It’s a shame that some games that are critically successful can do so horrible financially. Sometimes, the result of that is the company that made the game can go out of business. No one will know why some games that get great reviews sell poorly. It could be the poor marketing of the game, but who really knows. A good example of this kind of situation is the two Tomba games for the Playstation 1. These two games are considered cult classics and are really good games. These are pretty hard to find and will cost a lot. I will be doing a review of the second game, Tomba 2 The Evil Swine Returns.
The main story of Tomba 2 revolves around Tomba who is living peacefully on an island, and living life to the fullest. That is until his childhood friend, Tabby, has been kidnapped by the evil pigs and it is up to Tomba and his friends to get her back and destroy the evil pigs once again! This has to be the first time where I have played a game where there is an evil pig.
The game play in Tomba is of a 2.5D side-scrolling action plat former where you control Tomba in a 2.5D/3D world, kind of like the second Klonoa game or the remake of the first Klonoa game, but you get the idea. This time, all of Tomba is rendered 3D instead of how the last game was with 2D characters and 3D backgrounds. Though I say it’s like Klonoa, I feel like it’s more similar to games like Banjo Tooie, since you do travel to multiple worlds and you have to backtrack through them with different items and such to get to that specific thing in that specific world. You could compare the style of game play here with the later Castlevania games like Symphony, but I chose Banjo Tooie because of the cute and colorful character designs. Your main weapon of attack is a spike ball on a rope, called a jack, for some reason, that is good for hitting evil pigs. Though you truly get rid of them by jumping on them and then throwing them. You gain other weapons, like a boomerang and a ice-throwing star-thing, and each weapon will help you with certain enemies and certain objectives, like the ice shuriken helps you get to the mining town level. You will be doing a lot of backtracking for when you have the right items so you can capture the big bad pig in certain areas. You also have healing items, and items that teleport you to different areas, but it doesn’t take that long to get from place to place. You also gain different pairs of clothes that do stuff like make you faster or glide in the air, which is pretty cool in my book.
The graphics in the game are colorful and cute-looking. I definitely like the whole design of the worlds and the characters that live in them. I like it how you have to fight evil pigs. It’s pretty odd, but fun to fight all the different types. The music is also very cheery. A reason why the designs of the characters are so well done is because the man, Tokuro Fujiwara who is famous for producing the Megaman and Ghost and Goblin series two of Capcom’s most famous franchises, designed them. Overall, it’s a pretty nice package.
Sadly, every game has its faults, and I do need to exploit them even if they are just small little gripes. First off is the voice acting. This was when voice acting was fairly new, but most games had pretty good voice acting, but this is one of those games that had some pretty bad voice acting. It isn’t the worst, but it’s pretty retched at some points. You can get lost and confused easily if you don’t know what to do. It took me a bit of time before getting to certain areas by finding out what I had to do.
Overall, this is a truly great game, and one of the best PS1 games ever. The bad part of this is that the Tomba games have gained cult classic status and are very VERY hard to find. Even if you do find it, you will have to pay about 50 to 60 bucks. I found my copy of Tomba 2 for 40 dollars, which is cheaper, but still very pricey if you’re trying to keep on a budget. If you do find it for less, then I would say pick it up. Like I said, it is a truly great game for the PS1 library.
This game gets a 9.3 out of 10.
Comments