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I really loved Popeye and it was one of my go-to games despite it being a little frustrating. A 1983 Nintendo release, the characters in Popeye were actually originally planned to be used in what became Donkey Kong, but during development Nintendo was unable to obtain the licenses to do so, so Popeye became a standalone game, released the year after Donkey Kong Jr. made its debut. Some gaming magazines and columns were critical of the mechanics and design similarity to the by-then already tiresomely mimicked Donkey Kong, but others complimented its character design and music, and it proved to be a fan favorite.

You play the titular Popeye, and the character design is pretty good with the characters being immediately recognizable. Okay, except for Olive Oyl. She looks like a rendering of a Raggedy Ann doll that was sat on, but 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.

Olive does what Olive does best, which is being ugly and a nervous wreck. She tosses a constant stream of hearts down onto the screen, which you must grab without letting any of them reach the bottom. Retrieved hearts appear on the house on the top left. Once the panels are full, you win that level and the next is a little harder, and so on. The major barrier to your goal is Bluto, who, although regularly hot-tempered in the comic/cartoon/movie, really seems to have it in for you in this game and is on a rampage chasing you. You need to avoid him before he pummels or grabs you with his meaty fists. He sometimes pauses to throw a number of bottles at you which you can punch apart if you can’t get away or just if you feel like showing off. He’s a real pain in the ass but you can occasionally get back at him by grabbing cans of spinach that appear randomly at the sides of the screen. Popeye turns green and the theme music plays while the game briefly allows you to chase and then punch the living shit out of him for once. It includes a nice satisfying animation of him flying away and bouncing around the screen for a moment before he recovers and it’s back to business.