Do You Remember Nintendo's Popeye Game?

Nov. 14 1:10 PM by Alicia Ashby

While I've been boning up on Nintendo obscurities like the totally awesome Devil World and Mole Mania lately, I totally, utterly, completely forgot that Nintendo had at one point been known mostly as the guys who made that great Popeye game. Yes, Popeye the Sailor Man, like the cartoon.

I had read about the game in David Sheff's Game Over, but mostly about how it grew weirdly out of Donkey Kong, itself intended to be a Popeye game but eventually published without the license. Instead it starred some jerk named Jumpman, who would later evolve into some jerk named Mario. Ha ha, boy, Nintendo sure screwed up there!

Anyway, Wii Fanboy's Virtually Overlooked chose to spotlight Popeye for this week's entry in the list of things that should be on the Virtual Console but basically never will, and it's well worth a read. Honestly, even if you don't read the article, watch the video embedded above. The Popeye game featured gameplay so utterly weird that it becomes kind of hypnotic.

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Comments

Fun game. Was an old favorite of mine back in the day. If you think this game is strange, you ought to see "Eigo Asobi", another Popeye game by Nintendo where he teaches English.

You know with his connection to Nintendo and Donkey Kong as mentioned above, does anyone else think Popeye would've been awesome as an added character in Smash Bros?

Half joking, but half serious here. Popeye would've been so much fun in that game.

 

I just watched a vid of Eigo Asobi. It honestly strikes me as a little less weird in terms of gameplay... but the sight of poor Bluto, damned forever to impotently pace that one platform, is disquieting.

Also, Popeye in Brawl == alternate Captain Falcon skin?

 

I just happened to write about Popeye no Eigo Asobi on my other site, Tiny Cartridge. Thinking about that is what prompted me to write about the original Popeye game.

Thanks for being the person who reads my column!

 

@jcfletcher: I didn't know you were the Tiny Cartridge guy! I hope one day to run a site where the bottom of the page is as rad as that site's bottom of the page.

(Also funny that you shout-out Todd Ciolek's GameSetWatch work, as he happens to be a very good acquaintance of mine on top of being a rad dude.)

Calling me "person who reads my column" projects the image that I'm it, which makes me a little sad. Tell me that ain't true, JC. Tell me you just say that to everybody who links to you.

 

I dig the bottom of our page too! I'll pass your praise on to Eric (who designed it). I'm always surprised to find out that cool people have stumbled upon our ridiculous site. Thanks for reading at least one whole page!

I need to change my avatar doodad if I'm going to comment here more.

 

It's pretty easy to read a page when the entries are so fun, yeah. ;)

I don't wholly understand GamePro's complicated backend stuff (they updated it recently), but you should be able to change your avatar d00d. If you have problems, hit me using our contact e-mail (in my profile page) and I'll let our IT guys know there's somethin' afoot.

You know, I need to comment... ever at Wii Fanboy and Tiny Cartridge myself, but I end up lurking like 99% of the blogs and forums I read. I should try to fix that, really.

 

It's hard to comment on other people's blog posts when you've got so many of your own, and their comments, to deal with! No worries there.

As far as I know, the only issue with the avatar thing is that I haven't gotten around to it.

 

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