(Beat Stage 3 so I'm marking it as completed)
I remember playing this as a little kid on my friend's NES and immediately dismissing it as crap because "I punched the bad guy, why did I die?" (obviously you have to get the spinach first!)
This is actually a pretty good early-1980s arcade game. In a cool inversion of other classic arcade games that have you avoiding multiple ghosts/barrels/cats, you just have to avoid one enemy but he has a really good moveset. Bluto jumps around the map with ease and is able to attack above and below him, so learning the ins and outs of his (pretty good) AI is essential to survival. You can't play it safe either, because if you take too long to collect one of the items that Olive is dropping from the top of the screen you get scolded by her and lose a life. These collectibles slowly float down to the bottom of the screen - the most dangerous area due to the lack of movement options - so you're incentivized to collect them before they fall while still being aware of where Bluto and the Sea Hag (who sporadically throws stuff at you) are at all times. Like the best classic arcade games, it's a very good exercise in positional awareness and split-second decision making, and the greater variety in level features and the certain degree of randomness makes it more interesting to me than classics like Pac-Man or Donkey Kong. The difficulty is pretty brutal though, especially once the levels start looping and the Sea Hag starts throwing so much stuff that the levels start to resemble a bullet hell.
The window dressing is pretty great too, with the sprite art being some of the best of the time, multiple characters from the show appearing in a recognizable form, and little details like Popeye's face on the title screen changing when he blows his pipe.
The simplicity and repetitiveness of games of this type (and my impatience and - yes - skill issues) mean they generally aren't for me, but this stands out as one of the better arcade classics I've played.
I remember playing this as a little kid on my friend's NES and immediately dismissing it as crap because "I punched the bad guy, why did I die?" (obviously you have to get the spinach first!)
This is actually a pretty good early-1980s arcade game. In a cool inversion of other classic arcade games that have you avoiding multiple ghosts/barrels/cats, you just have to avoid one enemy but he has a really good moveset. Bluto jumps around the map with ease and is able to attack above and below him, so learning the ins and outs of his (pretty good) AI is essential to survival. You can't play it safe either, because if you take too long to collect one of the items that Olive is dropping from the top of the screen you get scolded by her and lose a life. These collectibles slowly float down to the bottom of the screen - the most dangerous area due to the lack of movement options - so you're incentivized to collect them before they fall while still being aware of where Bluto and the Sea Hag (who sporadically throws stuff at you) are at all times. Like the best classic arcade games, it's a very good exercise in positional awareness and split-second decision making, and the greater variety in level features and the certain degree of randomness makes it more interesting to me than classics like Pac-Man or Donkey Kong. The difficulty is pretty brutal though, especially once the levels start looping and the Sea Hag starts throwing so much stuff that the levels start to resemble a bullet hell.
The window dressing is pretty great too, with the sprite art being some of the best of the time, multiple characters from the show appearing in a recognizable form, and little details like Popeye's face on the title screen changing when he blows his pipe.
The simplicity and repetitiveness of games of this type (and my impatience and - yes - skill issues) mean they generally aren't for me, but this stands out as one of the better arcade classics I've played.