Celebrate Valentine's with gaming's original couple (almost)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhYyJAciSEg&lc
This week's Video Chronicles feature couldn't have been timed more fittingly, although I admit the scheduling was nothing more than a coincidence: Popeye for NES, wherein a mumbling spinach junkie attempts to rescue his lady love from the burliest of competing suitors. If things had gone as originally intended, though, this game might have been something completely different; Donkey Kong would have been a Popeye game, making Popeye and Olive Oyl gaming's original romantic couple... and also meaning Mario would never have existed. Now there's an alternate timeline worth contemplating.
Playing Popeye for this production gave me a better appreciation of the game. I've always considered it a lesser work by Nintendo, but it's better than I'd originally given it credit for. Not a timeless great, certainly, but decently ambitious.
