One of the more unusual and off-beat original titles in the Super Famicom/Super NES library would have to be Spanky’s Quest by a pre-split Natsume. The game —one of the very few Natsume titles on SNES that doesn’t go for an arm and a leg these days — was originally called “Hansei Zaru: Jirō-kun no Daibouken” (Monkey Reflections: Jiro-kun’s Great Adventure). It features a monkey on a 54 level quest to complete his own video game. With an unnecessarily ribald pun added to the US version’s title, someone in a marketing department somewhere must have been having a good belly laugh followed up by a nice one-two self-pat on the back.

We’ll go by the premise of the US version as the Japanese version is practically devoid of plot: Spanky the Monkey (Jiro-kun in Japan) is captured by Morticia the Witch and must navigate through a strange land to defeat her and go back home. The game is comparable to Tecmo’s Solomon’s Key: you navigate through short maze-like levels, defeat an infinite swath of fruit and vegetable enemies collect keys and make your way to the next level. Lemonheads, apples, plums, and oranges all need to die.

Spanky’s primary self-defense in this brave new world he navigates through is a wad of bubbles he blows; presumably bubble gum. By bouncing a bubble on your head, you increase the size of the bubble. By forcing a pop, it transformers into sports balls with their own little properties: baseballs, basketballs, and soccer balls. Don’t dilly-dally in any of these stages or else an evil crow will come down and kill you.

With limited lives (but infinite continues) the game starts off fairly easy but as you progress, you’ll soon learn that you’ll need to master the bubble bouncing mechanics and execute strategies to get through the increasingly complicated stages. There are no saves, but a password system instead.

Spanky’s Quest feels a lot like a basic arcade-style game, so there may not be much replay value for folks seeking out a game that can be played for hours on end. There are no hidden secrets or modes to speak of once you clear the game. If you beat the US version, I’d recommend trying out the Japanese version as there are many tweaks between the versions, especially a largely different World 1.

As far as I’m concerned, Spanky’s Quest is a strong early SFC/SNES title with an unfortunate name and worse box art that is nonetheless worth checking out.