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Popeye is a video game developed by Sabic Limited and released for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in 2021. Popeye is a long-running comic and cartoon character owned by King Features Syndicate, who first appeared all the way back in 1929. Not quite as old as sliced bread, but hey, pretty close! For those who are unaware, Popeye is a classic character known for his plump forearms, iconic voice, and his love for the super strength delivering vegetable spinach, a leafy green packed with vitamin A and [ __ ] black magic.
Popeye's popularity grew in his decades of paper and film presence, creating a world chock full of memorable characters. There's Olive Oyl, his noodly love interest; Pluto, or Brutus, his husky enemy; and Sweety, the baby discarded in the mail that Popeye adopts, no questions asked. Oh, and Wimpy! That guy sure does love hamburgers. Hold on, what was the last thing you were saying? Hamburgers? Never mind.
Popeye could be found time and time again in new comics, cartoons, and even a live-action movie with Robin Williams. It's a popular IP, to say the least. He's also famous for his candy cigarettes—candy sticks, you know, the ones that taste like blackboard chalk. "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man," a gateway to addiction. But more importantly, when it comes to video games, Popeye is a pretty big deal. If it wasn't for Popeye, we may not have the Donkey Kong we know and love today.
As the story goes, a young Shigeru Miyamoto came up with the idea for a new Nintendo arcade game based on the characters of Popeye, and his designs were made into Donkey Kong. Turns out they couldn't legally use the Popeye characters at the time, so instead of scrapping their game, they designed new original characters, and the rest is literally history. Miyamoto's Popeye game wasn't completely over, though; Popeye would hit arcades one year later and would end up looking really familiar.
So, as you can see, Popeye has an important legacy in gaming. Well, that's still really only one game. I don't really remember any other Popeye games around when I was growing up. Oh sure, us North Americanites wouldn't, but in Japan, they saw the release of multiple exclusive Popeye games. But the vast majority of these games came out decades ago, leaving the beloved sailor's video game presence to lay dormant. That is, until now!
Hey, it's Popeye! He's returned at the competitive launch price of a whopping $12.99. What kind of developer would pay to use the Popeye license only to create a budget game out of nowhere? Sabic Limited, who made, let's see here, around 20 games in 2020 alone. A list of descriptors comes to mind, and "prolific" is very low on that list, I'd say. But why don't I know who they are? What are some of their notable releases? Uh, Calculator for Nintendo Switch? Oh boy, this is gonna be rough, isn't it?
Time to burst open a can of spinach and chop our way to the land of the iconic sailor man in Popeye. The game opens on the title screen—no developer logos, no intros, heck, there isn't even any music. I don't know what the game is going to look like yet, but right away we can see it's officially licensed. Strange thing, though: the developers, Sabic Limited, don't have their name anywhere in sight. Might be a warning sign of things to come.
Let's begin. Okay, that seems straightforward enough. Looks like we're dealing with a fully 3D traversal game in which Popeye has to go around and collect hearts. Whoa, Popeye just got popped! It looks like old Brutus doles out one-hit insta-kills if he gets too close. Yeah, we've been doing this for a while, so I'd wager to guess that's probably gonna get more irritating as time goes on.
Anyway, back to the game. Level one: Popeye collects hearts that are being tossed out by Olive Oyl from the top of the building. Look, there she is! The only barrier to snatching up all those hearts seems to be Brutus, and well, you've seen what happens when he gets up in your face. If you stand still long enough, Brutus will find you. He's always on the hunt. Better keep your distance because Mr. Sailor Man only has three lives.
You've got a basic punch attack here, but it doesn't work against the only person you want to use it on. That's right, in the first stage, there is nothing to punch. That is, unless you pick up a can of spinach—the iconic foodstuff that famously gives Popeye the extra pep to take on anything. It does exactly what you'd expect against Brutus. Hmm, no matter who gets hit, Popeye or Brutus, you get this: a sound so ear-crunchingly shrill that it'll dislodge your speakers and scare your pets.
But uppercutting enemies like an unenthusiastic bald-headed superhero isn't the core challenge of this game. Like we said before, the objective is collecting hearts, and man, they take forever to fall. I'd go so far as to say half the time playing this game, you're waiting for hearts to appear somewhere so you can scoop them up. And when you do happen to collect enough, you'll find yourself on the second stage: the ship.
Now, I may not know a lot about the Popeye mythos, but I'm pretty sure the character's timeline takes place sometime around the era of steam or easel-powered vessels. I don't think they were hanging around freaking galleons. Well, whatever the reason, Popeye is here, and here sucks. We've got very little space to move while trying to dodge Brutus, and to add to the difficulty, now you've also got to deal with a vulture constantly flying above, around, and diving down to one-hit KO you. Yup, second level in, and getting near-instantly hurled way into the ocean is about as fun as you'd imagine.
Instead of hearts, Olive Oyl is now throwing down letters. Popeye needs to collect these in order to complete sentences that appear at the bottom of the screen. "Oh, Popeye, I love you!" Ah, shucks, isn't that sweet? Another says, "Every girl loves a sailor." A little hyperbolic, yeah, but I could see Olive Oyl saying these things. Alright, sure, I agree, but how about this: "Face it, tiger, you hit the jackpot." Wait, is that a Spider-Man reference? Huh, never saw that crossover coming.
Hey, it's Spider-Man! Oh great. Oh hey, look, we got one more. What's it say? "It is okay to be a glow stick." Finally, once you clear the ship level, you'll find yourself on a stage that looks similar to the first but more densely packed with buildings. Here, you're back to collecting hearts. The major difference now is a character called the witch is throwing skulls at you from atop a mountain. You can sort of see her way off in the distance there.
Oh, okay, you see it now. So now you've got Brutus and these hurled skulls to deal with. All of these, by the way, are one-hit deaths for Popeye on contact. Get through that gauntlet, and the next section is basically the first level repeated, only now it's nighttime. If you guessed that the game is the same three levels repeated with slight variations, you are correct. It might be nighttime in one or raining in another, but the visuals largely stay the same.
Alright folks, we've been waiting to address something for a while now, and I think it's about time we let the cat out of the bag. All of this—this entire experience—is a poorly made recreation of Nintendo's original Popeye arcade game. The similarities with Nintendo's arcade game are impossible to avoid. Olive Oyl sits up high and throws hearts for Popeye to collect. Here is a repeating three-stage structure. Popeye collects letters in the boat level. Brutus chases you and throws bottles at you. You can punch bottles out of the air, skulls too. The vulture is a thing. Cans of spinach are the single power-up that allows Popeye to attack Brutus. Popeye turns red when he eats spinach. A witchy character throws skulls into the playfield.
So yes, they were totally trying to rip off a Nintendo classic. But what does Nintendo think of this? Are they even aware? Bigger question: if this thing is largely working off an existing classic arcade title, how is it so wrong? I mean, a list of problems here is a mile high. For one, the arcade original featured single-screen levels. When Olive would throw down her loving hearts, you'd see their whole journey. Here, that's not happening. There are buildings and objects that block your view just about everywhere. You'll eventually learn that hearts fall in the same locations all the time, but you'll never know what location has an active heart. Super frustrating! They easily could have fixed this with an on-screen map or something that identified where all the hearts are, but hey, what do we know?
Second, the rules have changed. Enemies like the vulture, who could be punched without the use of the spinach power-up before, now require the spinach to take out. Also, little details are wrong or outright missing. The witch that they refer to on the intro screens before the level begins—that's not her canonical name. That's the Sea Hag, an existing character and villain from the original Popeye series. More importantly, where's Wimpy? Where's Sweet Pea? Where's the entire building level with musical notes to collect from the original arcade game? Whoever was in charge of accuracy in this remake didn't give up.
The original Popeye was a tough game, but if you played it well, you'd get extra lives. That's not happening here. There are no continues, no extra lives, and no save states. If you die, you gotta go all the way back to the start of the game. And oh boy, will you be dying! You'll be restarting aplenty because this game is busted, broken, and glitched beyond belief. But not just that, it's also pretty darn lazy too.
Check out these visuals. What is up with the graphics? Popeye, Brutus, Olive Oyl, and all the other motionless characters in the game world don't match their surroundings. They look like they're pulled from some completely different game. These levels are made with low-poly assets that have virtually no texture work. Look at the contrast between these models. It's like Popeye's world is running on a Sega Saturn.
Well, it turns out there's a reason for this. All the level designs and components are from a pre-designed asset pack. You're kidding! No sir, I am not. These are all pre-made and sold in a bundle—specifically this one: the Polygon Pirate Pack from Cinti Studios. Oh boy, look, it's on sale in the Unity Asset Store! That explains why the ship level looked so out of place. They quickly dropped in ships from the pirate pack instead of, you know, something Popeye might have actually been on at one point.
These things are older than I am! Okay, but once they bought their low-poly assets and dropped them in the game, why didn't they design a Popeye character model to match that art style? Well, about that: the Popeye model might have also been pre-made and grabbed from a completely different website. I am disgusted! It's such a mess. You'll find a character on a boat fishing, but the fishing pole doesn't have a fishing line. The pole is sticking through his hand, his foot is sticking to the boat, the boat is not moving, and the flow of water in this fisherman is completely static.
And over here, why exactly is this ship just half-built? It's missing its sail. This was a pre-made completed asset. How does something like this even happen? Well, I guess we can't really critique these models' visuals for clashing or even how their designs look because none of them were ever designed to be combined in the first place. But what we can criticize is the gameplay, and you bet your corn cob pipe we've got more than a few things to say.
The controls are clearly inspired by the arcade original, so all you can really do is walk around and punch. But the problem is that this isn't a simple arcade game; this is a full-blown 3D world with obstacles and barriers. The game world is designed in a way that just screams for a jump button. It would have been really useful for times when, oh, I don't know, we fell into holes we couldn't get out of. Shiver me timbers! Help, Olive! I'm just stuck. Uh, wait, ain't I supposed to be saving her? That's a pretty big oversight.
But there's another lingering problem that is omnipresent. [Music] One song. There's only one regular level track in this whole game. It plays in a loop, and that loop is broken. Hear that? [Music] Stuff your ears with spinach, pal! This sloppy work plays just about everywhere. Oh sure, you can mute the audio, but you're still playing Popeye, and the longer you play, the worse it gets.
The further in the game you go, the more enemies will populate any individual level. You'll repeatedly be dodging Brutus's fists, the witch's skulls, and the vulture all at the same time. And to ramp up the difficulty even more, they begin to move faster and faster. Think you can hide or cleverly avoid them? Nah, you can't! They'll appear anywhere and everywhere because they teleport whenever they're not in your line of sight.
You'll see Brutus standing in the distance, seemingly dazed and confused, but turn the camera slightly and sea cucumbers! Ice nearly [ __ ] me pantaloons! The only time they don't do this is when you punch enemies into the ocean. This buys you a quick moment while they fly or swim back for more, and when they make it back to shore, they trigger a cutscene. Funny thing: if one character's actively chasing you and the other triggers that stupid cutscene, the one chasing you may not pause. That means when you return from the cutscene, this happens.
If you want to fully avoid enemies, you can go for a dip. The stages that take place on islands feature an ocean that Popeye can swim into. You'll find shipwrecks that have busted physical boundaries that make Popeye float in the air like he's levitating through the sheer force of a stream of broken wind. [Applause] It's the spinach! [Music] Gives me wings!
The sea is kind of a gameplay dead zone. There's no timer, so you can basically stay out as long as you want, but this does come at a cost. Yeah, when you hit the water, the entire level seems to load in all at once. The hardware of the Switch doesn't like this. We're talking low frame rates—real low! Like the worst frame rate we've seen on Switch software—low. Despite enemies not instantly teleporting near you while floating in the big blue, Brutus will follow you into the water. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't seem to be able to swim all that well.
Brutus! The best part is when Brutus can be clearly seen underwater, standing up—not quite tall enough to punch Popeye, but tall enough to warp physics so that Popeye can awkwardly float above his head. The game doesn't like it if you do this for too long. The ocean isn't so safe. Back on dry land, however, the world is riddled with idols—characters standing by doing nothing. You would think you could simply ignore these frozen characters and get on with the game, but some of these folks create mysterious invisible walls that prevent Popeye from moving forward.
Invisible walls crop up all over the place at the worst moments. About the only section that invisible walls don't exist is the ship level, but it doesn't matter because this level is so small that it boxes you in anyway. When the enemies move faster later in the game, it's near impossible to avoid them. They'll corner you, giving you no chance to evade. It would've been nice to be able to punch the vulture without the spinach power-up.
Oh, and we can't forget that the witch shows up at random points in very specific areas to toss bottles at you because that happened in the arcade game, so of course, it's gotta happen here as well. This remake cherry-picks the worst aspects of the arcade game and completely avoids the good while also adding even more problems. Instant teleportations on the ship, for example. Here, Brutus miraculously appears right in front of you, looking at nothing. Bam! Brutus!
Sometimes we're surprised by how determined Brutus can be. Other times, his AI switches from demonic teleportation hunter to acorn brain in an instant. Here, you can see him stop following you mid-chase to have a look around, and sometimes he never starts chasing again. Multiple times, we had Brutus lock up. You can stand inches from his face, and he still doesn't quite see ya. Ice knows we've had our differences in the past, but I aim to legitimately worry about your conditions as is. Heck, sometimes Brutus's spawn glitches out to the point that he's no longer present in the playable game space at all.
The vulture enemy too! That's right, two levels in a row, neither character bothered to show up and hassle us in the slightest. Honestly, it was kind of nice. Oh wait, wait, no! Found them! Look way out into the ocean there. I think they're stuck. Hmm, no clue what's happening here. I love it! Unfortunately, the two did end up respawning properly again, but don't worry. Looks like any time Popeye eats his can of greens, Brutus will without a doubt lock up, giving you ample time to strut on over and give him a love tap.
One time, right after a can-eating event, Popeye's punch attack animation locked up. It stopped Popeye's walk cycle for the rest of the level. Kinda looks like he's on a skateboard. Yeah, you're right! Papa, I locked Pro Skater! So here I am, locked into a funny stance, eating all the spinach cans, pretending I'm the sailor man. What the heck was that? Did Popeye die instantly for no reason at all? Oh yeah, that happens a lot! And not just with this skateboarding glitch. Popeye randomly dies over and over again, and remember, there's no way to gain more lives.
Hi kids! What a fun craft you can do at home! You too can orchestrate your own Popeye insta-death. Simply hit the home button on the Switch without pausing this horrible, horrible game, and then wait a moment and then jump back in. Great job!
Eating this game seems like an impossibility. The enemies are always on to you, zipping around locations, and if that isn't a problem, Popeye dies for no reason anyway. If you do manage to avoid cheap deaths, the enemy speed that stacks as you cycle through the game's three levels ensures that they'll inevitably put an end to your run. Between all that and the glitches and the bugs, you have next to no chance to roll credits on this game.
The sound of Popeye being pummeled will become rhythmic, reverberating through your skull as you try to close your eyes and sleep through the empty feeling this horrid remake birthed in your soul. This game leaves us with so many questions. How did this company get their hands on the Popeye license? What did it cost? Why did they even bother?
Surprise, surprise! Taking a famous intellectual property and slapping together a game quicker than a burger at McDonald's doesn't always end in a quality product. Popeye is an incredibly shoddy experience—an unfun, woefully unfinished title coded in quick grab assets to cash in on all the modern kids who like Popeye. Wait, is that an actual audience? Even I barely remember him!
Okay, while he may not be in the limelight much nowadays, he's certainly still a figure worthy of a proper return to the world of video games. But this? It's just bad. [Music] I'm Popeye the Sailor Man! Developers had no plan to make a good game. This hack draws a shame. You won't see the cash again!