The Munchables is a 3D Platform Game developed by Bandai Namco Entertainment for the Wii. The game combined elements from two of Namco's other series, Pac-Man and Katamari Damacy.
Star Ving is a planet with several islands that are all connected together by rainbows. The inhabitants of Star Ving are the titular Munchables. Led by the mysterious Great Elder, the Munchables are a race of gluttonous creatures who spend their days chowing down from an endless supply of food created by magical artifacts called Legendary Orbs. But one day, a fleet of UFOs appear from a hole in space and steal the Legendary Orbs, destroying the rainbows connecting the islands and cutting off the Munchables' food supply.
Then the UFOs deploy an army of creatures called "Tabemon Monsters" all over the islands to wreck havoc on Star Ving. It's up to the Great Elder and the game's protagonists, two Munchables named Chomper and Munchy, to traverse the islands of Star Ving, retrieve the Legendary Orbs, and defeat the Tabemon Monsters. And unfortunately for the monsters, they bear a rather uncanny resemblance to the various foods the Munchables love to sink their teeth into...
This game provides examples of:
- A God Am I: The Great Elder, who runs around Star Ving with a cardboard cutout of a halo and a cloud strapped onto him. He even goes by Kami-sama ("god" in Japanese) in the original version of the game. Why he does this is unknown, but it's either because he thinks he's god, or to come off as a benevolent leader to the Munchables and hide the fact he's a Tabemon Monster from them.
- Achilles' Heel: On most of the bosses, the Legendary Orb sticks out of their bodies - usually in their backs or mouths - or have to be revealed by stunning them first, then must be slammed with a dash attack to harm them.
- Ambiguous Gender: All of the Tabemon Monsters are referred to as "it", even ones who appear incredibly masculine or feminine, like Broco Lee.
- Anthropomorphic Food: Subverted: the Tabemon monsters look like walking food, but are actually aliens that resemble various fruits, veggies and candy.
- Asteroids Monster: Weakening bigger enemies through repeated tackle attacks splits them into smaller versions with reduced levels. Great Grapy and Big Choco also spilt apart whenever their attacks are countered.
- Background Boss: Both Great Grapy and Big Choco, who hang out of bounds until their projectiles are bounced back.
- Big Eater: Chomper and Munchy are always hungry and eat anything and everything they can get their mouths on, even if it's not supposed to be edible, including part of the Great Elder on occasion. Every Munchable is explicitly described as doing nothing but eating and growing their whole lives, to the point that hunger is literally their only drive in life.
- Boss Subtitles: Every single boss battle begins with one of these, displaying the name of the boss and a title attributed to them.
- Convenient Weakness Placement: The battlefield for Big Fishy is littered with giant sea shells, which damages and stuns it when it charges into one.
- Die, Chair, Die!: Some crates contain nothing, while some contain power-ups.
- Dissonant Serenity: It's rather off-putting how happy-looking the Tabemon Monsters are in their official art, despite the fact they're space pirates trying to take over Star Ving.
- Endgame+: Defeating King Pumpkin unlocks a new character, a robotic Munchable called "Robo", and Mirror Mode.
- Exposition Break: Completing an island after meeting Don Onion will cause the Great Elder to expound his relationship with him; they used to be good friends, raising happy Tabemon monsters together, but the Great Elder discovered that Don Onion was secretly stitching Tabemon monsters together in an attempt to create powerful creatures to rule to universe with. The Great Elder left the planet and never looked back.
- Excuse Plot: Space pirates that look exactly like food invade a planet inhabited by Extreme Omnivores and cut off their only food supply. It goes as well for the space pirates as you'd expect.
- Feed It a Bomb: Inverted. The player character must be careful not to eat bombs, avoiding or ramming them.
- Flying on a Cloud: Parodied; the Great Elder looks like he gets around via flying cloud, but it's actually just a cardboard cutout of a cloud affixed to his chest.
- He Was Right There All Along: Every boss stage barring the final one will begin with the Great Elder, Chomper/Munchy/Robo, and the tag-along of that island (if there is one) walking into the scene and having a short conversation, before something happens and the boss rises out of the ground.
- Mini-Boss: The second level of each world has a miniboss you need to find and eat. Level 2 of World 8 instead has you fight the Minibosses of the previous seven worlds.
- Mirror World: Every level can be played in reverse after defeating King Pumpkin.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: Both the Munchables and the Tabemon Monsters. The former are disembodied heads of various animal species with bottomless appetites, while the latter are technologically advanced aliens that look like human food.
- Punny Name:
- The name of the planet, Star Ving, is just "starving" with a space, obviously referencing the Munchables being Big Eaters.
- The first boss, a giant, anthropomorphic broccoli, is called "Broco Lee".
- Shout-Out: The name of the Ghost Mansion's boss is Mushroom Thriller.
- Sidetrack Bonus: Many Acorns require to go off the beaten path.
- Smashing Survival: If hit, you'll become tiny. You can regrow by rapidly shaking the Wiimote.
- Space Zone: Fort Entree, the Tabemon Monsters' space fleet and the final world of the game.
- Stock Sound Effects: In some of the cutscenes, some of the cartoon sound effects (especially that of Hanna-Barbera) can be heard.
- Tennis Boss: Great Grapy and Big Choco's projectiles (grapes and chocolate orbs, respectively) must be reflected back to break them apart into smaller enemies in order to do any real harm to them. What complicates matters is that they'll add in spiked weapons over time, to the point where only one object is safe to hit back.
- Time Trial: Beating the game unlocks Mirror Mode, where every level is flipped to the opposite side in addition to you being timed.
- Toilet Humor: The Munchables appear to be crapping out acorns. And then there are the contrarily named Legendary Orbs, which are shaped more like... well, the common Japanese depiction of poop.
- Tube Travel: Going into holes in the sea floor of in level two of Gulp Sea will play a short animation and have you pop out of another hole.
