Balloon Belly/Video Games

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • In Super Mario Galaxy 2, eating the blimp fruit causes Yoshi to swell up and float like a balloon.
    • In New Super Mario Bros. U, there is a purple Baby Yoshi, who's ability is to swell up and float, similarly to Blimp Yoshi in Super Mario Galaxy 2.
  • This happens to Sims in The Sims 2, in both directions: Immediately after getting up from a meal or getting off the treadmill, they may balloon to tubbyness or shrink to svelteness with a cheery sound effect. Contrast with The Sims 3, where fat and muscle are tracked separately, and gained or lost at a gradual rate.
  • In the Metal Slug game series, if you collect enough dropped food items, you transform into an obese version of yourself. This affects not only your movement, but also your attacks: They're all increased in size and power, and the homing missiles home in on enemies better. It also changes your standing melee attack into a fork stab and crouching melee attack into a belt whip.
  • Yume Penguin Monogatari ("Dream Penguin Story"), where you play a penguin trying to lose weight to impress his girlfriend. Falling in water will instantly make you as fat as you can get, and all the enemies throw food at you which will quickly fatten you up. One level is set in a giant cake. A piracy check, when failed, will cause you to instantly bulk up as soon as you're hit.
    • Similarly, Diet Go Go has food-based enemies that throw food at our exercise outfit-clad hero and heroine. One hit with projectile food makes you fat, two makes you obese, leading to instant death. Averted if the enemies touch you directly, which is also instant death. To boot, the entire game's premise is about an evil scientist who's spreading junk food around the world, making people obese.
  • Fat Princess is a downloadable real time strategy/action hybrid that has this as a strategic element. Fattening the princess up will make it harder for the opposing army to move her. Seriously.
    • The game received criticism on its announcement, as people thought it was mocking the obese.
  • Though it's hard to tell thanks to his anatomy (or lack thereof), Kirby presents an especially absurd example. His size quite literally doubles when he inhales an enemy. (However, it swiftly returns to normal once he decides to swallow.)
    • King Dedede is prone to this, too. When he swallows Kirby, his belly gets so big it forces his head all the way back until he spits him out. He also displays it if you let him beat you in Gourmet Race.
    • All doubt is removed in the Wii installment, in which Kirby's belly wiggle is lovingly animated.
  • Hilde from Shadow Hearts: From The New World has two forms. Curvy Hilde is the trope. Slim Hilde is the opposite. Oddly enough, she gains and loses weight via feeding (she drinks calories, not blood--some enemies have "negative" calories).
  • This happened in Um Jammer Lammy after the title character gets free pizza after putting out a fire at a pizza shop. She gorges herself so much that she looks pregnant, but she just as quickly digests it.
  • Big Eater Li Xiangfei gained a huge balloon belly in her team's ending for The King of Fighters 2001. Rather surprising since it was averted in the similar ending for The King of Fighters '99. It seems the artist in charge for 2001, Nona (known for drawing Gonk versions of every character), has no problem subverting the Beauty Is Never Tarnished trope.
  • Cheng Sinzan from Fatal Fury already has a nearly spherical torso, but he can plus inflate himself with air during at least one of his attacks.
  • In Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, one of the Mario brothers' attacks, Snack Basket, involves stuffing Luigi with treats until he balloons up, followed by Mario tossing him at the ground to create a shock wave.
    • Come to think of it, the original game often did it with water or Chuckola Cola.
    • Also in Bowser's Inside Story is this little plot point. Guess all those fat jokes turned true, Bowser.
  • Karnov's balloooooooooon attack in Fighter's History.
  • Similar to Fighter's History, Breakers Revenge has Maherl's even more hilarious BALLOONO attack, in which he inflates and attempts to slam his opponent into the ground.
  • During the Arizona chapter of the fourth Tengai Makyou game, a cinematic shows an obese cowboy sneaking into a woman's room and force-feeding her cookies that cause her to instantly fatten up. It Makes Sense in Context (though not much, since the Tengai Makyou series is full of very Japanese humor).
  • In Street Fighter, Dhalsim gets this just before breathing fire.
  • Wario in the "Super Smash Brothers Brawl" Trailer
  • In Super Scribblenauts, fattening foods will turn anyone who eats them instantly into "Fat", "Chubby", and "Obese" versions of themselves, which involves simply stretching the body portion of the sprite to be wider. Using a potion with one of those adjectives will achieve the same effect.
  • The classic arcade game Dig Dug involves inflating enemies until they burst.
  • Super Mario World has the P-balloon, which enables Mario to swell up and float.
  • Specimen 4 from Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion kills the player by eating them alive, and the game over screen is an image of her cradling her swollen belly while reassuring the player that they're "safe".
  • In Cuphead, Hilda Berg will suck in a bunch of air and inflate her belly before turning into a blimp during her boss fight. She'll suck in even more air and inflate herself further as one of her attacks, which has her expel all that air and rocket towards Cuphead and/or Mugman at high speed.
  • To catch Grapeskeetos in Bugsnax, you need to make them feed on other Bugsnax by hitting them with chocolate sauce. Due to their sweet tooth (sweet proboscis?), Grapeskeetos descend upon chocolate-coated Bugsnax and devour all the chocolate in a gluttonous frenzy, leaving them too plumped-up and heavy to fly away when you jump in to catch them.
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