Video Game / Tomato Adventure

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Tomato Adventure is an RPG video game that was released for the Game Boy Advance in 2002. It was developed by AlphaDream, who later developed the Mario & Luigi series, and was never released outside of Japan.

The Ketchup Kingdom is a land inhabited by children of all ages where tomatoes are everything. During the "Tomatoversary", the King Abira presents to his subjects the Super Caracooker, a ray gun that can transform anything and anyone into playthings such as toys and playgrounds. DeMille, the player character, watches this on TV in his school bus home in Cobore Village, where "Droppers" (those who dislike tomatoes) are forced to live till they change their attitudes towards the food. He and his girlfriend, Pasaran, are allowed to leave the village for one week during the Tomatoversary, however, and they decide to use that one week to go find Pasaran's missing Gimmick Robo. Abira's henchmen Brikky and Grikky capture Pasaran, as the king means to use her Heart Energy to power his Super Caracooker and turn all the kingdom's inhabitants into toys. It's now up to DeMille and his friends to save Pasaran and the entire Ketchup Kingdom.

They do this with the help of Gimmicks, mechanical weapons made by DeMille's inventor friend Selemo, and by obtaining the Toy Parts, six mysterious items possessed by King Abira's Super Kids, a sextet of powerful, but reckless children.

Tomato Adventure contains the following tropes:

• Action Commands: The Gimmicks are all controlled by completing a quick minigame within a small window of time (e.g. by repeatedly mashing a button or pressing a button at the right time; each Gimmick has its own unique minigame). Not completing the minigame in time, or completing it the wrong way, means that the character still attacks, but the attack is not as powerful, and the AWE meter will be completely emptied. Each Gimmick has 7 levels, with higher levels offering more power and AWE meter growth but also makes the minigame harder, so choosing the right level is important.
• Ambiguous Situation: It's never explained what exactly happened that caused the Gimmick Robo to be split apart, how its parts became Abira and the Super Kids, or whether Abira and the Super Kids have any memories of when they were the Gimmick Robo. Abira apparently does, though, considering he's the Gimmick Robo's head and loves Pasaran dearly.
• Animate Inanimate Object: One of the enemies you fight at one point is an anthropomorphic teapot.
• Anthropomorphic Food: The Tomatrio, who explain certain aspects of the game such as the story, are a trio of anthropomorphic tomatoes.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Binkies are usually hidden in places around the map, but some of them can only be obtained once and you can't backtrack for them. Still, there is an infinitely replenishable source of Binkies: if you have a full AWE meter, you can trade it in for Binkies with a guy who appears in most towns.
• Big Bad: King Abira, who wishes to turn everyone in the Ketchup Kingdom into toys.
• Brainy Baby: King Abira sucks on a pacifier, suggesting that he is still a baby. Despite that, he's smart enough to speak coherently, invent a ray that turns people into toys, and seek to extract the Heart Energy from Pasaran.
• Built with LEGO: One area in the forest is a toy-themed place where the ground is built entirely of LEGO bricks.
• Button Mashing: Most of the Tap and Speed gimmicks have Action Commands that require mashing a certain button. Sometimes you have to alternate or make sure not to mash during a certain period.
• Came Back Wrong: Lilby is defeated fairly early into her section of the Toy Part hunt. This forces one of her fans to steal the Toy Part from DeMille in order to revive her. Unfortunately, the revived Lilby is completely monstrous in body and mind, ends up killing the very fan who brought her back to life, and has to be vanquished again to get the Toy Part back.
• Cartoon Creature: Pretty much everyone save for those who're clearly based on real life animals (e.g. Sofubi and Relek). DeMille, Pasaran, and Alesa's species in particular is completely indeterminate, though the frills on their heads are reminiscent of lizards.
• Cliffhanger: The game ends with DeMille saying that his next adventure begins after Alesa is kidnapped. However, chances for the sequel are rather rare, mainly due to AlphaDream's bankruptcy in 2019. While some who worked in AlphaDream returned to work in Acquire on Mario & Luigi: Brothership, only time will tell if the sequel for Tomato Adventure will ever be made.
• Damsel in Distress: One of the goals of the game is to save DeMille's girlfriend, Pasaran.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Anybody found to not like tomatoes is forced to live in Cobore Village/The Spillage with no permission to leave until they learn to like tomatoes, with the exception of one week during the Tomatoversary.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: One part of Oystown requires DeMille to work out and get the scale to point down. You lose weight by exercising at the gym, but if you lose too much weight, you need to eat at the cafe to gain weight and push the scale in the opposite direction.
• Does Not Like Spam: Neither DeMille nor Pasaran like to eat tomatoes. This is important for the game, as the kingdom DeMille lives in strictly prohibits subjects from disliking tomatoes and sends them to the outskirts if they do.
• Dual-World Gameplay: Limited to the Balsami Dome, where the party has to travel through both the regular world and the Reverse World, where the sixth Super Kid Chekkit resides. In order to reach him, the party first needs to get a special pillow from the pillow-making specialist Pillo, but the bird whose feather he uses has escaped and hid inside a clock that can only be opened by finding a missing hand to fit it with. After using the special pillow to reach the Reverse World, a pair of spirits who watch over the two worlds task the group with repeating their actions in the Reverse World, since they function on a rule of balance, and if the balance is broken they won't be able to reach Chekkit. Finding the hand for the Reverse World's clock is more difficult, requiring traversing another set of dual-worlds in the form of the Rem and Non-Rem Labyrinths, where actions in one affects the other. After finally getting the hand for the Revese World's clock, they find the counterpart to Pillo's bird, but they'd rather die than allow themselves to be plucked by Pillo's counterpart, and fights the group to the death. This forces the group to go back and kill his real world counterpart since the balance is broken with one existing without the other.
• Fatal MacGuffin: An odd case. The toy parts that form the Gimmick Robo are necessary to enter Gimmick Palace. DeMille and company recreate it—albeit without its head—but it proceeds it to obstruct them all throughout the palace. It turns out the Gimmick Robo was Pasaran's, and it had fallen in love with her long before it split apart into the six Super Kids and Abira (who's actually its head), and sees DeMille and company as obstructions towards marrying her and turning the whole kingdom into toys like itself.
• Fate Worse than Death: A fan of Lilby's condemns her to this by bringing her back to life, which results in her becoming a hideous monster (that ends up killing the fan). DeMille and company put her out of her misery, however, to get back her Toy Part.
• Fat Bastard: What, the third Super Kid, is fat, constantly drinks "lard juice", and forces the residents of Oystown to wear fat suits because he hates anyone who isn't fat like him. He's even stated to be 100% lard at one point.
• Forced Transformation: The Super Cara-Cooker transforms people into toys. Sound like fun? Not when you consider that it doesn't turn people into Living Toys, but rather completely normal toys with no sign of life embedded within them whatsoever.
• Funny Animal: Sofubi the frog, who at one point joins DeMille's party. Relek the mole, as well.
• Fusion Dance: After Abira is defeated, the Gimmick Robot busts in and forcefully unites with him, as Abira is in fact the missing head of the robot turned to a new form after the robot was split apart. However, since Abira wasn't reverted back into the robot head, this results in an entirely new being called Abiwrath, who serves as the final boss of the game.
• Genki Girl: Pasaran seems a very excitable and energetic girl.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Nabira, an Optional Boss hidden at the end of a side path in Gimmick Palace, which requires a great deal of backtracking in order to fully unlock. He seems to be a false, green Palette Swap of Abira, claims to dream of world conquest, and uses the Super Kids' boss battle theme, and yet he's never mentioned and has zero relevance outside of this one utterly bizarre encounter.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: You can name the four playable characters when they join the party.
• Here We Go Again!: The game ends with Alesa being kidnapped by Pimara, the king of the Pepper Kingdom, similar to what sent DeMille into action and triggered the plot of the game in the first place.
• Improbable Weapon User: Weapons you can use include rabbit-themed shoes, a bee gatling gun, a fart horn, an origami crane, an electric eel, and a watermelon seed bomb.
• Improbably High I.Q.: King Abira has an IQ of over 5000, because he's actually the head of a robot.
• Interface Spoiler: You are prompted to give Sofubi a name, even when you have not seen him nor know what he will do. Given that the only other characters you can name are the party members, this clues you in that he will join the party.
• Kid Hero: DeMille is eight years old and the protagonist of the game, though technically every playable character is as they are no older than 10 years old.
• Killer Yo-Yo: The Gear Yoyo, the first Gimmick that the player receives, is a mechanized yoyo weapon.
• Knights and Knaves: The Soy City Bank has rooms with lockers where you need to guess who has the item you need to progress. It's all told in the form of statements where you need to guess who is the liar and who is the truth-teller. If you guess wrong, you battle the enemy. Guessing right on your first try gets you a bonus item.
• Limit Break: The AWE! attack. Each time an action command is successfully performed, it will increase the AWE! meter by a little, while failing an action command will empty the meter. There are two AWE! attacks for each partner, one when the meter is mostly filled and another when it's fully filled.
• Love Makes You Evil: The primary reason Abira, a.k.a. the Gimmick Robo, does what he does: He's obsessed with marrying Pasaran.
• Monochromatic Eyes: DeMille has eyes that are completely blue, his girlfriend Pasaran's eyes are completely pink, and Alesa's eyes are completely orange.
• Mr. Exposition: There are three anthropomorphic tomatoes, collectively called the Tomatrio, who each explain certain aspects of the game at certain points. Rettoma, a ripe, red tomato, is the one in this trio who narrates the story.
• Never Bareheaded: DeMille always wears his hat, never taking it off in any part. And unlike Sofubi, whose hat falls during his hit animation in-battle, DeMille's hat never falls off at any point.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • Most of the Quiz Kid prizes can only be obtained if you answer the quiz right on your first try
  • Guessing the correct answer to the Knights and Knaves problems in the Soy City Bank gives you a bonus item if you do it on your first try.
  • Soy City and Gimmick Palace both have items that can only be obtained once per playthrough. Soy City's are in the subway train, locker maze, and satellite. Gimmick Palace's is in the tomato pond near the beginning.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: DeMille is a boy who wears blue clothes, while his girlfriend Pasaran wears pink clothes.
• Pink Means Feminine: Besides Pasaran and her pink clothes, there's Oops, the first Super Kid the player has to fight, who is a girl with a pink-and-white color scheme.
• Plot Coupon That Does Something: To pass through a wall that is preventing him from entering the Gimmick Palace to save Pasaran, DeMille has to collect the six Toy Parts from the Super Kids. The Toy Parts are also used to make Gimmicks used by DeMille.
• Pop Quiz: Various Quiz Kids appear in the world and give you short quizzes about the game and what you've encountered so far. Answering it right on your first try gives you bonus items.
• Puppy Love: Eight-year-old DeMille and seven-year-old Pasaran are boyfriend and girlfriend.
• Puzzle Boss:
  • Shadap has two arms and a connector that act as different attackable parts, with the arms switching between plus and minus. Depending on the phase, both arms need to be either plus or minus for the connector to take damage.
  • Chekkit's left arm, right arm, and hat can change to one of three colors. Hitting one of the arms causes it to change color. He is invincible unless all of the colors match or are different, depending on the phase of his battle.
• Racing Minigame: Three spotlight-like creatures in the Oystown sewers let DeMille play a kart racing game. If he goes too fast, he crashes into walls and slows down. He gets better rewards depending on how good his time is.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Whatever species DeMille, Pasaran, and Alesa are supposed to be, they're absolutely adorable and wouldn't look out of place in a Kirby game.
  • Similarly, Sofubi and Relek are both a cute frog and a mole, respectively.
• Sequel Hook: At the end of the game, DeMille and the gang find themselves near a green pepper castle, and Alesa is kidnapped by Pimara, the king of the Pepper Kingdom, implying an idea for a potential sequel.
• Shout-Out: Relek, a recurring mole character, is Mole Newspaper's correspondent #007.
• Tempting Fate: Alesa activates a switch to get a flow of hot water/mayonnaise going. The liquid in question doesn't flow out immediately, so she asks DeMille if he wants to check if anything's wrong with it. His response is along the lines of "Wait, this isn't going to be one of those gags where the water flows right into me when I take a look, will it?" Sure enough, that's exactly what happens when the two decide to check together.
• Theme Naming: King Abira's henchmen are named Brikky and Grikky.
• The Reveal: Abira is obsessed with Pasaran and wants to turn everyone in his own kingdom into toys because he and the Super Kids were originally the seven pieces of the Gimmick Robo, a toy owned by Pasaran that fell in love with her.
• Toy Time: One area in the forest has a toy theme. There are things like giant playing cards and wooden toy airplanes in this area, and the ground here is built out of LEGO bricks. Abira himself means to do this to the whole Tomato Kingdom.
• Vanity Is Feminine: Oops, a female Super Kid, carries around a mirror which she presumably likes to look into to admire herself.
• Villainous Breakdown: As Abiwrath nears defeat, his face changes to a disturbing toothy grin with manic bloodshot eyes, and his speech devolves into incoherent babbles as his attacks become fiercer.
• Violation of Common Sense: In the Oystown sewers, it's actually a good idea to fall down the holes. Even if you need to start the river ride over again, sometimes they drop you into areas with items you'd miss otherwise.
• Who's on First?: All the Super Kids' names are like this: Oops, Ouch, What, Lilby (little bit), Shadap (shut up), and Chekkit (check it).