Collection essentials #112: Yume Penguin Monogatari / Story of the Dream Penguin (NES)

Yet another game from the great Konami. It’s another platformer, but with a totally unique twist. Not only are you trying to get to the end of the level, but it’s also very important to stay in shape. If you make it to the end but your required weight is too high, then your girlfriend penguin dumps you and you lose anyway!! 

How does this work? Well, there are items you can get that will slim you down, so you have to collect as many of those as possible. Enemies don’t deal damage or kill you like in most other video games, instead they either stun you or make you fatter. Some will lob food at you that you must die, or else you’ll eat it ‘cuz you’re a glutton who can’t resist!! You don’t have hit points, but the timer is the other big thing you have to be mindful of in this game. You have a limited amount of time to clear the stage, and if you waste time getting hit by enemies, you’ll run out and lose that way. There are also some shoot ‘em up levels to mix up the gameplay from the typical platforming fare, and amusing cutscenes between levels.

Yume Penguin Monogatari is a creative, funny and delightful game. There’s one glaring problem with it, though, and that is, it’s really lacking in content. If you’re familiar with the game, it’s very possible to beat it in less than 20 minutes. If you do, yes, you can play the game again on a higher difficulty, but with the game being so short that doesn’t really extend the length very much at all. So that keeps the game from being in the upper echelon of classics. But it’s still such a charming little game anyway that I gotta have.