Tomato Adventure

Tomato Adventure
Developer(s)	AlphaDream Graphic Research
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Director(s)	Chihiro Fujioka[1]
Platform(s)	Game Boy Advance, Wii U Virtual Console
Release date(s)	Game Boy Advance JP January 25, 2002 Wii U Virtual Console JP August 26, 2015
Genre(s)	Role-playing video game
Mode(s)	Single-player, Multiplayer

Tomato Adventure (トマトアドベンチャー, Tomato Adobenchā) is a role-playing video game (RPG) developed by AlphaDream and published by Nintendo in Japan for the Game Boy Advance on January 25, 2002.

Gameplay

Players control DeMille through the Ketchup Kingdom while talking to people, entering places and collecting items. The object of the game is to save DeMille's girlfriend, Patharan, and the Ketchup Kingdom from King Abira by going through every village to obtain the missing parts of a robot that can give anyone access into the Gimmick Palace, a tower-like structure with a tomato on it. Instead of wandering endlessly inside places or entering battles randomly, Tomato Adventure displays enemies moving around on the screen while entering battles by bumping DeMille into them.

Battle system

During battles against enemies, the player must fight using toy-like weapons called "Gimmicks",^[2] which require the player to play a mini game correctly in order to land direct hits on the enemies, depending on which Gimmick the player uses. While using Gimmicks correctly, the player will earn stars for the extreme attacks, but if the player increases the difficulty of the Gimmicks, the player will increase the attack points of the Gimmicks and earn more stars, while the mini games would be more difficult than before. When one or two gears light up above the Gimmick meter, the player now has the choice to use one of two extreme attacks, if the player has a partner joined in. If the player fails in any mini game, the Gimmick meter will drop down to zero, and the player will have to start it all over. There are four different types of Gimmicks.

There are four types of Gimmicks:

• Time - This type makes you finish a mini game that requires timing, like pressing a button whenever something comes to a certain part.
• Speed - This type makes you finish a mini game that requires you to finish a task correctly before time runs out.
• Excite (or Doki-Doki) - This type makes you finish miscellaneous mini games.
• Input - This type makes you finish a mini game that either requires you to repeatedly hit the proper button(s) or to insert the information in a certain order or amount of times.

Gimica

Gimica is a special card game that can only be available when the player talks to a card-like character named Gimicamania at the stadium in Ois Town after the player defeats the third Super Kid. However, there are also some other characters that the player can either duel with or receive a new Gimica Card from. The object of this card game is to make the opponent have less HP than the player's HP, or drop it to zero. There are two kinds of cards:

• Gimmick Cards - These cards are based on the real Gimmicks. They are used for both players to attack each other with them.
• Character Cards - These cards do certain things depending on who is on the card. The earliest character cards are two cards that would increase or decrease your Gimmick Cards' attack points, two cards that would move your Gimmick Card up or down one color rank, two cards that would increase or decrease the attack points of your opponent's Gimmick Cards, and one card that would increase your HP by 25.

Player must put his/her Gimmick Cards at a higher color rank than his/her opponent's; however, green beats blue. If both players have their Gimmick Cards on the same color rank, the player who has more attack points in his/her Gimmick Card will attack the opponent. If both Gimmick Cards' attack points are equal, it becomes a draw. If the player's opponent is at a higher rank, the player must either make his/her Gimmick Card's attack points the same (or nearly the same) as the opponent's in order to receive a small amount of damage, or move their Gimmick Cards up to the same color rank as the opponent's Gimmick Cards.

You can also play Gimica with Seremo if your rank on the Lard Collosuem is Level 2. At Level 3, You must play against Enokin. To rank up, Play and see the stars at the top side. Talk to him to see how many starts you gotten.

Plot

The story takes place in a land ruled by and intended for young characters, the Ketchup Kingdom, which is also filled with devices like Jack-in-the-Boxes. The protagonist is a hare-like boy in blue clothing name DeMille, who lives in a school bus with no wheels in a village on the outskirts of the Ketchup Kingdom called Cobore Village. DeMille is an outcast because he dislikes tomatoes. As a result, DeMille and other kids in Kobora who dislike tomatoes are referred to by people who like tomatoes as "Droppers", which are people who are banned and left locked up in Cobore Village until they like tomatoes. When he was watching television, he saw that the main antagonist, King Abīra, was celebrating a holiday called Tomato Day, while showing his project he created called the Super Cara-Cooker, a laser-like gun that transforms people, places, and things into dolls, toys, and playgrounds. Then, DeMille's television became severely damaged, while he went to his neighbor and friend, Seremo, and asked him if he would fix his television set. Then Seremo said he will, while he gave DeMille his first Gimmick, called the Gear Yo-Yo. After Seremo taught DeMille how to use it, DeMille's girlfriend in the pink clothing, Patharan, came to tell him that she wanted him and her to venture into the dangerous Toy Ruins to look for her Fantastic Toy, the Gimmick Robo, but then it wasn't there when they arrived. Then, two purple creatures with zippers on them, Brikky and Grikky, captured Patharan with a hook, DeMille grabbed on to her while being pulled up to the airship, called the Carorna No.2, piloted by Brikky and Grikky. As soon as DeMille and Patharan came aboard the airship, Brikky and Grikky received a call from King Abīra, who told them to bring Patharan to the palace and drop DeMille out of the airship. After DeMille fought Brikky and Grikky, they dropped DeMille from the airship into the Tomato Pond, then he walked and noticed that he was standing near King Abīra's home, the Gimmick Palace, a tall, red, tower with a tomato-shaped top. When he decided to enter and save Patharan, he encountered a wall that he cannot pass through. Then, a mole named Rereku told him that in order to pass through the wall, DeMille had to defeat the six Super Kids and obtain the six key items called Toy Parts. While DeMille went on his adventure, he encountered some people who joined forces with him to defeat King Abira, and save Patharan and the entire Ketchup Kingdom. His partners in order of joining him are Aretha, Sofubi, and Rereku.

Development

After AlphaDream developed and released their first video game title, Koto Battle: Tengai no Moribito, Nintendo wanted AlphaDream's permission to develop an entirely new role-playing video game with them, titled Gimmick Land (ギミックランド, Gimikku Rando).^[1] They got the name from an idea of a game structure that utilizes gimmicky, toy-like controls that make it an RPG with action elements.^[1] It was finished and almost ready to be released for the Game Boy Color in Japan, until Nintendo released the Game Boy Advance to make the Game Boy Color obsolete. After noticing that, Nintendo requested AlphaDream to redevelop and rename Gimmick Land as "Tomato Adventure" for the Game Boy Advance. Nintendo also requested AlphaDream to add some easily recognizable characters in which reflects the new title, so that the game would have a more marketable image.^[1] Those were Nintendo's largest requests. Other changes are the quality of the graphics and audio being enhanced.^[1] Only two screenshots of Gimmick Land were released to the public by the developers. On the release date of Tomato Adventure, Nintendo and AlphaDream announced a contest where twenty winners won themselves 1 kg of sweet tomatoes from the Kochi Virtue Valley area.^[3] The contest ended on February 28, 2002.^[3]

Reception

• 1UP.com A^[4]

References