Yume Penguin Monogatari is a game developed by Konami in which the player controls a penguin named Penta who gets dumped by his girlfriend Penko for another penguin named Ginji because Penta is obese. It was first released for the Famicom in 1991.
This game contains examples of the following tropes:
- Balloon Belly: Falling in water will instantly make Penta as fat as he can get, and all the enemies throw food at him which will quickly fatten him up. Falling into water causes him to instantly become fully obese. A piracy check, when failed, will also cause him to instantly become obese as soon as he touches a food item.
- Checkpoint Starvation: The only checkpoints are at the beginning of each stage, so if you fail a stage you must start from the beginning of that stage. You have unlimited retries though, and only have to restart from the beginning if you specifically choose not to continue. This does get averted though, when you get to the final stage when you have to fight Ginji to rescue Penko after Ginji kidnaps her. Fail three times there and the GAME REALLY IS OVER and you cannot continue and you really do have to go back to the very beginning of the game.
- Downer Ending: Even if you beat the final boss and save Penko, she will still dump Penta in favor of Ginji (despite the fact that he just kidnapped her) if Penta is still even just a little bit fat afterwards, leaving poor Penta futilely begging for her to come back as she runs off with him.
- Fake Longevity: The game automatically starts a "second lap" playthrough after the ending in which you start from stage one again except you must now reach a more extreme weight goal for each stage.
- Golden Ending: Beat the game completely slimmed down. Penko will once again accept Penta… Then Penko herself ends up getting massively overweight from snacking so much, to her embarrassment and Penta's facepalming chagrin.
- Level Ate: Stage three is set in a giant cake.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The sixth and final stage takes place in what appears to be Antarctica, with ice platforms and a huge body of water.
- Temporary Bulk Change: Penta constantly switches between three stages of fatness during gameplay. He can drink diet drinks to lose weight and possibly "Shape up". Being fatter causes him to move slower and jump lower. While Penta is obese, his only attack is a belly press against the floor which prevents movement for a second. While he is normal weight, his only attack is kicking, and while thin his only attack is shooting the word "Po" at enemies.
- Timed Mission: Penta is racing against a time limit that Penko imposed on him before she dumps him permanently for Ginji, so all stages have a time limit. The time limit is reduced by taking hits from enemies in the platforming segments and increased by collecting clocks in the level.
- You Are Fat: In the intro, Penko insults Penta's obesity, dumps him, and even goes as far as stating that he doesn't really love her if he doesn't go see her while slimmed up. If Penta rescues Penko while too fat at the end of the game, she still dumps him for Ginji saying that Penta's still too fat.
