Like Popeye, Burger Time has always been a classic arcade game I really like even if I’m pretty bad at it xD. When I saw that Burger Time Deluxe had been added to the Switch Online GameBoy service, I saw a great opportunity to just sit back and relax with a game that probably went on forever, as it was an arcade game, after all. You can imagine my surprise when the game ended and I saw credits after finishing world six! XD . It took me about 1.5 hours to beat the Japanese version of the game on my Switch not using save states or rewinds at all.
The conceit of Burger Time is pretty simple, as is the case for most old arcade games. Peter Pepper owns a burger shop, but the evil owner of the donut shop next door wants him out of business! Rather than simply coexisting (as surely a burger shop and a donut shop could, as they hardly fill the same niche. If anything, surely one being dinner and the other being dessert, they complement one another?) or out competing him, he sends a bunch of living food to destroy Peter Pepper. Pete has to walk over giant burgers to complete them and avoid food along the way, because this is presumably a means to an end <w>. It’s a big of a silly story, but it’s a good enough excuse as any to walk all over giant burgers that are presumably then served to people X3. There are also fun little cutscenes every 4 stages between worlds that illustrate little antics between Pete and the living food, many of which contain tons of completely unique animations and assets which are otherwise not in the game at all, which I found neat and worthy of mention~.
The mechanics of Burger Time are, befitting an arcade game, simple to get a hold of but contain some very difficult design and tricks to lean within it. To complete a level, you need to complete all the burgers. You walk over the entire length of it and drop it down to the next platform. If it lands on another ingredient, it’ll knock that one down too, and that one can knock down the one below itself, and so on and so forth. How they interact with the evil food you’re after is important too though. Of course, if an enemy is under a falling ingredient, it’ll get flattened to death and have to respawn. If you have to take an enemy head-on by yourself though, you’ll need to spend a charge of pepper, which is difficult to get back, but at least it’ll temporarily stun enemies long enough to get away. Every level has a maximum number of enemies that can be out at any time, so you’ll need to weigh the consequences in the moment if the devil you do know (the enemies as they’re currently spawned) is worth getting rid of for the devil you don’t (wherever they’ll respawn from later once killed). If an enemy is on the ingredient with you as you drop it, though, they’ll cause it to fall down an extra floor! More enemies on it mean more floors dropped as well, so even though it won’t kill them, it can be worth assembling a posse behind you sometimes to then drop ingredients faster and make burgers faster too~.
Though I don’t know for sure if other versions of Burger Time do this, there are some neat and interesting tricks to Deluxe that will really help in later levels. For example, all five enemy types have their own AI priorities that they’ll follow in different situations (not unlike the ghosts in Pac-Man). For example, eggs will always take a ladder if they encounter one, even if not taking it would get them closer to you. In contrast, sausages will always try and go towards the direction you are horizontally, even if that path ultimately leads to a dead-end they can’t reach you from. Learning to outsmart the AI was a very fun part of the game for me, and it makes it very satisfying to narrowly avoid dead because of a cleverly manipulated AI quirk~. Another interesting thing is that the items (and even extra ladders) that appear mid-stage are not random but determined by when certain ingredients fall or when particular burgers are completed. Though the where, which, and when of enemy spawning is still at least somewhat random, this deterministic design of item and ladder spawns does a fair job of making the game “solvable”, to a point, which is extra fun if you’re trying to chase high scores~.
The only real complaint I’d have is that some levels are so large that you can scroll the screen left and right. This isn’t exactly a problem, but it means that there’s often a significant part of the level that you just can’t see, and that can lead to making planning them out a task of trial and error rather than quick and clever planning in the moment. It’s not a huge problem, but the limited screen resolution definitely makes the game feel a bit harder than it needs to be, at times. At least you have infinite continues that will put you back at the start of the world you’re on, and passwords to bring you back to the start of a particular world if you’re having trouble though.
The presentation is very good for what’s ultimately quite an early GB game. The little enemies and Peter himself are animated and drawn up very well and distinctly, and there’s never any ambiguity in play because of how the graphics are put together. The music is also very fun, doing a good job of bringing the jaunty arcade-y energy of Burger Time to something the size of the palm of your hand~.
Verdict: Recommended. Arcade games aren’t for everyone, and the same goes for their handheld ports, but this is a very fun port of what I call a very fun game. It’s not perfect in its design, but that doesn’t keep it from being a bundle of fun. If you’re into Burger Time or just into arcade-y action games, this is a great thing to dive into whether on the Switch Online GameBoy service or through some other means~.
The conceit of Burger Time is pretty simple, as is the case for most old arcade games. Peter Pepper owns a burger shop, but the evil owner of the donut shop next door wants him out of business! Rather than simply coexisting (as surely a burger shop and a donut shop could, as they hardly fill the same niche. If anything, surely one being dinner and the other being dessert, they complement one another?) or out competing him, he sends a bunch of living food to destroy Peter Pepper. Pete has to walk over giant burgers to complete them and avoid food along the way, because this is presumably a means to an end <w>. It’s a big of a silly story, but it’s a good enough excuse as any to walk all over giant burgers that are presumably then served to people X3. There are also fun little cutscenes every 4 stages between worlds that illustrate little antics between Pete and the living food, many of which contain tons of completely unique animations and assets which are otherwise not in the game at all, which I found neat and worthy of mention~.
The mechanics of Burger Time are, befitting an arcade game, simple to get a hold of but contain some very difficult design and tricks to lean within it. To complete a level, you need to complete all the burgers. You walk over the entire length of it and drop it down to the next platform. If it lands on another ingredient, it’ll knock that one down too, and that one can knock down the one below itself, and so on and so forth. How they interact with the evil food you’re after is important too though. Of course, if an enemy is under a falling ingredient, it’ll get flattened to death and have to respawn. If you have to take an enemy head-on by yourself though, you’ll need to spend a charge of pepper, which is difficult to get back, but at least it’ll temporarily stun enemies long enough to get away. Every level has a maximum number of enemies that can be out at any time, so you’ll need to weigh the consequences in the moment if the devil you do know (the enemies as they’re currently spawned) is worth getting rid of for the devil you don’t (wherever they’ll respawn from later once killed). If an enemy is on the ingredient with you as you drop it, though, they’ll cause it to fall down an extra floor! More enemies on it mean more floors dropped as well, so even though it won’t kill them, it can be worth assembling a posse behind you sometimes to then drop ingredients faster and make burgers faster too~.
Though I don’t know for sure if other versions of Burger Time do this, there are some neat and interesting tricks to Deluxe that will really help in later levels. For example, all five enemy types have their own AI priorities that they’ll follow in different situations (not unlike the ghosts in Pac-Man). For example, eggs will always take a ladder if they encounter one, even if not taking it would get them closer to you. In contrast, sausages will always try and go towards the direction you are horizontally, even if that path ultimately leads to a dead-end they can’t reach you from. Learning to outsmart the AI was a very fun part of the game for me, and it makes it very satisfying to narrowly avoid dead because of a cleverly manipulated AI quirk~. Another interesting thing is that the items (and even extra ladders) that appear mid-stage are not random but determined by when certain ingredients fall or when particular burgers are completed. Though the where, which, and when of enemy spawning is still at least somewhat random, this deterministic design of item and ladder spawns does a fair job of making the game “solvable”, to a point, which is extra fun if you’re trying to chase high scores~.
The only real complaint I’d have is that some levels are so large that you can scroll the screen left and right. This isn’t exactly a problem, but it means that there’s often a significant part of the level that you just can’t see, and that can lead to making planning them out a task of trial and error rather than quick and clever planning in the moment. It’s not a huge problem, but the limited screen resolution definitely makes the game feel a bit harder than it needs to be, at times. At least you have infinite continues that will put you back at the start of the world you’re on, and passwords to bring you back to the start of a particular world if you’re having trouble though.
The presentation is very good for what’s ultimately quite an early GB game. The little enemies and Peter himself are animated and drawn up very well and distinctly, and there’s never any ambiguity in play because of how the graphics are put together. The music is also very fun, doing a good job of bringing the jaunty arcade-y energy of Burger Time to something the size of the palm of your hand~.
Verdict: Recommended. Arcade games aren’t for everyone, and the same goes for their handheld ports, but this is a very fun port of what I call a very fun game. It’s not perfect in its design, but that doesn’t keep it from being a bundle of fun. If you’re into Burger Time or just into arcade-y action games, this is a great thing to dive into whether on the Switch Online GameBoy service or through some other means~.