Players take on the role of Harry Flowerpower, off to save Neo-Africa from a Wizard's curse by collecting six mystical hearts and...yeah, the little plot that it has is far from serious. To keep things simple: the game consists of using axes and spears to kill six bosses which are each located on a higher level of a tower (no, you don't get to physically climb the tower).
Boss fights in Banana Nababa may be all that it has, but they get quite involved. Most of the bosses either have two or three forms, so learning how to mitigate damage while taking on the first form or two is essential as health pickups are generally few and far between. The first two bosses of the game are challenging, but can be defeated after an attempt or two while the latter four bosses can take may attempts as they can get very involved. For example, the first form of the third boss hops around while spewing purple globs on the ground which slow the player while stepping in them while also shooting out homing bullets which not only cause damage, but temporarily disable attacks; there are even instant-death pits on both sides of the boss room just to top it all off.
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| The second phase of the third boss adds helpers and changes its movement pattern. |
The weapons and movement are probably both one of the strongest and weakest parts of Banana Nababa. Players have both an axe and a spear and can quickly switch between the two of them at any time. The axe has a short range, but has a high vertical arc while the spear can go far, but sticks close to the ground. The weapons simply compliment each other nicely and players will generally need to utilize both of them between the various phases of the boss fights. Jumping is a bit stiff and takes a while to get used to, but fights are designed to take this into account and a somewhat more floaty jump would probably only make many of the attacks harder to avoid.
The downside to all this is weapons are highly spammable, but the button cannot simply be held down, so your fingers can start to feel sore from all the rapid button pressing after a while. In addition, the controls themselves are odd with jumping assigned to C and F, attacking to V and G, and weapon switches to the space bar, although this can of course be easily alleviated with the use of a controller.
Aesthetically, Banana Nababa is simple, yet pleasant. It sticks to a color scheme consisting mainly of a yellowish orange, red, green, and grey, but the colors work together well and bosses are simplistic in terms of their basic design, yet are creative and surprisingly detailed overall. Harry Flowerpower himself joins the ranks of Ogmo and Meat Boy as yet another indie game protagonist who is memorable and charming despite being little other than a square with basic facial features. Judging by the Readme included with the game, none of the music is original, but it is honestly hard to tell as the songs chosen fit perfectly and are both energetic and catchy.
Banana Nababa also has a few things which give it a high amount of replay value. The biggest draw is bosses can be refought after initially defeating them and both time and score are tracked; there are unfortunately no online leaderboards, but trying to beat your own records is still fun and most fights last somewhere in the 1-3 minute range, so it's a great game to pull out for a few minutes every now and then. Secondly, Banana Nababa comes with an editable Game Maker file, so those familiar with Game Maker can modify the bosses and add new ones (or change the controls).
Overall, Banana Nababa is short, addictive, and lots of fun. It makes an especially great game for anyone looking for something they can go back to and simply play for a few minutes every now and then.
Banana Nababa can be found here: http://www.thegamehippo.com/game/33
A video of the sequel/remake that never was can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J_YmkwKUwY
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