Tomato Adventure hands-on impressions

   After releasing the admirable Golden Sun and Magical Vacation last year, Nintendo was quick to reveal its next Game Boy Advance RPG, Tomato Adventure. With a cartoony visual style and an original battle system, it's hard to imagine the game being anything other than great. Sadly, the third time is not a charm for a Nintendo, as Tomato Adventure is a simple-looking game with some complex flaws. After its release late last month in Japan, the GIA has now had some time to check out the game and report on what exactly is the problem.

   Although none of the characters in Tomato Adventure are actually tomatoes (save for a group of three tomato children), most of its locations take on food-based names. The game starts out in the kid-populated Kobore Village, with hero Demiru trying to get his TV fixed by local mechanics whiz Seremo. You have to talk to everybody else in the village before you get your time with Seremo, though, and once you do meet up with him he dodges the issue at hand and soon becomes the game's master of tutorials. After talking with Seremo, Demiru encounters his girlfriend Pasaran, who wishes to head outside and into the vast Ketchup Kingdom.

   After making their way through the nearby forest, the duo find themselves pulled into a mysterious ship belonging to the diapered ruler Abira. Abira orders his two henchmen Buriki and Goriki to seize Pasaran, but Demiru fights back. He wins, but then is dropped out of the ship and lands near Mayonaisse Land. Now Demiru must recover his soulmate and find out what Abira is really up to, along with having to recover enchanted items known as Toy Parts that are being held by the Super Kids, a gang of six bad guys (and girls) that report directly to Abira. Along the way, Demiru will meet up with Alesa, a girl with some high platform shoes and a heavy interest in robots.

   When a boss has been defeated, Demiru will receive discs known as "Spy Data," delivered by a shady informant named Rereku. The discs, when inserted in a nearby Spy Data robot, show "secret" video documentation of what Abira has been planning in his lair. Scenes like these really bring out the charm in Tomato Adventure's cast. The dialogue is often humorous, with liberal usage of "huge text" to convey exclaimations and the haughty announcements of boss characters.

   Graphically, Tomato Adventure is pretty much a Paper Mario clone with a larger emphasis on pastels. None of the backgrounds are particularly memorable and character sprites are a little too small for the GBA screen, but nothing will have you reeling in disgust, either. In fact, the only piece of art that could have used some work was the world map; the color scheme of which looks like it was not exactly optimized for the expansive palette of the Game Boy Advance.

   This is where the good stuff ends and the bad stuff begins. There are no random battles in Tomato Adventure, which may sound pleasing to some, but there are still issues. All on-screen enemies move in pre-determined patterns and never notice or chase down the player, so the option of fighting is limited to simply running past them or running into them. Along with this, defeated enemies do not respawn until you've completely exited the area, and teleport items are few far and between, frequently forcing you to run back through the entire world just to do some leveling up.

   Tomato Adventure's claim to fame (or infamy, as it were) is the Gimmick system, offering only one way to attack but allowing players to choose from numerous weapons (Gimmicks) on the fly. The name Gimmick is fitting, as these weapons are executed by what are essentially miniscule skill games. The first Gimmick you'll get, the Haguruma Yo-Yo, has a sliding meter with a small red area at the end of it. The player must press the A button the second the meter quickly drops into the red, thus successfully completing the attack and dealing its total damage. Other Gimmicks include mashing the A button to empty a similar meter; pressing combinations of A and B or choosing the right icon out of a set of hidden panels. While you won't completely lose if you manage to fail executing a Gimmick, it will not deal as much damage. While this all may sound time-consuming with the wide variety of Gimmicks you can choose from, a secondary meter is used as a timer to help keep things moving.

   Gimmicks can be powered up with their own seperate levels, but will do so very, very slowly. Certain items that are compatitble with only one type of Gimmick can be picked up from battles and will raise the points necessary to gain the Gimmick's levels. Oddly, the first items you get only raise one point each and most Gimmicks will require 50 points to get to the next level, meaning that your characters will advance much more quickly than your Gimmicks do in the beginning stages of the game. This wouldn't be such a problem if Gimmicks weren't your sole choice to defeat enemies most of the time and brand-new level 1 Gimmicks that you get later on in the game tend to be more powerful than your older ones that have already been powered up.

   Once Alesa joins you, you'll have the ability to unleash Sugoino Attacks, the "summons" of the Tomato Adventure world. A Sugoino Meter will also be visible in status menus and in battle. Each time you successfully execute a Gimmick, you'll earn a Star Point that will be added to the meter. You can use up to two attacks at a time, with an arrow on the meter noting the point you need to reach to earn the first. Like Gimmick levels, the Sugoino Meter fills up rather slowly, and if you fail with a Gimmick you lose all your gained Star Points and will have to start back up again. This seems far too harsh a penalty and wholly unnecessary; perhaps if you lost only a handful of points instead of every single one it wouldn't be such a waste. But as it stands, "be real good and you'll get a cookie" seems to be the governing principle behind Sugoino Attacks, which cripple an already limp battle system.

   Finally, it must be said that the music in Tomato Adventure is 100 percent forgettable. Not one tune is catchy or even tolerable, with the battle theme most likely already on its way to earn nominations for Worst of the Year. Some of the music is heavily reliant on the 8-bit Game Boy Color sound system, yet when GBA synth is put to use, there tends to be zero variety in the melodies. All this makes the GIA wonder if the developers at Alphadream figured most people would be playing the game in a public place with the volume down most of the time.

   It would be far too easy to dismiss Tomato Adventure as a kids' game and be done with it, but the game is so hit-or-miss with its balance and overall challenge that it will no doubt turn off players of any age. Principal of its faults is the battle system, which nearly reduces TA to a gambling game, except the only thing you win is frustration. So unless some serious retooling is to be done, don't except Tomato Adventure in America anytime soon. Meanwhile, those waiting for the third coming of GBA RPGs from Nintendo had best keep waiting.