Collection essentials #375: Pepsiman (PS1)

Because apparently everything has to be more fun in Japan, in the early ’90s the popular soda brand Pepsi came up with a silly superhero mascot to market their beverage. He (to my knowledge) made his video game debut as a secret character in Sega’s fighting game Fighting Vipers in 1994. Five years later, he’d get his own game here on the PlayStation. You’d often expect an advertisement game like that to be mediocre and unmemorable at best, but this one exceeds expectations.

The game’s front cover is possibly my favorite in video game history. Rather than the game’s title, all we see is Pepsiman pointing at the viewer giving a simple command, “DRINK!” I love it. The game’s spine card (which I don’t have) has the name of the game on it so Japanese shoppers seeing it new on the shelf would have known what it was.

The premise of this game is that Pepsiman needs to deliver Pepsi to certain people who are thirsty, and he has to run to their location and dodge all kinds of obstacles along the way. This game could be considered a “runner”, a genre commonly seen among cell phone games. In a runner, your character constantly runs forward no matter what, and the goal is to dodge stuff and perhaps try and collect some good items along the way. This isn’t an “endless runner” though since each stage does have an end. Pepsiman can fail if he fails to dodge stuff a certain number of times per stage. It’s fairly simple overall for a PlayStation game. You can run faster than normal if you want, and you can jump of course, but there’s not too much else to the gameplay other than dodging. Sometimes the action gets mixed up by changing the perspective or putting a garbage can on Pepsiman’s head which makes it more difficult for him to move. There are a series of Pepsi cans found throughout each level, and the player may choose to collect them all as an optional challenge. The game’s not terribly long, but an “Expert Mode” can be unlocked for some replay value.

There are some amusing cutscenes in between levels, primarily featuring American actor Mike Butters. Despite being a Japanese game, all the spoken dialogue is in English, with Japanese subtitles.

The game has a memorable soundtrack. There’s one main theme that features people shouting out enthusiastically, “PEPSIMAAAAAAN!” The same theme tends to get remixed for the various levels, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Pepsiman isn’t really what you’d call a great game. It’s short and shallow, and many might find it frustrating due to some sections that pretty much require trial and error to get through. But it’s one of those silly oddball games with a strong identity and I love it for that. I guess you could call this one a “Pepsissential”.