Collecting Dust: Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom (NES)

Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom
Adventure, Nintendo Entertainment System
1991 Hudson Soft

Certain games are bizarre, and certain games aren't that bizarre but have disturbing cover art. I think Princess Tomato falls into the latter of the two categories. Even with the blank, desolate stares of the clay vegetable-headed figures on the box art, that famous Hudson bee must mean it's a quality game, right? Let's take a look.

Collecting Dust: Tomba! (PlayStation)

Tomba!
Platformer, PlayStation
1998 Whoopee Camp

Anyone who watched television in the late 90s probably remembers the iconic series of commercials for the game Tomba!, wherein people wearing ridiculous cotton candy-looking wigs posed and talked about the character. Although these commercials were memorable, very few people ultimately bought the game from fledgling developer Whoopee Camp. I personally bought the game when it came out, and found it proved that sometimes the commercial failures are some of the best games out there.

Collecting Dust: Crusader of Centy (Genesis)

Crusader of Centy
Action-Adventure, Sega Genesis
1994 Atlus

Here is yet another that had fallen under my radar for over a decade (almost 2, actually). If I were to synopsize it, I'd say Crusader of Centy is a Zelda clone with lingering RPG undertones. How this game went relatively unnoticed for so long is beyond me, but the fates have brought us here so let's take a nice long look at it.

Collecting Dust: Big Sky Trooper (SNES)

Big Sky Trooper
Action, Super Nintendo Entertainment System
1995 JVC

The faint memory of a certain childhood game had been nagging at my brain for years. All I could remember was that it involved a dog, a spaceship, and beaming down to different planets to collect items. I asked my fellow gamer friends, and conducted occasional Google searches, but to no avail. While writing the review for Zombies Ate My Neighbors, I found a familiar sounding game that utilized the same game engine as Zombies - Big Sky Trooper. This was the forgotten game I had been looking for!