Title: Spanky's Quest (NA), Hansei Zaru: JirÅ-kun no Daibouken (JP) (Translated to "Monkey Reflections: the Adventures of Mr. Jiro)
Release Date: December 27th, 1991 (JP), July 1992 (NA)
Developer: Natsume
Publisher: Natsume
One of the things that I love about this blog is that sometimes it delves into the strange and the obscure. This period of video games led to some very innovative game play, as developers were looking to explore new genres, styles, and stories as hardware limitations eased. Spanky's Quest, like many Natsume games, is definitely one of the stranger ones. Natsume, as a company, was known for some truly bizarre games during this era: Pocky and Rocky was a platforming SCHMUP set in the folklore of Japan, Wild Guns was an excellent shooting gallery set in a futuristic wild west, and Ninja Warriors being a single plane beat-em-up. Spanky's Quest fills another weird genre mash-up: the puzzle platformer. I have had very little experience with this game before now, but it has received a little internet acclaim from popular youtubers such as The Completionist and the Game Grumps.
Background
The game's story is a little bizarre. Mr. Jiro, in Japan, or "Spanky" in the United States, is an ape who has been cursed by the evil witch Morticia, and who has done a series of bad things. One of those bad things is to make fruit sentient! Her fruit minions now plague poor Spanky on his journey, and they must be defeated before Morticia can be challenged.
The game, as mentioned before, was developed by Natsume, who is probably best known for the original Japanese farming sim, Harvest Moon, which has spawned a ton of life-style and agriculture sims.
Gameplay
The game-play, to say the least, is a bit bizarre. It plays as a mixture of Bubble Bobble, Arkanoid, Buster Bros, and Solomon's Key. In each stage, there is an exit door locked behind a certain number of padlocks. Keys for these padlocks are spread around the stage, either carried by enemies or just strewn about in difficult to reach places. Once you have gathered all the keys, you can head to the exit.
To defeat enemies, Spanky blows bubbles out of his mouth, which shoot upwards in a lazy arc. Now if a bubble hits an enemy, it just stuns them for a couple of seconds; to actually defeat them, Spanky must pop the bubble by pressing A, which will release a ball from a different sport. These balls are able to actually destroy enemies upon contact. The more times you bounce your bubble off your head, the larger it gets, and it will create a different type of ball when you pop your bubble. The different types of balls, as well, move in different patterns and arrangements, which work better for different types of enemies. Basketballs, for example, are the largest and most powerful of your weapons, as they are huge and fall in an umbrella like pattern. Like I said, this game is weird.
There are over 50 levels to play, and every 10th level has a boss fight against a giant fruit. The game also offers bonus exits so that skipping levels is a possibility, which makes this game a decent speedrun game. All in all, you can beat the game in about an hour.
Gameplay
The game-play, to say the least, is a bit bizarre. It plays as a mixture of Bubble Bobble, Arkanoid, Buster Bros, and Solomon's Key. In each stage, there is an exit door locked behind a certain number of padlocks. Keys for these padlocks are spread around the stage, either carried by enemies or just strewn about in difficult to reach places. Once you have gathered all the keys, you can head to the exit.
To defeat enemies, Spanky blows bubbles out of his mouth, which shoot upwards in a lazy arc. Now if a bubble hits an enemy, it just stuns them for a couple of seconds; to actually defeat them, Spanky must pop the bubble by pressing A, which will release a ball from a different sport. These balls are able to actually destroy enemies upon contact. The more times you bounce your bubble off your head, the larger it gets, and it will create a different type of ball when you pop your bubble. The different types of balls, as well, move in different patterns and arrangements, which work better for different types of enemies. Basketballs, for example, are the largest and most powerful of your weapons, as they are huge and fall in an umbrella like pattern. Like I said, this game is weird.
There are over 50 levels to play, and every 10th level has a boss fight against a giant fruit. The game also offers bonus exits so that skipping levels is a possibility, which makes this game a decent speedrun game. All in all, you can beat the game in about an hour.
For an early SNES game, it is really rather unique. It has one of those strange premises that just kind sticks with you. I don't know whether this strangeness was intentional though, a la Katamari Damacy, or whether it was just a happy accident of the development. This game is just...odd. I can't really tell what the developers were going for with this game. I feel like they wanted to make a unique game and genre piece with a puzzle backbone, but instead just made something that was odd for the sake of oddity. It sits more in the NES and early Arcade side of video games, in that story and narrative isn't as important as gameplay and theming. There are still games of this vintage nowadays (such as Pix the Cat or Tetris Effect), but they are fewer and farther between. Even gameplay heavy games have some cogent narrative thread to them these days.
But...it is fun though! Inoffensive fun, but still fun. This will be one of those games that people will remember like "Hey remember that weird Monkey game where it is sports vs. fruit? No? That's okay." The gameplay alone is really fun, and the aesthetic is very charming. It is a nice deep cut for a collector to have from this era.
How are them tunes?
They are pretty good!
Ads and Art
No commercials and just a little bit of art.
Verdict
I recommend this game wholeheartedly. It is an easy recommendation for both collectors and as a fun game to pass an afternoon.
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