Vitamina Oukoku Monogatari (1992) — a Game Boy RPG with no battle menu, that saved itself every few minutes

September 17, 1992: a Game Boy RPG made of food

Hello, this is Toki. Episode 58 of "Today Is Release Day". Today's game has no command list in battle.From the thumbnail of "Great Greed (Game Boy) Playthrough" (NintendoComplete, YouTube)

Vitamina Oukoku Monogatari, an RPG for the Game Boy, published by Namco. It came out in Japan on September 17, 1992. Today, September 17, 2026, makes it exactly 34 years.

The hero is pulled into a fight between people from another world while in a forest, and is thrown into the Kingdom of Vitamina. There he is handed the job of saving it.

And in that kingdom, almost every person and place is named after something you can eat. Let us start there.

A battle with no menu, and a save that moves on its own

In the RPGs of that time, a battle screen usually showed a list: Fight, Magic, Item. This one shows nothing of the sort.

A attacks, B dodges. Four spells are placed on the four directions of the d-pad. Fights are one monster at a time, face to face.

The Japanese Wikipedia article describes this system as "close to the later Tales series". That is 1992, and on a handheld.

The other odd part is saving. Every few minutes, the game writes your progress down for you.From the thumbnail of a Japanese playthrough video of the game (channel: Massugu Kiiroi Neko no You ni, YouTube)

It is a machine you carry around. Batteries die, and you stop in the middle of things. The design starts from that.

A word about the names. The hero's default name is Eat. The five princesses were called Candy, Cup Cake, Truffle, Citrus and Gum Drop in the North American version. Late in the game, you can even end up engaged to one of them.

24 out of 40, and almost no noise

How it landed at the time is still there in the numbers. Famitsu's four reviewers gave it 6, 6, 7 and 5 — 24 points out of 40.

Family Computer Magazine's reader-report column scored it 18.6 out of 30. Both sit a little below the middle.

North America got it in April 1993 as Great Greed. Nintendo Power wrote that the graphics were detailed but might be too small for some players, and that it was easy to lose your bearings. The German magazine Video Games gave it 71%.

That North American version pushes its environmental theme harder than the Japanese one. A small risque scene at the inns was cut at the same time.

Years later, Robin Willow of Hardcore Gaming 101 called it one of those forgotten Game Boy RPGs, with hardly any buzz at release and hardly anyone left who fondly remembers it. The food-shaped enemies and silly scenes were the high points; the combat, they judged, never used what it had.

Looking at the screen, 34 years later

From here, the present.

The video below is a full playthrough of the North American release, Great Greed. Within the first few minutes you can see that battles show no list, and that spells come out of the d-pad.

Footage from "Great Greed (Game Boy) Playthrough" (NintendoComplete, YouTube).

The art is fine-grained. Watching it, you can also see plainly what Nintendo Power meant by "might be too small".

Let me write down the year: 1992

1992. If I do not write the year down like this, the article never feels finished to me. The Japanese release was September 17, 1992. Today, September 17, 2026, makes it exactly 34 years.

Twenty-four out of forty was an ordinary score back then. The game caused no great stir and quietly left the shelves.

And yet inside that ordinary game sat a battle system with the menu thrown away, and a save that ran every few minutes. Both became normal in later years.

Is there a game you still remember even though its scores were nothing special?