Baku Baku Animal
World Zookeeper Contest
Developer: Sega
Platforms: Arcade, Saturn, Game Gear, Master System, Windows, Mobile
First Release Date: 1995 (Arcade)
In Baku Baku Animal, a competition to find a new royal zookeeper has begun. To prove yourself capable, you have to match animals to their iconic cartoon favorite food- Bananas for monkeys, bones for dogs, carrots for rabbits, and bamboo for pandas (and cheese for mice, if you change the settings to have five block types). This game has a lovely and strange early pre-rendered art style, some very abstract characters, and somewhat frightening animal mouths chomping across your boards. The Game Gear version, while not showing the style as well, keeps the gameplay intact. I’ve found myself very charmed by all versions of the game.
The gameplay is similar to Compile’s game Pnickies, released the year before, as well as to Capcom’s Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, released the year after. When you match an animal with its food, it’ll eat all connected pieces of that food. You can set up chains, or draw particularly long paths of food to be cleared. Since one animal block clears several food blocks, you’ll often find yourself with a lot of extra animals. Dealing with big groups of animal blocks is one of the main difficulties of keeping your board clean. There are also BB Coins that appear rarely and clear all of the block types they land on. I love that a giant lion mouth will dramatically close on the loser, which feels like something that would have scared me if I played this as a kid.
Connie’s Conversions:
-Owing to the console’s popularity in Brazil, there’s an exclusive Master System port of Baku Baku. With the exception of the multiplayer functionality being lost, it’s based on and very similar to the Game Gear version, still having the same English text.
-The PC port removed most of the plot, but is otherwise intact. This version was also unbelievably snubbed as part of the famous “Sonic & Garfield Pack”, hidden at the bottom of the box as a Special Bonus. In a perfect world, Sonic and Garfield would be precariously surrounded by the Baku Baku lion’s jaws…
-There's also a couple mobile phone ports that I’d like to cover more in the future. The 2003 one is more faithful to the original, while the 2013 game seems particularly elusive, and may have used a different style. Beyond that, there was an app called Baku Baku Camera in 2015, that added overlays of animals eating your pictures…? Hoping to find more on this as well.
The game has a cute, simple plot- the spoiled Princess has far too many animals, and the put-upon Minister comes up with the idea to hire an official royal zookeeper. You play as energetic girl Polly or (in the Saturn version) the sad wizard boy Gon, competing for the new job. In-between round dialogue was removed in the English arcade and Saturn versions, but was translated for the Game Gear version. All versions maintain the beginning and end cutscenes at least. Your competition includes a green duck creature named Gallopy, and a metallic woman named Silver Angela, among others. Different opponents appear depending on the difficulty, with the practice mode opponents and two extra characters made of metal (Golden Angela!) in hard mode. Polly does a dumb little dance after each character says they’re sad about losing and it always cracks me up.
When you reach the castle, you’ll face the Minister. He’s kind of treated like a mascot of this game, being placed all over the menus, which I think is a delightful thing to do with your grandpa character. After him, you’ll face the Queen, and then the Princess, who won’t believe your skills until you show her yourself. Win and you’ll officially be hired- the Princess seems overjoyed, but it seems like this job might be a handful. A cute detail is added in the Game Gear port- on normal mode, Polly will be apprehensive about the Princess’s pet snake, but beat hard mode and she’ll be much more confident. That’s the spirit!
The Saturn version has an exclusive League mode that lets you make profiles and keep records in matches against friends. It’s available by default in the Japanese release, but hidden behind a code (B, A, C, Up, B, A, C, Up, Start on the title screen) for other releases. It’s completely untranslated- I guess rather than remove it entirely, they left it as a secret? I feel like I haven’t seen many examples of untranslated parts of games being included but tucked away like this, so it’s interesting to me. While I’m listing Saturn additions, there’s also an arranged version of the Arcade soundtrack that’s worth listening to, but you have to go into the sound test to turn it on. Say hi to grandpa in there for me.
With all its gameplay similarities, I think Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (fairly) overshadows this game for many. But it’s full of the odd charm and storytelling that I’m a real sucker for. If you’re a fan of weird early 3D characters and simple to understand chains, I'm sure you'll find it worthwhile.
Thank you for reading!
