Donkey Kong in the arcades, One of the greatest games of all time, one of the most revolutionary games of all time…

Was supposed to be a game about a sailor who smokes a pipe, and eats spinach.

Yes. Donkey Kong was going to be a Popeye game. If Nintendo could’ve gotten the rights, Mario would’ve been… Popeye! Donkey Kong would’ve been Bluto.

It’s all up to debate if Nintendo would’ve invented Mario, anyway. But one thing is certain:

Mario would’ve been a lot different.

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I’m here to talk about an ACTUAL Popeye game made by NINTENDO of all companies.

No, this is not the arcade version of Popeye, even though I may review that one day.

I am talking about a Gameboy game based on Popeye made by Nintendo. I think it’s pretty clear that Nintendo are Popeye fans.

Popeye on Gameboy was only released in Japan, and in 1990, though the actual game text is in English – not that there is much of it.

Story: N/A

I guess there isn’t any. There is no story I know of, though all the characters are there, even though they don’t say anything.

Gameplay: 6/10

The gameplay is a mix between maze/action.

You need to find your girlfriend, Olive Oyl, and swee’ peas, a baby. But it’s not really clear what baby this is, if it’s a baby you found like in the movie starring Robin Williams, or if it’s really their baby.

You can only get swee’ peas if you collected all the hearts.

When you get both of them you advance to the next stage.

The perspective is top-view, at first glance you might think of pac-man, but it’s not really similar in the slightest.

The controls are good and are not an issue.

Of course, there has to be spinach in a popeye game, and of course there is spinach in this game.

It flies in one direction, sometimes very hard to get because of enemies and other obstacles.

Once you get it, you can eat hamburgers that wimpy dropped which are like stones if you don’t eat spinach, because you can’t get past it without the spinach…wait so I can only eat hamburgers if I eat my spinach. Nintendo, is that a message?

You can kill enemies when you eat spinach, and beat Bluto, who you nearly can’t defeat without the spinach. Speaking of Bluto, he is the main villain of the popeye franchise, who was going to be Donkey Kong.

You have to avoid him at all costs, because if you come close to him, you have to fight with him which will waste a lot of your limited time.

Yes, there is a timer in this game, it can be SUPER annoying. But I can understand why they have it.

Sound: 5/10

So, I don’t like chiptunes. There are very few Gameboy games with soundtracks that I like the only one that comes to mind is Super Mario Land.

And no, I don’t like this game’s soundtrack, neither. To me, all it is are just some beeps and bleeps in a boring rhythm. I don’t like it.

I like to listen to actual music while I’m playing games like this, but because I played it for the review, sadly enough I couldn’t.

The sound effects are alright, I guess, nothing special, or noteworthy, at all, though.

Addictiveness: 7/10

This game is actually pretty addicting. It can be quite difficult too, which adds to the addictiveness.

The gameplay is a lot of fun, yet annoying sometimes, too. It’s strangely satisfying to see Popeye pop-up (No pun intended) when you find Olive Oyl or swee’ peas in a comic book type panel.

Maze games can be incredibly addicting, like for example Pac-Man. While this game isn’t close to the level of Pac-Man, it is still an addicting puzzle game.

When you lose you feel motivated to next time show Bluto who’s boss. Though, really. Next time I’m gonna play this game I’m gonna turn off the game’s music, and listen to some actual music.

The controls are good and responsive, like I said, and add to the addictiveness.

Graphics: 7/10

The graphics, for what they are, are not half bad. They aren’t as impressing as super Mario land 2, but they don’t set out to be, nor do they need to be.

The sprites actually look quite nice, and everyone looks just like they did in the comics.

Graphic glitches do happen when things get a bit extreme with the amount of sprites, etc. But it’s really not bad, and not a big problem.

I have not experienced any slow-down at all, which is very impressive for a game like this on the game boy.

I already mentioned the comic book like panels that show up at certain moments, there are more than just rescuing olive oyl and swee’ peas. You also have panels for getting in to a fight with Bluto, and a panel for Bluto grinning when you lost due to the time limit, they look absolutely fantastic.

Depth: 6/10

The depth isn’t that great.

You have only 6 stages and different types of the stages, they are slightly different and vary in difficulty.

What is good, is that everyone spawns at different places every time you replay the stage.

Olive oyl, spawns somewhere else, swee' peas spawns somewhere else, and  Popeye spawns somewhere else.

There is even a multiplayer mode where the second player plays as Bluto, I have yet to try that out, but it seems a lot of fun from what I’ve seen.

Other than that, though. It’s not really that big, and the first type can be beat in about an hour.

Difficulty: 8/10

Now… I suck at these types of games, so that’s why I’m rating this so high.

This game can be really frustrating sometimes, I think.

When I run in to Bluto without spinach, I just give up all hope and duck down in my sofa or chair ashamed of myself.

Though it never gets to the point that I want to throw my Gameboy or laptop out the window… luckily.  I bet for people that are actually somewhat decent at these types of games, they would think it’s pretty easy. But I don’t.

Now, yes the game is pretty though in my opinion, but that makes it all the more awesome to beat the game, and the ending will be very satisfying if you’re a Popeye fan, like me.

OVERALL: 7.3/10

This is a fun little maze/action game to kill some time with, it’s pretty addicting, has fun gameplay, good graphics, and is pretty challenging.

I recommend you play this game, doesn’t matter if you aren’t a fan of Popeye. This is another fun game made by Nintendo, which is time-less, and fun to everyone, no  matter the age.

Thanks for reading!

EDIT: So vizzed had wrong info about the developers, it was actually made by sigma.. weird how I didn't see that on the box.. :/