..what

somehow out of every single game ive ever played or consumed in my entire life, vitamin connection, a Nintendo switch game that came out a day after one of my birthdays and is overall just Average, its Fine, Not Bad, has become the game soulbonded to me for life.
no really. I Am As Flabbergasted As You Are Over This Information.
(maybe it was obvious from the release date)

anyways. vitamin connection is a co-op Nintendo switch game taking advantage of the systems dual controller system, having two players control halves of the movement system depending on which controller you have. you'd think this would be a launch title game considering its focused entirely on the switch's 'gimmick', but no, this came out 3 years into the switch's life cycle, in 2020. funny.
you play as vita-boy and mina-girl, and you go around doing what you do best. being vitamins and destroying viruses. specifically for this one family whos uncle in japan created you as a miracle drug. there are 6 total stages, one for each member of the family,
(fighting off whatever ailment is facing them, like a dog eating chocolate, a toddler eating a whole chili pepper, or the tv not working. normal ailments, of course)
and then one at the end for a meteor blasting towards planet earth where you face off against the mother of all bacteria. no really thats the final boss. they have a whole spheal about friendship and love and everything at the end its extremely corny.

i cannot explain why this game has persisted in my head for VAR=[CURRENT YEAR - 2020] whole years. of course fluctuating in interest but its been There. in the back of my mind. ive made a clay figurine of vita-boy and mina-girl (which is. well it was an experience to make to say the least (IT TOOK ME 3 MONTHS. DUE TO VARIOUS TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES)) and one of these days im going to make something for the rest of the cast (maybe figurines as well because ive gotten the hang of it? or maybe little standees. elec-tron may become a phone charm because she is my favorite and i am biased)

PLAYLIST PROJECT

im in the process of making a megaplaylist of all* of vitamin connections soundtrack, in an order thats pleasing to listen to, because i just genuinely like a lot of the music in the game. for the longest time the only way to listen to the tracks (for free online) was a ripped version that recorded the audio straight from the game, but a couple years after release, all the songs were put onto yt from the actual musicians. thus, 85 video megaplaylist. the end goal is to mash all of them into one 3 and 1/2 hour long video with custom animations and everything. this is because i am insane. there is literally no audience for this its just me and possibly trying to improve my editing and animating skills. i heart making things for the sake of making things.
*excluding some really really short jingles, because i found them a little pointless and broke up the flow of the playlist

OFFICIAL MERCH AND GRAPHICS

'mara' you say, 'why bother with a merch section? surely this random switch game from 5 years ago doesn't have That Much merch'
and you would be. right! according to what i could find, the only official merch made of the game were for its collector edition pre-order (done through limitedrungames), and for handouts at PAX festival.
the collector edition includes the game (duh); plushies of vita-boy and mina-girl; an official soundtrack cd; reversible poster; character profile cards; and a holo card.
heres a video showing them all off
the merch made for handouts are just some trading cards and enamel pins. there was also a vitamin connection themed nintendo switch case, though im not sure where it was sold.
my dream would be to own those vita-boy and mina-girl plushies. alas, the only way seemingly would be to buy a whole collectors set, and i could not justify dropping 65+ dollars to myself. no matter the level of obsession. have you SEEN the economy nowadays??

on the graphic side of things. UNFORTUNATELY, because this is literally just some random ass nintendo switch game, seemingly nobody has ripped the assets from this game and posted them online. which sucks massively because i would kill to have the official talk sprites SO BAD. or any of the character art in this game really. its all so very cutes.

actually put an asterisk on the above few sentences. a while back i went and asked an asset ripping blog on tumblr for some rips of the talk sprites and they got back to me saying that they.. couldnt? rip the assets? i wasnt able to ask for further clarification bc they went dormant soon after but if thats true then that is seemingly very facinating. why on gods earth would this random switch game have unrippable assets compared to every other blockbuster game that has their assets ripped on day 1.

HOWEEEVVVERRR. i have found a small work around to getting at least a few official key arts in relatively good quality
the old vitamin connection page on wayforwards official website!
(this technically took a bit of digging because the page up nowadays is actually at a different url. and quite a bit more boring. sad!)
its got a little key art we can extract :) not... much, but something is better than nothing lol
anyways if i ever get my hands on a nintendo switch i may justify buying a collectors item to get a cartridge and singlehandly rip the sprites from this game myself. because im the only person on this bitch of an earth who cares enough to do that.