Toki Tori (WiiWare)

VROOOOOM. Review for A-N, but they've been redesigning stuff for the past fortnight, so no reviews are going up. Here!

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It's kind of amusing, the WiiWare service has only just launched, yet it's already home to the likes of LostWinds and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As An Absurdly Long Title, two third party games that are quickly gaining more praise than most full price retail releases on the system. But hold on, the shaming of shelf-wasting crap wrapped in plastic doesn't stop there, as the local WiiWare launch also brings Toki Tori to the (512MB) table.

Developed by Two Tribes, Toki Tori was originally released for the Game Boy Color back in 2001, but despite the positive reviews and the publishing support of Capcom, it went by largely unnoticed and quickly faded into obscurity. Not much of a surprise, considering the Game Boy Advance was right around the corner at the time. Seven years later, he returns with most of his GBC levels intact, along with a bunch of new ones.

Essentially, Toki Tori is a newly hatched chick, and quickly discovers – for some reason – his many siblings are being held captive across four different worlds. That's a pretty rough start to life, but hey, we're here to help. Good thing too, he needs a lot of it. If you were to toss Lemmings, The Lost Vikings and Mario vs. Donkey Kong in a blender, mix it up and chug down the end result, you'd… well, probably die. But you'd also get something resembling Toki Tori's gameplay.



The goal of each level is to rescue everyone, but reaching each egg can prove to be a tad tricky. Toki Tori can walk, climb ladders and jump very small gaps, but that's about it. Luckily, it just so happens he's a master of various tools. Each level will give you a certain amount to use wisely. These can include bridges and blocks to help pass larger gaps, a teleportation device, the ability to move small walls and even various weapons to help take down any nearby enemies. As you progress, more and more tools are introduced, each with a special tutorial level to explain how they work.

The first few levels start off easy enough - perhaps even luring you into a false sense of security, but when the game really gets going, your brain's in for one hell of a ride. Simply put, the game is filled with brilliantly fiendish level designs. You may think you have the solution and begin to chuckle confidently while swirling wine all over your dressing gown, only to discover you've run out of items with the last egg sitting just out of reach. Shrug it off, hit the restart option and rethink your strategy all over again.

By pressing the – button, the game will pause and zoom out, showing the entire level on-screen. This will give you a much needed chance to lean forward and make a face filled with confused rage as you desperately try to picture how you'll go about completing the stage. One wrong move can potentially lead to disaster later on. The game constantly rewards creative thinking, as you'll often be using your items in ways you never originally thought possible. The rush of coming up with a new idea, only to see it actually work is amazing.



The game even allows a second player to help by drawing hints on the screen, though it'll probably just be used to fill the stage with crudely drawn stick figures featuring mysteriously long lines from their crotch region. Controlling Toki Tori is a breeze, simply point where you'd like him to go with the Wii Remote and press the A button. Alternatively, you can also use the Nunchuck's analogue stick, or a Classic Controller.

Each world has 10 levels, along with a bunch of optional 'hard' stages – and boy, do they mean it. All up, the game features 70 levels, with roughly half of them being from the original Game Boy Color game. If you really, truly get stuck, you can use your Wildcard to skip to the next level. You only get one Wildcard, but it can be used again if you eventually go back and beat the stage that was originally skipped.

Visually, the game isn't particularly amazing. That's not a bad thing though; it's very easy on the eyes, something important considering you'll be spending an obscene amount of time staring at some of the levels. The animation however, is great, with Toki Tori himself being especially full of life. Leave him alone for a while and he'll pull out a Wii Remote and start waving it about, or juggle around whatever weapon he's carrying. It's cute, and very reminiscent of platform game characters from the 16-bit era.



The music is pure quality – catchy, moody and great fun to listen to. The tracks go for quite a while, which is thoughtful. Some looped three second Zoo Keeper style disaster wouldn't go down very well.

Toki Tori is an absolutely fantastic puzzle/platformer. It's clever, charming, rewarding - and for 900 points, it's a bloody bargain. It's obvious a lot of love has gone into it, right down to Toki Tori sending postcards to your Wii's message board whenever you beat a certain amount of levels. He'll even attach photos of himself getting into all sorts of mischief, perfect to mess around with via the Photo Channel! The game was ignored the first time due to bad timing; hopefully now it'll get the attention it much deserves.

Final score:


I believe it's actually 1000 points when it hits the US tomorrow though, weak dorrah rape etc.

Jam it back in, in the dark.