Video Game / Great Greed

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Great Greed is an obscure Game Boy RPG released by Namco in 1992 in Japan, and 1993 in North America. Its Japanese name was Vitamina Kingdom Story.

The fantasy world of Greene is slowly dying because of the evil Bio-Haz, who's polluting the realm to empower his army. The player character, called Sierra Sam, is enjoying his life in the human world until the Call to Adventure beckons, and it's up to Sam to stop Bio-Haz before all is lost. Along the way Sam meets several other characters, who are all named after food for some reason. With a land in peril, it's up to you to stop the pollution at its source and save Greene's lush environments.

The game is notable for features that were ahead of its time in 1992, such as mapping abilities to certain buttons in battle, autosave, and the first Gay Option in a video game that successfully made it overseas.

This game contains examples of:

• Alas, Poor Villain: In the ending, Bio-Haz laments how his world is driven by greed while the people of Greene care for their planet. He uses his last words to warn the protagonists not to make the same mistakes as humans.
• All There in the Manual: The player character's name is decided by the player in-game but is Sierra Sam in the manual and on the back of the game box. Similarly, Bio-Haz's full name is Biohazard Harry on the back of the box.
• American Kirby Is Hardcore: The Japanese box art is full of cute anime-style characters, while the American box art is a grim fantasy with a guy fighting a monster.
• Asian Fox Spirit: The Naughty Desires/Foxey enemy transforms into a many-tailed fox upon defeat.
• Auto-Save: This game notably featured autosave back in 1992, with an additional three slots for regular saving.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: The analytical Truffle's battle specialty manifests as helping Sam figure out enemy weak points and lowering the corresponding stats.
• Beauty Contest: The country of Spaghetti holds one of these that Citrus decides to enter for the grand prize, which is a bunch of powerful weapons. The contest itself is a trap to ensnare Citrus and kill the resistance while she's occupied.
• Blackout Basement: The basement of the record factory is completely dark and can only be explored with the help of a lantern.
• Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: The nation of Curry's namesake dish is so spicy that sampling it sends Sam running across the map until he cools down. Thankfully, there's no HP penalty.
• Bowdlerise:
  • A scene of the hero resting with Gum Drop in a shack and literally battling his romantic desires was cut overseas.
  • Several enemies were changed to have less religious themes in keeping with NOA's censorship policies at the time, and a naked mermaid enemy was given armor to wear.
• But Now I Must Go: After defeating Bio-Haz, while Greene's inhabitants want Sam to stay, they realize he likely has important things to do in the human realm and send him home.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': If you accept 100 gold from one of Crabby's attendants, upon trying to leave town, an NPC chews you out for taking a bribe and takes 500 gold as punishment.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Bio-Haz is a textbook Evil Overlord trying to conquer Greene Kingdom, and he's generating as much pollution as possible because it makes him and his army stronger. It's not until the end of the game that you learn he has another motive besides his great greed; he wants to save the human world from pollution by using Greene Kingdom as its garbage dump.
• Childhood Marriage Promise: If you choose to marry the young Cup Cake in the ending, the king insists you wait until she's of age. Cup Cake is delighted and warns you after you return to your world that if you don't keep the promise to marry her, she'll come to your world to find you.
• Court Mage: Microwave is the Kingdom of Greene's court witch, though she uses up most of her power at the start of the game defending the castle and warping Sam home with her. It takes until the end of the game for her power to be restored completely.
• Dark Lord on Life Support: Bio-Haz's battle sprite shows him hooked up to machines, implying this trope due to all the pollution he directly or indirectly causes.
• Deadly Gas: Bio-Haz's minions pollute Crater Lake with toxic waste, making it emit poisonous gas and threaten nearby towns. If you dawdle in Nutmeg Village too long, the gas will appear and halve your HP every few seconds if you don't escape quickly.
• Depth Perplexion: The giant records in the record factory have needles moving back and forth that you can walk on to get to areas, even though they look to be 'above' Sam and deposit you on a raised platform.
• Edible Theme Naming: All the friendly NPCs and regions have food-related names. For example, the five princesses are named Candy, Cup Cake, Truffle, Gum Drop, and Citrus.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: The trio of attacking spells include Flame, Freeze, and Bolt.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Bio-Haz's pollution results in treasure chests being filled with trash instead of useful items, requiring a recycling center to get rid of it. There's also an area where he's poisoned a lake that emits toxic fumes, and if you stay in the open too long gas will appear and hurt you.
• Gay Option: You can pick any one of ten other characters, male or female, for your male character to marry after you beat the game.
• Good Hurts Evil: Bio-Haz's weakness is pure things, such as pure spring water. Truffle infuses the Knight sword with the essence of purity in order to defeat him.
• G-Rated Drug: When you reach the area that Bio-Haz rules, you find out that the natives can tolerate the polluted conditions because Bio-Haz gives them "medicine" to make them feel better. You can't stay in a Trauma Inn in that region, but if you take some "medicine" yourself, it restores your HP and MP to maximum.
• Green Aesop: With the evil forces literally powered by pollution, the environmental message is a strong one. Individual levels revolve around things like shutting down a polluting factory and recycling trash.
• Heal Thyself: Healing comes in two flavors: different levels of healing spells, which cost MP, and different levels of 10-use medpacks, which don't cost MP and can also be equipped in the healing spell slot. The latter is very useful if you're low on MP.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: The player decides Sam's name at the start of the game.
• Hot Springs Episode: En route to the country of Soup, Sam's ship explodes and he has to go to a hot spring to heal his injured leg. Having to strip before entering the bath turns out to be a handy way for a bad guy to strip him of his gear.
• Humans Are Special: This is why Sam turns out to be so much more effective at fighting Bio-Haz's minions than Greene Kingdom's soldiers have been. It's also the reason why Bio-Haz, who is also human, has been so successful so far in his attempt to conquer it.
• Hypocrite: Bio-Haz condemns his fellow humans for destroying Earth with their great greed, yet he comes off as no better, since his solution to Earth's pollution is to transfer it to Greene. He seems to have a Heel Realization about this as he dies, since he praises the people of Greene for loving and taking care of their planet.
• Inconsistent Dub: A couple characters' names are translated differently at times. On the battle screen, Cadmium becomes Cavity, Dust Ball becomes Thyme, and Citrus becomes Citurus, while at the end of the game, a soldier formerly known as Time Out has his name translated as Lunch Break.
• Jailbait Wait: If you choose to marry Cup Cake, who's only eleven, the King insists you wait until she's of age to marry.
• Kiai: Sam attacks enemies with a cry of "Yaaaaa!"
• Kick the Dog: One of the first things Bio-Haz's soldiers do is murder Candy's dog Calorie, leaving only his collar behind.
• King Incognito: Princess Gum Drop poses as an ordinary civilian named Marcela while scouting Bio-Haz's activities.
• Kryptonite Factor:
  • The Wif Worm is invincible until you put Golden Pepper on your weapon.
  • One mini-boss has infinite HP and can only be defeated with the One-Hit Kill spell Zap 1.
  • Bio-Haz is powered by pollution. During the final battle, only the Knight sword, which Princess Truffle has infused with the essence of purity, can damage him. (It's possible to get a weapon with higher attack power as a rare drop after a battle, but it won't work on Bio-Haz.)
• Landslide Election: In Shishkaburg, Crabby is winning the mayoral election by 80 percentage points versus Cabbage Head's 20 points. Sam and Cup Cake can briefly reverse the odds, but have to find Crabby's evil plans for Cabbage Head to win.
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Inverted. After the first few chapters bosses become largely resistant to magic, necessitating physical attacks to win the day (though magic power still has use in healing and boosting your attack).
• Literal Metaphor: The hero fighting his lust towards Gum Drop in the original Japanese version - he enters the battle screen and beats up a physical representation of his desire.
• Load-Bearing Boss: Upon the defeat of Bio-Haz, his castle collapses and the heroes escape in a balloon. It also happens earlier in the game; when recurring boss Sarg is defeated for good, his hideout collapses as well.
• Loony Laws: The town of Tuna is run by a law-making machine, and both residents and visitors can change them at will by paying gold.
• Mistreated Miners: People sent to the Dragon Jail are put to work mining toxic ore to power Bio-Haz and his army. Lolly Pop's father dies from the mistreatment.
• Monster Compendium: After you beat the game, one hidden menu item is a bestiary of all the monsters and their stats, as well as character profiles of the five princesses and Microwave.
• Mood Whiplash: The beauty contest in Spaghetti seems like a break after all that's gone on in previous chapters, with silly contestants, a grand prize that'll help the resistance against Bio-Haz, and Citrus winning by a landslide once you obtain the dress ingredients. Then it's revealed the contest is a Bio-Haz trap, the resistance was slaughtered while you were gone, and after you defeat Fifi and Shrimp, an earthquake hits and seemingly kills Citrus.
• Multiple Endings: The credits change slightly depending on who, if anyone, Sam picks to marry. If he chooses Gum Drop, for example, a scene that otherwise would have Gum Drop reuniting with Pint and Junior has the two of them alone instead.
• Never Found the Body: When Citrus falls into a chasm and disappears, the narration reassures you that she's going to be okay because "she's tough." She returns for the final battle.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: In order to get info on Bio-Haz's weakness, Sam goes to meet the psychic Ralph Vader, who totally isn't based on Ralph Nader.
• No-Gear Level: The hot springs owner takes all of Sam's gear when he enters the bath, then absconds with it, forcing you to fight your way out without even the clothes on your back.
• Non-Indicative Name: The Dodge command is closer to a Defend command, as it lessens sufficiently powerful attack damage instead of negating it outright.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: After several of Bio-Haz's soldiers have failed to defeat Sam the old-fashioned way, Cadmium comes very close to killing him posthumously by rigging a ship he's traveling on to blow up.
• Permanently Missable Content: Once you clear a chapter, you can't return to previous areas, and it's possible to miss some rewards for your heroics if you don't check on towns you saved.
• Portal Network: The basement of Torte Village is connected by warp pads, some of which teleport to new areas but others malfunction in that stepping in them multiple times opens a doorway on each side of a room, which can also lead to new areas or a previous one from 'inside' the wall.
• Precocious Crush: One of the princesses, Cup Cake, is only 11 years old. Shockingly, you can select her as your bride at the end, to which she reacts with delight, but the king at least wisely insists the the player has to wait for her to grow up first, turning this into a Childhood Marriage Promise for Cup Cake. She insists after you return to your world that if you don't keep your promise to return, she'll come to your world to find you.
• Press X to Die: If you accept Cadmium's offer to join Bio-Haz, Microwave asks if you're sure. Continue to say yes, and she'll kill you instantly.
• Princess Classic: Candy and Gum Drop fit the bill the most, both being sweet princesses who want the best for the kingdom. Candy helps you early on and gets kidnapped late in the game, while Gum Drop has feelings for Pint and can create magic barriers to protect you from bitter cold.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: While the king and queen of Greene stay in hiding, their five daughters scout the land for Bio-Haz's activities and accompany Sam on his quest at several points.
• Second Love: If Sam chooses Gum Drop as his bride, she promises to forget her first love Pint and pledge herself to Sam instead.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Downplayed, as while the beauty contest coordinator Fifi does help you assemble the ingredients to make the tomboyish Citrus a lovely dress, he compliments her on her natural beauty and style as well.
• Sound Test: After you beat the game, you unlock a hidden menu with every song and sound effect in the game.
• Standard Hero Reward: After beating the game, the King will ask you if you want to marry one of his five daughters. If you agree, he'll ask you to talk to the one you want to marry. However, you don't actually have to pick one of the princesses - with enough persistence, you can actually marry anyone in the room. In addition to the princesses, this includes the elderly (female) court wizard, two male soldiers, the Queen, and even the King himself! Or you can walk away without choosing any of them, in which case your father will appear in the final scene instead.
• Status Buff: The Power spell increases Sam's attack, while the Guard spell increases his defense. Drain and Weaken, meanwhile, lower enemy attack and defense.
• Status-Buff Dispel: The Cancel spell nullifies stat changes.
• Super-Speed: The Hothot Flower is super spicy and doubles Sam's running speed if he nibbles it, while eating it whole quadruples his speed but takes off half his HP. This is needed to make it to Crater Lake before poisonous gas floods the area.
• Support Party Member: While Sam does most of the work, party members will occasionally help out in combat, with Candy boosting your defense, Cup Cake increasing physical attack power, Truffle lowering enemy stats, Citrus attacking enemies, Gum Drop deflecting the next spell used on you, Microwave casting a level 2 attack spell, and Lolly Pop restoring HP.
• Tomboy Princess: Citrus is the most active of the five princesses and wields a sword in battle. Her introduction has her facing you in combat to prove your mettle.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: The Sarg is the first battle where you need to use the Dodge command, as he'll power himself up to deal half or more of Sam's HP in one attack. Dodging lowers the damage enough to weather his blows until he pauses to charge again.
• We Buy Anything: Shops buy your equipment, magic scrolls, and any of the useless flavor items. This is also the only way for you to get rid of any TRASH you picked up in a random chest, and thus free up your very limited inventory for something useful.
• We Can Rule Together: Cadmium makes you an offer to join Bio-Haz's army when you reach him. You can actually agree to this, but if you continue to say yes Microwave will kill you instantly.
• White-Dwarf Starlet: Lola Leftover is found hiding in a record factory's basement and reminiscing on her glory days as a young starlet. Even though her stardom passed, she still sings about herself and laments her lost youth.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Sam spends as much time in Greene as it takes for the player to beat the game, with the world speedrunning record being four hours, but in the human realm only one hour passes by the time he returns.