re currently spawned) is worth getting rid of for the devil you don’t (wherever they’ll respawn from later once killed). If an enemy is on the ingredient with you as you drop it, though, they’ll cause it to fall down an extra floor! More enemies on it mean more floors dropped as well, so even though it won’t kill them, it can be worth assembling a posse behind you sometimes to then drop ingredients faster and make burgers faster too~.

Though I don’t know for sure if other versions of Burger Time do this, there are some neat and interesting tricks to Deluxe that will really help in later levels. For example, all five enemy types have their own AI priorities that they’ll follow in different situations (not unlike the ghosts in Pac-Man). For example, eggs will always take a ladder if they encounter one, even if not taking it would get them closer to you. In contrast, sausages will always try and go towards the direction you are horizontally, even if that path ultimately leads to a dead-end they can’t reach you from. Learning to outsmart the AI was a very fun part of the game for me, and it makes it very satisfying to narrowly avoid dead because of a cleverly manipulated AI quirk~. Another interesting thing is that the items (and even extra ladders) that appear mid-stage are not random but determined by when certain ingredients fall or when particular burgers are completed. Though the where, which, and when of enemy spawning is still at least somewhat random, this deterministic design of item and ladder spawns does a fair job of making the game “solvable”, to a point, which is extra fun if you’re trying to chase high scores~.

The only real complaint I’d have is that some levels are so large that you can scroll the screen left and right. This isn’t exactly a problem, but it means that there’s often a significant part of the level that you just can’t see, and that can lead to making planning them out a task of trial and error rather than quick and clever planning in the moment. It’s not a huge problem, but the limited screen resolution definitely makes the game feel a bit harder than it needs to be, at times. At least you have infinite continues that will put you back at the start of the world you’re on, and passwords to bring you back to the start of a particular world if you’re having trouble though.

The presentation is very good for what’s ultimately quite an early GB game. The little enemies and Peter himself are animated and drawn up very well and distinctly, and there’s never any ambiguity in play because of how the graphics are put together. The music is also very fun, doing a good job of bringing the jaunty arcade-y energy of Burger Time to something the size of the palm of your hand~.

Verdict: Recommended. Arcade games aren’t for everyone, and the same goes for their handheld ports, but this is a very fun port of what I call a very fun game. It’s not perfect in its design, but that doesn’t keep it from being a bundle of fun. If you’re into Burger Time or just into arcade-y action games, this is a great thing to dive into whether on the Switch Online GameBoy service or through some other means~.

Number 15: BurgerTime foot burger. The last thing you'd want in your BurgerTime burger is someone's foot fungus. But as it turns out, that might be what you get. A DataEaster uploaded a game anonymously to the site showcasing him running along a burger. With the statement: "This is the burger you eat at BurgerTime." Admittedly, it was a giant burger.

But that's even worse.

The post went live at 1991 on the Game Boy, and a mere 20 minutes later, the BurgerTime in question was alerted to the rogue employee. At least, I hope he's rogue. How did it happen? Well, the BT employee hadn't removed the Exif data from the uploaded photo, which suggested the culprit was somewhere in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. This was at 11:47. Three minutes later at 11:50, the BurgerTime branch address was posted with wishes of happy unemployment. 5 minutes later, the news station was contacted by another DataEaster. And three minutes later, at 11:58, a link was posted: BT's "Tell us about us" online forum. The foot photo, otherwise known as exhibit A, was attached. Nintendo Scene Magazine contacted the BT in question the next day. When questioned, the breakfast shift manager said "Oh, I know who that is. He's getting fired." Mystery solved, by DataEast. Now we can all go back to playing our Game Boy games in peace.

It's pretty good!

I think it's interesting how different developers approached the Game Boy. Some attempted to recreate what was happening at the time on home consoles, and very few of those games hold up well. Some made games entirely with the Game Boy's limitations in mind, and those are the bulk of the better games on the system. Others decided to expand on what they had been doing with comparable hardware in the eighties, and those are often the best of all.

BurgerTime Deluxe is kind of the Donkey Kong '94 of BurgerTime. Approaching each new level like its own puzzle. It's actually pretty close to something like Flicky or Mappy, where you're scouting out safe routes and wasting enemies' time before a gap emerges in their path that you can exploit to break rush through.

I think the burger theme throws some folk off, or makes them dismissive of the mechanical design, but it's just a good visual metaphor for layered objective targets. You run through each layer of the burger, and it drops to the platform below. Time it right, and you can trap a line of enemies under a big slice of beef. When it works, it's really great.

I think the game's at its best in the looping levels. The ones that always ensure you have a way out. There's a lot of dead ends in BurgerTime Deluxe, and you frequently find yourself in hopeless scenarios. I don't think that's particularly fun. It's kind of the game's downfall, but it's also the aspect that meant new customers wouldn't be done with their new Game Boy cartridge after an hour.

Give the NSO version a shot, though. There's fun to be had. I know it's a Data East game. Just try it.

It is downright insulting that humanity continues to produce new art as though BurgerTime Deluxe for the GameBoy doesn't already exist.

In all seriousness though, this game is a cute faithful little handheld reimagining of the arcade classic. I've played both the 1982 arcade original and the NES port, but never got especially deep into either. It was pleasantly surprising to learn that this Deluxe version actually has many more stages and a proper ending, as opposed to the typical endless looping of arcade games.

The core gameplay is still the same, the player is tasked with navigating Peter Pepper around various levels, assembling burgers by walking over each layer, causing them to fall down and potentially crush enemies underneath. The villainous Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle, and Mr. Egg will try to stop him, while the player has only a limited supply of pepper and their quick wits at their disposal.

These enemies all have different AI, but many of these later levels suffer from excessive dead ends making them frustrating to play. The difficulty curve is inconsistent, 4-4 was probably the most difficult stage in the entire game, only for the following world 5 to be comparatively very easy.

The gameplay loop of luring enemies under burger buns to squash many at once is satisfying enough, and they did a good job at adding some more substance to an overly simple arcade game. There isn't much else to say, handheld versions of games on the wrong side of 40 are fortunate to get 2 stars. BurgerTime Deluxe will serve as a funny meme game when compared to certain games I have ranked below it in the future.

2.0/5.0

I'm bad at these old style games so I made vicious use of the switch rewind feature, despite that, I love this.

The way in which your play of the game evolves naturally from just running away to gradually working out that you can direct and trick enemies, making snap decisions between chasing down a power-up or not is amazing, and a testament to the game design and tight implementation.

Well worth the time.