yamamanama | The Lost Word of Jenny

So basically the story of Jenny the doll is that Mattel worked with Takara Tomy to release the Japanese version of Barbie, who Japanified her and then for whatever reason, Mattel teamed up with Bandai instead and Takara Barbie was renamed Jenny and lived on as sort of an Okinotorishima Stacy or whatever the Japanese equivalent of Malibu is.

8675309 is Jenny’s Number. it’s not only a prime, it’s a twin prime and the hypotenuse of a pythagorean triple. my favorite thing about Jenny is plug the following equation: (7^(e-1/e)-9)π^2. Not only do you get Jenny’s Number but you get the year the song came out.

Google is like “people also ask: is Jenny’s number a real number. It’s not i enni so it’s not complex. Well, technically it’s complex with the imaginary part being 0 so yeah.

Jenny started as a nickname for Jane.

I feel like I brought this up in the context of jenny hanivers, which predates the name Jennifer by a century or two. Probably. I dunno. I can’t find a source on it.

Only a few levels are open at a time. It’s random.

I think that monsters would live in lairs or caves.

You get a kick, which is rather clunky. In fact, it really doesn’t work on the bats at all. And when it does work, the bats respawn immediately anyway.

S is for “spray” and P is for “the ingredients needed for spray.” and maybe it’s phosphorus and maybe it’s pee and maybe I don’t know.
“How do you tell if you’re equipped with the spray?” you’re probably asking. You don’t!

Sometimes the treasure chest turns into an enemy.

What the L does I have no idea and neither does Gamefaqs. I assume it’s there to distract you while the bats chip away at your health.

I’ve never seen a bat be so annoying. this game is seriously the entire reason “god damn bats” is in the video game lexicon.

the pendant gives you temporary invulnerability.

I picked up an A. You’re going to need to write down what letter and what number you pick up on each level.

The number is 6.

picking up a skull takes away one thing of spray.

so your object in each level is to open up all the chests/jars/coffins/whathaveyou not only to find the enemy who has the letter but to make the door appear

then you go to cow head in every level.

you fight the skeleton cow. Or cows in later levels. The layout of this stage is always the same.

Spin the reels of fortune.
Supposedly certain combinations can result in bonuses to your score, which means extra lives, but it’s rigged against you.

because this is a game from 1987, you don’t get your life refilled upon beating a stage. It’s all arcade stuff even though this is a game for the Famicom, which you either spend the yen equivalent of $50 on and can play it whenever you want as much as you want, or you spend the yen equivalent of $3 so you can play it whenever you want for a few days.

Your enemies on the overworld are dogs

and mobsters.

If you try to kick the enemies that come out of chests/pots to death, you’re going to get massacred.

The spiders are good for health grinding.

Hey, it’s Keroppi.

Shoes make you move faster. I think.

The second letter from Plant Land is B as in butthole. And the number is 1.

The hints make no sense.

The graveyard is brought to you by the letter F as in “actually those grim reaper enemies are rather easy even with just the kick.”

and the number 2, which is how many points of damage you take from most enemies.

I wonder if they were this nonsensical in the Japanese version. I think if I came upon a magic book that could teach me any language I desired, it’d be Minoan.

Wow, for the first time, I had to do one of those capchas on imgur but didn’t get blob.

this place works a bit differently. You float as long as you’re holding the jump button.

D as in snake. Or dragon.

at least the music’s changed. If you can call that music, anyway.

and 3, as in that’s how many bottles of bug spray ingredients I have.

that is true, mantises and roaches (along with termites, which I bet you thought were hymenoptera) are part of the same superorder. But I fail to understand the relevance.

Finally, cake.

It’s infested with ants! Wretched, horrible ants!

C as in cake.

And the number is 5.

That’s nice but we’re not playing Castlevania, we’re playing The Lost Word of Jenny.

Now, you’d think we could go straight to the final door, use the process of elimination to intuit the last number and letter, and finish the game right now, but no, we have one more stage to go through. And it’s all the way on the right side of the map.

The number is 4 and the letter is E as in elimination comma process of.

he turns into a skeleton when you kill him.

it really isn’t that bad once you figure out how to play it.

Um, okay.

Our last destination is Musical.

You were writing down all the numbers and letters as you went, right?

I’m going to let you in on a secret.

I found a longplay of this and I don’t think the numbers are actually random. Although there’s only 6! possible combinations.

Huh?

The green guy is a pumpkin. I thought it was supposed to be a rotting apple.

burning question: “Barbie has been a doctor, a fashion model, and a president, but did she ever kick the shit out of a skeleton cow? UsaSatsui don’t think so.