Baku Baku Animal: World Zookeeper Contest is Stock Animal Diets, the Falling Blocks competitive puzzle arcade game, created by Sega in 1995 for arcades. It was later ported to the Sega Saturn, Sega Master System, Game Gear, and Microsoft Windows the following year, along with a Mobile version in 2002. The gameplay apparently maps to taking care of animals really well so you, as Polly or Gon, can become the Royal Zookeeper for the Princess.
As a competitive puzzle game, the game bears similarities to the Puyo Puyo series of puzzle games, which Sega would eventually acquire the rights to.
This game contains examples of:
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Angela and T3 wear nothing at all, but they're also made entirely of metal.
- Chrome Champion: Angela and T3 are completely metallic. Angela comes in both silver and golden.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Food blocks and animal blocks that are compatible with each other share the same color: Dogs and bones are blue, rabbits and carrots are red, monkeys and bananas are yellow, pandas and bamboo are green, mice and cheese are purple.
- Dueling Player Characters: Polly and Gon face off against each other in their own stories.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: If you clear story mode with fewer than four animal types, you just get a message from the Minister telling you to play again properly if you want to see the ending. The Game Gear and Master System versions are less harsh, with Master Piggy instead congratulating you on beating the eastiest difficulty and encouraging you to play the harder difficulties.
- Eye Pop: Gallopy does this when he's losing a match and when he loses.
- Family Man: T3 is competing in the contest so he can support his family.
- Final Boss: The Princess is not convinced Polly or Gon are worthy of taking care of her animals even after they win the contest, so she challenges them herself.
- I Let You Win: Story-wise, the Minister goes easy on Polly or Gon because both and he and the King have already chosen them for the job and want to get the contest over with. The Queen's not having it.
- Graceful Loser: Master Piggy, T3, the Minister, the Queen, and the Princess all take their failures in stride and congratulate the player.
- Impossible Hourglass Figure: Any woman who isn't Polly. Angela, Nurse Grape, the Queen and the Princess all sport impressive curvy figures.
- Informed Species: Gallopy is a squat green alien-like creature with big red lips and a single antenna on his head. He is officially a duck.
- I Want My Mommy!: Gon cries for his mom when he's beaten by Polly.
- Jerkass: Nurse Grape is completely rude in each of her appearances.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The Princess is a demanding and vain girl, but she sincerely loves her animals and is a Graceful Loser.
- Just a Kid: Most of the opponents underestimate Polly and Gon for this very reason, including the princess herself.
- Kid Hero: Both Polly and Gon, the playable protagonists.
- Market-Based Title: Outside Japan it was marketed as just Baku Baku. Though this didn't seem to extend past the packaging.
- Meaningful Name: "Baku Baku" roughly translates to "Chomp Chomp".
- The Mentor: Piggy, or "Master Piggy" as Polly calls him, challenges the protagonists to train and prepare them for the path ahead.
- Multiple Endings: In the Master System and Game Gear versions only. The final scene changes depending on your difficulty, though it really only amounts to how Polly reacts to the Princess's giant pet snake; on normal she is nervous and incredulous, whilst on hard she is apprehensive but quickly warms up to the snake.
- Nice Guy: Master Piggy and T3 are both very polite to their opponents and don't take being beaten badly.
- Ocular Gushers: Gon starts pulling this when he's losing the match and goes full throttle when he loses.
- Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Polly wears a pink dress and hairbow, while Gon wears a blue hat, gloves, and boots.
- Punny Name: Polly and Gon. The Sega Saturn was Sega's first console with polygon-based graphics, you see...
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The King tries to be this, but is easily coerced around by both the Minister and the Princess. The Queen is a straighter example.
- Royal Brat: The Minister clearly sees the princess as this in the opening. He isn't wrong, but she is more Spoiled Sweet in the end.
- Shout-Out: If T3's name wasn't enough, he looks like the T-1000 with the physique of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and sure likes to flex those muscles.
- Sore Loser: Most of the characters react negatively to losing, with Gon and Angela especially standing out for throwing temper tantrums.
- Stock Animal Diet: Dogs eat bones. Monkeys eat bananas. Rabbits eat carrots. Pandas eat bamboo. Mice eat cheese. If you have trouble remembering this, they're also color-coded: blue, yellow, red, green, and purple respectively.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: The king is very short while the queen is tall.
