I have absolutely vivid memories of playing this on the Acorn A3000 as a kid. My dad was a teacher and would bring acorns home for me to mess with during the summer holidays. This, mad professor mariarti and more have stuck with me ever since. Love it that you're covering this
I have a distinct lack of recollection of a 1 hour period in the early 90s which I'm certain my mind has wiped from memory due to the inclusion in this block of time of a highly traumatic session of Top Banana. Some people can recall alien abductions under hypnosis. I'm sure I would only recall playing this horrible game.
Even just seeing the thumbnail my brain automatically played the 'uuuugghh' cow-noise-pickup and the Catchphrase buzzer sound effect. Definitely got more use from the supplied T-Shirt than the game 😁
Despite it being so extremely unplayable I unironically love Top Banana. It's extreme game-as-art stuff, pushing the boundaries as far as possible such that you might dig through the ideas it throws out to try and work out what kind of playable experience you could make from them. Makes me think of more modern visually eclectic or confrontational stuff like Cruelty Squad or Jack King-Spooner's games, though I don't think either of those have any influences from this thing They played a level of Top Banana once as a Gamesmaster challenge. I remember at the time thinking it had something to do with Betty Boop owing to the character design
This game looks as if someone took a Gustav Klimt painting, chewed it off, spat it out and drew anime doodles on it. On a more serious note, it reminds me of those Grunge indie games like Hylics or Cruelty Squad, which makes it waaaasy ahead of its time artistically.
This feels like a game that should be double billed with LSD Dream Simulator on PlayStation with both set to the Sweet Cupp'n Cakes music from Homestar Runner.
I needed this. I played Top Banana with no context, no background, no anything. So to have some things vaguely make sense is something I wasn't expecting. Also the second I saw Big Bang I started laughing hysterically. I think I need to play that next.
Games that make you stand up and shout TRELYATE! (there is no unique, beautiful mind in game creation quite like the one that produced Dontrel, though.)
Strangely... I don't hate how Top Banana looks. I've played a decent few modern indie games that try to do something similar. But those indie games are much more polished, much clearer in meaning, and aren't action games!
My main memory of this game is that there was a kids TV show hosted by Tommy Boyd on around the same time it came out, and also titled Top Banana. So for a long time I just assumed it was a tie-in to that.
Top Banana was from 1991? Might explain a few things, the 2 things it immediately reminded me of: The patterned panels in shell suits...1991 was peak shell suit 😂 Magic eye pictures...again, they were all the rage in the early 90s This clown game doesn't look that bad...is it any weirder than what Matthew Smith was doing 10yrs earlier?
I remember this being on the shelf roughly the same time as PP Hammer and his Pneumatic Weapon, got them both on the Amiga, and played Banana for about 2 minutes before moving on to PP Hammer for a very long time. If you haven't already done a video on PP Hammer, it's worth a look!
Played the demo when I was a kid on my Archimedes, can't say it aroused any interest. I remember the environmental theme mentioned in Acorn magazines, just felt it was a deliberate psychedelic style myself, and an underwhelming game.
the closest modern equivalent to top banana genre notwithstanding would be cruelty squad, as that also is an art game that intentionally pushes the boundaries for acceptable gameplay and visuals and equally goes for a "everything looks like shit because the world has gone to shit" angle cruelty squad is a lot more playable however, edit: as an addition id like to mention that if anything i *adore* top banana's soundscape. honestly just the whole "throw everything at the wall and force it to stick" approach is really cool and i appreciate what it sets out to do even if the game itself is hell incarnate
It was a weird time, most people only experienced the Archimedes in school computer labs, definitely limited scope for gaming. It passed me by on the Amiga too. A speccy was my first ever home computer, great memories.
My dad presented a pirated copy of the Amiga version of this game to me and my older brother. It was a cracked 1 disk version without the cool intro. I did actually get some enjoyment out of it, but man it was wierd and trippy as fuck!
Looks like the old sci-fi channel's "Head-F**k TV" in video game form (God, I miss the old turn of the millennium analog satellite TV channels...)! Thanks for an earnest study of a genuinely eerie-looking 90's curio.
Awesome video, thanks Kim! I feel like playing it on my next stream just for a laugh. The Amiga doesn't seem to have many games with female protagonists, at least not many good ones.
Big Bang by Psycore had bonuses that would make it be day, make it be night, make the bottom of the screen be underwater, and mirror the entire level. None of these had any effect on the gameplay. I've not seen that anywhere else.
Great vid Kim! We had an Archimedes and a demo of Big Bang, wild to see even weirder games from the same dev Can confirm firsthand that BB was unsettling to a five year old 👍
The graphics remind me a lot of the graffiti world section of Yume Nikki, however where that was just one small area with hardly any collision in a game about wandering around THIS is expecting precision and timing. Absolutely mad.
I was thinking that it looked like a Lisa fan game/abandoned prototype, so we're probably on a similar page given that the Original Lisa was heavily inspired by Yume Nikki
As a small child with limited entertainment options I unironically loved this game. But yeah it was SO HARD. I don't think I ever got as far as the temple. I was obsessed with the rising water mechanic, and the heart collecting. I can't remember what happens when you fill your heart bar with a full rainbow (was it that elusive extra life? or a range upgrade on your shooting?), but it was something to strive for even in the 'easy' first level. The psychedelic, colorful, detailed graphics really stand out, especially vs the brown PC games that followed. And the gameplay matched the message. Witness KT's horror as her hair flies up whenever she descends even a pixel towards the rising waters.
Never saw Top Banana before, but it's interesting that the programmer of Top Banana also made Space Tripper (PC arcade shooter) of which I have fond memories!
I think I played a demo of this, probably from Amiga Format's coverdisk. [Yes, number 32 from March 1992.] I don't recall it other than that, but I never tried it again so it probably didn't tick any boxes. The only game demos that ever did that were Lemmings and Zeewolf.
I loved Ninja Tune back in the 90s, but I've never heard of this. I'll definitely have to track it down! It looks like Nathan Barley channeling Monty Python.
I legit love Top Banana. I know its presentation might throw people, but I think it's unique and compelling. I found the gameplay fine too. Nothing like as bad as is being made out here.
I remember this game was reviewed on the first season of Gamesmaster. I felt it was some sort of tie in to the kids Gameshow that was around at the time, especially with the Catchphrase buzzer...
If you told me that this was an abandoned prototype for Lisa: The Painful, before the game was made into an RPG and the protagonist was changed to Brad, I'd kinda believe it. It's like a whole game made up of that section with all the spiders with Lisa's dad's face on them from the first game in the series.
You know, via a random 6 quid purchase in some CEx type place I unwittingly bought this. And I have to say its ramshackle oddness kept me interested. I felt like a virologist researching an exotic disease. Plus, it came on standard AmigaDOS disks so it loaded more reliably on my failing A600.
I have to say, this feels really appealing, as an experience. Slap on some old XL and rinse out for an afternoon. It does look WAY ahead of its time in terms of concept...I like it 👍
Pretty sure I got this on a cover disk back in the day, I did play it quite a bit, but it WAS weird, I didn't really like it that much but it did stand out.
This is a level of awful that all awful is measured by. I rate games on the Top Banana Scale. As it is the worst game ever made, everything is a multiple of that. So, for instance, Monkey Island would be 950 Top Bananas
So how does Top Banana rank compared to the lowest scoring Archimedes games? Asking for someone who suspects his name might be on the intro screen of one of the contenders for that title...
If the game's name is Top Banana, then where's the Banana fruit? Joking aside, this game is a huge mismatch of broken collage that makes it so unsettling.
Have you ever played Top Banana? If so, have you recovered yet? Have a shout about it here, and thanks for watching. :)
I have absolutely vivid memories of playing this on the Acorn A3000 as a kid. My dad was a teacher and would bring acorns home for me to mess with during the summer holidays. This, mad professor mariarti and more have stuck with me ever since. Love it that you're covering this
I've never seen this game before but I'm definitely going to find it now!
I have a distinct lack of recollection of a 1 hour period in the early 90s which I'm certain my mind has wiped from memory due to the inclusion in this block of time of a highly traumatic session of Top Banana. Some people can recall alien abductions under hypnosis. I'm sure I would only recall playing this horrible game.
I have played Top Banana........................................................
Even just seeing the thumbnail my brain automatically played the 'uuuugghh' cow-noise-pickup and the Catchphrase buzzer sound effect. Definitely got more use from the supplied T-Shirt than the game 😁
Despite it being so extremely unplayable I unironically love Top Banana. It's extreme game-as-art stuff, pushing the boundaries as far as possible such that you might dig through the ideas it throws out to try and work out what kind of playable experience you could make from them. Makes me think of more modern visually eclectic or confrontational stuff like Cruelty Squad or Jack King-Spooner's games, though I don't think either of those have any influences from this thing
They played a level of Top Banana once as a Gamesmaster challenge. I remember at the time thinking it had something to do with Betty Boop owing to the character design
Wow don't remember that but it does seem like something that gamesmaster would be into
I agree completely.
This game looks as if someone took a Gustav Klimt painting, chewed it off, spat it out and drew anime doodles on it.
On a more serious note, it reminds me of those Grunge indie games like Hylics or Cruelty Squad, which makes it waaaasy ahead of its time artistically.
I can totally see Gorbino's Quest being like this.
reminded me of Candice DeBebe
@@tarnetskygge a classic indeed
This feels like a game that should be double billed with LSD Dream Simulator on PlayStation with both set to the Sweet Cupp'n Cakes music from Homestar Runner.
*Casio demo*
EH STEVE!
I give you props , for being able to look at the game . My was hurting just looking at this shiite
I needed this. I played Top Banana with no context, no background, no anything. So to have some things vaguely make sense is something I wasn't expecting. Also the second I saw Big Bang I started laughing hysterically. I think I need to play that next.
It's genuinely amazing to see a creative project like this that's so simultaneously ahead, and of, it's time period.
It's art and honestly a editable sprite set?. I would've loved that as a kid.
Its a really cool concept, isn't it? Execution be damned: its a clever idea.
The music in this sounds like it's been ripped straight from silent hill.
Wouldn't be surprised if Cruelty Squad took inspiration from this game.
The trick is to move in close and focus, then slowly move back and voilà, you're actually playing Super Mario Bros.
I find wearing They Live! style sunglasses helps a great deal! 😎🥴👌
This game seems like a lot of those “heroic efforts” of games from the 00s that were riffed online. You know, the Dontrel the Dolphins and that like.
More like heroin effort eheheheheheheh
Games that make you stand up and shout TRELYATE!
(there is no unique, beautiful mind in game creation quite like the one that produced Dontrel, though.)
12:28 "Well just listen to the temple..." ....It's goddamn Silent Hill.
Suddenly Kang Fu looks like an okay game.
I hear the Giygas theme from Earthbound too.
Strangely... I don't hate how Top Banana looks. I've played a decent few modern indie games that try to do something similar. But those indie games are much more polished, much clearer in meaning, and aren't action games!
I hate it and love it at the same time.
I love it as well. It's just a cool trippy world!
the main character is a great platform mascot design, I'm tempted to see if I can get a bootleg reproduction of the T-shirt
Love the Crystal Hammer music at the end. I haven't heard that in a while, brought back good memories.
Good stuff. :)
My main memory of this game is that there was a kids TV show hosted by Tommy Boyd on around the same time it came out, and also titled Top Banana. So for a long time I just assumed it was a tie-in to that.
Top banana or piece of cake
The game itself looks unplayable but I love the weird psychedelic aesthetic and I SO WANT THAT TSHIRT from the ad!!!
Top Banana was from 1991? Might explain a few things, the 2 things it immediately reminded me of:
The patterned panels in shell suits...1991 was peak shell suit 😂
Magic eye pictures...again, they were all the rage in the early 90s
This clown game doesn't look that bad...is it any weirder than what Matthew Smith was doing 10yrs earlier?
This is the game equivalent of a nervous breakdown
I remember this being on the shelf roughly the same time as PP Hammer and his Pneumatic Weapon, got them both on the Amiga, and played Banana for about 2 minutes before moving on to PP Hammer for a very long time.
If you haven't already done a video on PP Hammer, it's worth a look!
Played the demo when I was a kid on my Archimedes, can't say it aroused any interest. I remember the environmental theme mentioned in Acorn magazines, just felt it was a deliberate psychedelic style myself, and an underwhelming game.
the closest modern equivalent to top banana genre notwithstanding would be cruelty squad, as that also is an art game that intentionally pushes the boundaries for acceptable gameplay and visuals and equally goes for a "everything looks like shit because the world has gone to shit" angle
cruelty squad is a lot more playable however,
edit: as an addition id like to mention that if anything i *adore* top banana's soundscape. honestly just the whole "throw everything at the wall and force it to stick" approach is really cool and i appreciate what it sets out to do even if the game itself is hell incarnate
"Honeyyy! I'll give you your insulin later! There's a new Kim Justice Video!"
Don’t remember this one, I was a speccy owner, and just for a year or two. Great times though. Ty KJ 😊
It was a weird time, most people only experienced the Archimedes in school computer labs, definitely limited scope for gaming. It passed me by on the Amiga too. A speccy was my first ever home computer, great memories.
@@helvete983 Happy Days ☺️👍🏻
This is exactly the kind of game I'd imagine Tank Girl playing in a grubby cornier of the comic.
This is the video game equivalent of a grindcore album.
My dad presented a pirated copy of the Amiga version of this game to me and my older brother. It was a cracked 1 disk version without the cool intro. I did actually get some enjoyment out of it, but man it was wierd and trippy as fuck!
After watching Kaizer Beam's video on Tamala 2010, I'm convinced that musicians doing other media usually leads to pretentiousness.
This looks like some major crunchy indie stuff about two decades before they flooded Steam
You are the single greatest Amiga reviewer of all time. I'm so glad you've finally gotten to this "classic." Excellent work as always Kim!
This feels like if warioware and wario land 4 did acid together
Looks like the old sci-fi channel's "Head-F**k TV" in video game form (God, I miss the old turn of the millennium analog satellite TV channels...)! Thanks for an earnest study of a genuinely eerie-looking 90's curio.
Nice video Kim. Love to see a new drop.
Cheers Mate
"LiL'JpD."
Cruelty Squad anyone?
Hah. I was going to make that exact Superhans comment.
I did wonder if this game was what everyone was playing at the house party that time...
Awesome video, thanks Kim! I feel like playing it on my next stream just for a laugh. The Amiga doesn't seem to have many games with female protagonists, at least not many good ones.
Big Bang by Psycore had bonuses that would make it be day, make it be night, make the bottom of the screen be underwater, and mirror the entire level. None of these had any effect on the gameplay. I've not seen that anywhere else.
Nothing to do with the near-contemporaneous TV-am series, it seems.
Great vid Kim! We had an Archimedes and a demo of Big Bang, wild to see even weirder games from the same dev
Can confirm firsthand that BB was unsettling to a five year old 👍
Another excellent vid, Kim! This is the sort of thing I love seeing getting a highlight on your youtube show.
Oh dear. Watching this made me feel physically sick. I'm sorry Kim, that you had to play this so we don't have to.
The graphics remind me a lot of the graffiti world section of Yume Nikki, however where that was just one small area with hardly any collision in a game about wandering around THIS is expecting precision and timing. Absolutely mad.
I was thinking that it looked like a Lisa fan game/abandoned prototype, so we're probably on a similar page given that the Original Lisa was heavily inspired by Yume Nikki
As a small child with limited entertainment options I unironically loved this game. But yeah it was SO HARD. I don't think I ever got as far as the temple.
I was obsessed with the rising water mechanic, and the heart collecting. I can't remember what happens when you fill your heart bar with a full rainbow (was it that elusive extra life? or a range upgrade on your shooting?), but it was something to strive for even in the 'easy' first level.
The psychedelic, colorful, detailed graphics really stand out, especially vs the brown PC games that followed. And the gameplay matched the message. Witness KT's horror as her hair flies up whenever she descends even a pixel towards the rising waters.
This game is so terrifying I’m actually impressed
This game feels like a fortnight in a bad balloon
Never saw Top Banana before, but it's interesting that the programmer of Top Banana also made Space Tripper (PC arcade shooter) of which I have fond memories!
Bloody hell, lass; the things you put yourself through for the sake of content. I admire your guts.
The enemy sprites are giving me Hong Kong 97 vibes. Very creepy indeed
Those backgrounds can be turned into really cool look "creepy" background in a good platformer/action game.
But here, its just an eye sore.
Nah, it's still very cool
Thank you Kim this is fantastic! Good lord what a piece of lore for the Amiga. I'm your biggest fan in Arizona. :p
This game is smeared in my childhood memory. And smeared is very much the correct word for it.
It was way ahead it's time. This game still has a great future in the Vaporware space
I think I played a demo of this, probably from Amiga Format's coverdisk. [Yes, number 32 from March 1992.] I don't recall it other than that, but I never tried it again so it probably didn't tick any boxes. The only game demos that ever did that were Lemmings and Zeewolf.
oh god, my eyes! how do you tell what is a platform?! Great viideo though Kim!
watched this with a buddy and they got jumpscared twice during the big bang footage
I thought this would be about the 90's Saturday morning TV show that I barely remember.
The audio sounds like Akira Yamaoka got drunk and fell down the stairs with his keyboard.
this kinda reminds me of Cruelty Squad visually
I loved Ninja Tune back in the 90s, but I've never heard of this. I'll definitely have to track it down! It looks like Nathan Barley channeling Monty Python.
aaand another repressed memory unlocked.
I suppose the environmentalists got their wish since modern games come in no packaging
@@drumboy02 and sometimes there isnt even a game
The last game was WAY creepier than that. That clown head turning when jumping would have made me shut off the console
Hmm, well that's my nightmares sorted out for the next six months
I legit love Top Banana. I know its presentation might throw people, but I think it's unique and compelling.
I found the gameplay fine too. Nothing like as bad as is being made out here.
I remember this game was reviewed on the first season of Gamesmaster. I felt it was some sort of tie in to the kids Gameshow that was around at the time, especially with the Catchphrase buzzer...
played it back in the day on my amiga a500.. great fun and started me using the expression top banana all the time and still use it now
If you told me that this was an abandoned prototype for Lisa: The Painful, before the game was made into an RPG and the protagonist was changed to Brad, I'd kinda believe it.
It's like a whole game made up of that section with all the spiders with Lisa's dad's face on them from the first game in the series.
Great review! You made me laugh a few times :-)
At 9:01 I’m certain that the Oliver Hardy looking head is actually the late comedian Les Dawson.
Honestly the barf style color graphics reminds me of some late night Adult Swim style stuff. That and Problem Solverz
This is the only game I've seen that legitimately feels like a creepypasta game.
This game is like a hybrid of Bubble Bobble, Awesome Possum, and fucking Cruelty Squad
You know, via a random 6 quid purchase in some CEx type place I unwittingly bought this. And I have to say its ramshackle oddness kept me interested. I felt like a virologist researching an exotic disease.
Plus, it came on standard AmigaDOS disks so it loaded more reliably on my failing A600.
The item pickup sound reminds me of the "Yeee!" Dinosaur meme.
It's a favourite of Amigo Aaron from Amigos Retro Gaming - he would LOVE a Top Banana t-shirt! 😂
94? NINETY FOUR? Thats insane.
someone from 2024 time traveled to the 90s to make one of them ironic retro creepypasta vidjergames
I had a bad trip alone on 2C-I and it actually did look a lot like this
This video makes me want to track down the CDTV version to play on CD32! Absolutely fascinating.
I have to say, this feels really appealing, as an experience. Slap on some old XL and rinse out for an afternoon. It does look WAY ahead of its time in terms of concept...I like it 👍
Betty Boop? In-game portrait looks almost like inspiration for Momo
Cor- i remember this IP character....why do i remember it linked to sweets?!
Pretty sure I got this on a cover disk back in the day, I did play it quite a bit, but it WAS weird, I didn't really like it that much but it did stand out.
A 90's Manic Miner on acid.
Genuinely thought this would be about the old ITV kids show.
Top Banana Mentioned!!!!!!!!!!
TOP BANANA WOOOO
This is a level of awful that all awful is measured by. I rate games on the Top Banana Scale. As it is the worst game ever made, everything is a multiple of that. So, for instance, Monkey Island would be 950 Top Bananas
So how does Top Banana rank compared to the lowest scoring Archimedes games?
Asking for someone who suspects his name might be on the intro screen of one of the contenders for that title...
Oh wow I was thinking about this the other day and wondered why there was very little on it online
Have you tried changing the background graphics to just black squares? That'd solve a lot of problems by the look of it.
It's like a bad acid fever dream!
Never heard of Hex but glad I have now. I feel like these games are for when you are really cooked and you want to show your friends something crazy.
Strange it's nothing to do with the kids tv show that had the same title and was on at the same time
This looks more like some kind of modern ARG game.
As if they were ordered to port Silent Hill to Amiga and "make it a little bit more colorful".
But.... It has sampled graphics and cyberrmix sound....
If the game's name is Top Banana, then where's the Banana fruit?
Joking aside, this game is a huge mismatch of broken collage that makes it so unsettling.
If you want to hear a really good track by Hex, check out Harmonic from Sónar 97.
I loved top banana on my old amiga, I still play it now on emulators 😂
Fond memories of Big Bang by Psycore.
I love learning new thing -- oh no... no-no-no-no
Wow, absolute insanity