Tomba! (PS1) Retro Review

Tomba! is another game that I hadn't played when it originally came out, so you need not worry about potential nostalgia clouding my judgment. Instead, feel free to consider a myriad of other things that cloud my judgment! In Europe, the game is known as Tombi!, as is the main character's moniker. For the purpose of this review I will be simply calling him by his North American name.

That'll do, pigs. That'll do.

Oh, Tomba. You are yet another mascot of the nineties that was cast to the wayside, forever forgotten by most of the world. Sure, now Sony has the big guns like Uncharted's Nathan Drake, God of War's Kratos, Ratchet & Clank's eponymous duo, and whatever passes for a front man for the Killzone series, but they are definitely missing someone of notable caliber in the pink hair department. Tomba! was and still is a very original PlayStation One-era 2D platformer with loads of charm. Its recent release on the PlayStation Store has revitalized some interest in the title. Is the $9.99 USD price tag good enough to pig out on this game?

Tomba! follows a simple story, and for a platformer, that's all you'd really want anyway. One day Tomba is resting in a meadow when suddenly a group of Evil Pigs steals his prized possession, his golden bracelet, given to him by his grandpa. Now, the Pigs are doing a mess of other things, other than giving Tomba trouble. An Evil Pig has been dispatched to each main area of Tomba's playing grounds, and they are causing quite the stir. From turning the citizens of Baccus Village into rodents to create fierce winds on Phoenix Mountain, these Pigs have got to be stopped. Of course, Tomba just wants his golden bracelet. Saving the peace-loving people and habitats of the game by nabbing each and every Evil Pig to stop their tyranny over a given area of the land is just a bonus. After all, it is pretty clear from the darling opening movie that Tomba does not have all his proverbial pigs in a blanket. (I'm calling him a bit stupid and naive, for those who don't follow.) Speaking of the movies in the game, there are plenty of them sprinkled throughout Tomba's adventure. They have a cute aesthetic to them that yells distinctly "Saturday morning kids' anime." Oh, no worries - that's an adorable thing.

No shirt. No shoes. No problem.

I said that Tomba! was and still is a very original game. I stand by that statement. What other kind of 2D platformer allows you to leap onto the backs of enemies, grab hold of them, jump, and then send them hurdling across the screen into walls? Tomba also can, a certain spots of levels, move into the background and foreground (change planes) to open up even more platforming possibilities. Tomba's a jungle boy, and he loves to summon his inner Tarzan, hopping across vines, swinging 360 degrees off poles, and climbing up walls. That last feat can actually be a hindrance as there is sometimes when you just want Tomba to get out of the way or fall quickly to the ground, and he just keeps clutching to a wall. There's also a bit of a learning curve with controlling Tomba. His jump moves him at an unconventional arc, which may slip up some players. I know it did me at first. Speaking of jumps, there are some leaps of faith to be had, very annoying in some vexing areas. (Lava Caves, anyone?)

Tomba can change planes, climbing up
the house (door-side) and standing on the roof.

It is not just the gameplay mechanics that differ from typical 2D platformers either. No, you advance through Tomba! by completing various quests (the game calls them Events). It feels like an RPG in this regard as well as some others that I'll discuss later on. Feels, mind you. You perform tasks for total strangers or to reach certain places to earn Adventure Points (the experience points of the game) and move the game forward. Most often you cannot proceed without clearing some story-related Events. Sometimes the title of the Event is a dead giveaway of what Tomba needs to do. Other times you are left guessing and experimenting. Then, there are the Events that you simply cannot for the life of your figure out what the game wants you to do. The latter only comes up once in a while, and they are seldom mandatory to proceed in the game. On many occasions you will have multiple active Events to satisfy the conditions of. It can be overwhelming at times.

So thick you can cut it with a knife.

There are 130 Events in total. A fair number of them are completely optional. In general, the Events themselves can be as straightforward as reaching the summit of a mountain and catching a ride on a Phoenix, retrieving the pants of a monkey, or learning how to swim, or they can be as complex as combining powders to make a mysterious mushroom, helping a Baccus Village citizen stop crying, and playing hide-and-go-seek with an NPC.

Many Events will have Tomba collecting an item to complete the quest's request. Aside from Event-specific items, Tomba can stow away in his inventory health-restoring Lunch Boxes; destination-transporting Clarity Wings (though there is a way to be able to move to any area that makes this item unnecessary); new weapons and equipment such as boomerang, grapples, parasols, and pairs of pants; and mushrooms that can turn Tomba into a happy, neutral, or crying mess. An item that our jungle boy can nab that aren't in his inventory include the invaluable Vitality Max +1, which bestows one extra slot of health for our hero.

They say laughter is the best medicine.
Well, at least it kills time.

Along with the quest-like Events and inventory, Tomba! has another aspect of it that makes it similar to RPGs. Depending on the enemy type that Tomba defeats, he gains Adventure Points (AP) in one of three meters that can fill up up to ten times. Some areas of the game are inaccessible until Tomba has acquired the necessary amount of AP. Three of the greatest treasures in the game, gems bestowing Tomba with a different power, are only able to be picked up if the pink-haired hero has the required AP gauge filled to its maximum corresponding to the gauge's and gem's color.

The areas of Tomba! are all interconnected. As you can possibly imagine with all of the Events, there is a lot of backtracking involved. Apart from the 2D landscape levels, Tomba visits various towns where the game shifts to an overhead point of view, reminiscent of any typical RPG, where he can chat with the locals, get assigned new Events, and unwind. Saving is performed by walking up to the numerous signposts in the game and examining them.

 Tomba feels a bit under-dressed 
compared to the locales.

Eventually you will come in contact with a portal door leading to an encounter with one of the Evil Pigs. Of course, you need to have collected the Evil Pig Bag of the area first before the door is operational. Regardless, each battle possesses the same objective, jump on the Evil Pig and chuck him into the sometimes rotating, sometimes moving Evil Pig Bag to seal that oinker away for good, destroying the mystical magic spell that he placed on the area he raised heck in. This can be easier said than done as Tomba can only throw enemies left and right, and once he jumps once, he automatically tosses a foe. Add in some magic by each Evil Pig such as tornadoes, boulders, and meteors, and the challenge becomes greater.

Tomba! is a good length for a 2D platformer. It took me about 10-12 hours to complete most of the Events and see the ending. I didn't get to complete several of the Events because the game glitched three of my items (three Crystal Balls) and removed them from my possession. (This seems to have happened with other players, so I am not alone, thankfully.) That said, there really is no exceptional special bonus for clearing all the quests except that you can pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

Each Evil Pig has caused 
some trouble for a specific area.

Tomba! was criticized for its overall look even back when it released. Just imagine the complaints we would get in this climate where seemingly every thing with color is branded as "kiddy." If you still haven't evolved from thinking that you're above games because they don't feature enough violence or blood, Tomba! should be a pass for you. Regardless, I digress. How can I even mention blood with regards to such a rosy-in-exterior game? Tomba himself is rendered similar to the cast and characters of Nintendo/Rare's Donkey Kong Country trilogy, as are the enemies, NPCs, and some environmental objects. Then there's the 3D elements like the platforms Tomba hops and runs on, the walls he climbs, and some background items. It is all pretty pleasing to look at. The sound doesn't fare so hot. Some sound effects grate on the ears, and the soundtrack, while some songs are fine in-game, does not have much resonance or memorability. I'm sure, however, I could find one track that I liked.

Ultimately, Tomba's first adventure is a successful one. It really is a platformer in RPG's clothing. Or maybe it's the opposite..? Nonetheless, Tomba! has its fair share of problems such as copious amounts of backtracking, imperfect hit detection, mediocre music, but for every problem it has, Tomba! is blessed with a positive. The game is charming, there are plenty of Events to accomplish, the RPG elements are refreshing for a 2D platformer, the visuals are colorful, and it has nice replay value. It is a shame the original developer of the game went out of business shortly after this game's sequel. I would have loved to see a trilogy out of Tomba! Perhaps someday... or perhaps that poor, wild jungle child could wind up in a certain Sony fighting game... A man can dream.

[SuperPhillip Says: 8.0/10]

Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters (GB, 3DS VC) Retro Review

Retro Review Month flies with the help of Lady Palutena to Angel Land for our next game, Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters. I take control of the precocious Pit on my journey to obliterate the Orcos menace. Having never played the game before and possessing no nostalgia, what are my thoughts on Pit's second outing? 

A Recommended Pit Stop

Lately, the angelic warrior Pit has been up there in popularity with some of Nintendo's mightiest mascots. This has been mostly due to his reintroduction to the gaming world as part of the roster of Super Smash Bros. Brawl and his first new starring role in over twenty years, Kid Icarus: Uprising. Uprising remains not only one of my favorite 3DS games of the year, but it is one of my favorite games of the year on any platform. That notwithstanding, I, like most likely many of you, was not familiar with Pit's past efforts with the original NES Kid Icarus (the game is available on the Wii's Virtual Console service or in 3D Classics form on the 3DS's Nintendo eShop) and the subject of this review, Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters for the original Game Boy. Does this game shine in the glory of the sun, or do its wings burn up?

Pit's first portable adventure has him undergoing grueling training after the goddess of light, Palutena, experiences a tremendously vivid dream of death and destruction being inflicted upon Angel Land, a typically cheery and chipper world. Taking this dream extremely seriously, Palutena sends her trusted servant Pit out to train hard and collect the Three Sacred Treasures to combat the impending evil. Like a fair portion of Game Boy games, the actual story of the game during gameplay is minimal. In fact, the plot is set up in scrolling text leading up to the title screen. Sometimes not saying much of anything is saying enough, and for Of Myths and Monsters this design philosophy works.

If you have played the previous installment of Kid Icarus, you should be familiar with the gameplay of the handheld sequel. If not, there's no worries as it is astonishingly simple to jump (and fly) right into. There are four worlds to play through in Of Myths and Monsters. Every world except the fourth has four levels. Worlds one and three are primarily vertical affairs while worlds two and four are horizontally inclined.

A new adventure begins!

Pit's second game takes him through the clouds, across plains, and through the underworld in his search for the Three Sacred Treasures. The game is simple to control. Pit can fire arrows to his left and right, and he can fire directly above to take down foes who wish to get the drop on him. Jumping in this game allows Pit to have a more flexible volume of inertia. You can more easily change direction mid-jump. The aforementioned vertical levels are built with the ability to loop infinitely when you move across them horizontally. One fabulous fix from the original Kid Icarus is that you no longer die by falling. In the first game, the screen would scroll to a position that if you fell below it, you'd lose a life and gain a copious amount of frustration. That problem has been rectified, so fall freely all you wish, Pit! As you fall, you can tap the jump button to have Pit flap his wings to slow his descent. This makes otherwise challenging leaps all the more feasible.

Don't fear the reaper.

Every level has its share of secrets to be found. Doorways lead to a myriad of different room varieties. By defeating enemies, you can collect their fallen hearts, the currency of Kid Icarus, however macabre that might actually seem and in reality be. Some doors take you to a shop where you can exchange your hard-earned hearts for hammers that can break blocks, life-restoring items, and other beneficial items. This time around, even Zeus is here to help. He has numerous training rooms for Pit to test his physical and mental mettle in. They basically amount to surviving a flurry of flying tiles, but the rewards for doing so are great. Pit can upgrade his bow and arrows, allowing his shots to fly across the entirety of the screen and/or even take out baddies with a single blow.

The fourth level of the first three worlds is always a trip to a labyrinthine fortress. Fortresses have multiple rooms that are filled with traps, enemies, and peril. However, you are not left to your lonesome in these level types. By doing some searching in each fortress, you can uncover a helpful Map, Pencil, and Torch. These items show the complete layout of a fortress, show what rooms you have already visited, and show your current location. These fortresses very much feel like what The Legend of Zelda's dungeons would look like if that game were a 2D side-scroller and wasn't of the overhead camera perspective/action adventure genre.

A franchise favorite, the health-restoring hot spring!

Fortresses house the most hazardous obstacles in the game. The infamous Eggplant Wizards call these hellish havens their homes. One touch of a thrown shot of theirs turns poor Pit into a bipedal eggplant. He must then venture through the fortress, with no ability to attack, to find a clerical figure who will heal him free of charge. However, sometimes being an eggplant is beneficial as you can enter narrow gaps, skipping portions of a fortress.

Keeping with the idea of fortresses being dangerous, each of the three types of levels has a guardian defending to the death one of the Three Sacred Treasures. These fights are not so bad as each boss has their own pattern to exploit the weakness of. The downside is that if Pit is not powered up that much through successfully completing training grounds, the battles wage on for lengthy periods of time. Arrow after arrow penetrates the flesh and bone of your adversaries, yet they just keep on living. Die already, darn you!

At the completion of each level, your points from the level add up to a cumulative total. As you reach certain milestones in points, Zeus bestows you with health upgrades. Having five full bars of health is a lovely luxury as some arrow upgrades require Pit to have at least 2-4 bars of health full in order to utilize them. For the greatest challenge, try beating the game with minimal health and minimal upgrades. It isn't so easy!

Clouds that Pit can use as platforms?
What kind of sorcery is this?

Speaking of beating the game, Of Myths and Monsters isn't a particularly long adventure. It certainly isn't mythical in its length. It can be completed within 2-3 hours at best. However, like many games around its era of birth, Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters is the kind of game that you will want to play through over and over. It is really that much fun and that much more accessible than its painfully perverse predecessor.

Fully armed, locked and loaded.

Being fully competent and strong at release, the visuals of this game are pleasing to the eye in their simplicity. Levels have loads of Greek-based architecture from stones and statues to columns and shrubbery. The outdoor levels are bright and bouncy, which is of high contrast to the fortress levels. These have pure black backgrounds and stone-surfaced floors, ceilings and walls. Pit himself looks the part of an angel with bow in hand and wings spouting from his back. But where the character design truly impresses is within the boss battles, with one particular foe taking up two screens in all his intimidating glory. You can probably guess at what point in the game this boss turns up. Moving on, the music fits the levels it plays during quite well. It changes up enough that you will seldom grow to be annoyed by the various "jaunty sometimes, foreboding others" themes being played.

Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters is a clear improvement over its predecessor in nearly every way. The game is much fairer in difficulty and the game is all the better for it. The short length of the game might put a lot of potential interested parties off, but Pit's first portable outing is one that is enjoyable to occasionally sit down with and enjoy off and on through the years.

[SuperPhillip Says: 8.0/10]

New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS) New Screens

A batch of new screenshots for New Super Mario Bros. 2 have been released as the date for the game's Japanese launch approaches. North American gamers will get to get their hands on a boxed or digital copy on August 19th. For the time being, check out these ten pics from Mario's latest 2D adventure.

Metroid II: Return of Samus (GB, 3DS VC) Retro Review

Retro Review Month rolls on like Samus Aran in Morph Ball mode. Speaking of Samus Aran, the next game we are going to be taking a look at is a Game Boy classic. It is Metroid II: Return of Samus. The game is considered to be the sixth title in the Metroid chronology. All that really matters is that you, the player, get to blast away some Metroids off the face of planet SR388.

Is the Return of Samus a Return to Form?

One could make a case to say that the Metroid games before Super Metroid aren't as thought as lovingly of as the Super Nintendo classic and the games in the series afterward. One of the main reasons and complaints is the lack of an in-game map. Back in the olden days of 8-bit Metroid, players plotted out their own maps by drawing them on a piece of paper. Still, the inconvenience of constantly pausing the game to draw a new section of the game was a serious pain that Super Metroid and games in the series thereafter rectified. Metroid II: Return of Samus was the first handheld Metroid title. Even with having no in-game map to help players, is it still worth the adventure?

Metroid II takes place on the planet SR388. The Galactic Federation had previously sent multiple extermination forces to wipe out all remaining Metroids so the Space Pirates could never use them for their own sinister plans. When absolutely none of the forces designed to take out the Metroids survive, the Galactic Federation opts to send bounty hunter Samus Aran in to complete the job. If a player didn't know anything about the plot going into Metroid II, the game certainly wouldn't help enlighten them on anything. The game thrusts players in control of Samus as quickly as they press the start button on the title screen. What little narrative that actually occurs happens near the end of the game, and it is fully playable.

Samus embarks on her Metroid murder mission.

The planet of SR388 is habituated by dozens upon dozens of Metroids located in every inch of the cavernous world. Samus must take out all of the Metroids in a given area to be able to advance to the next. When this happens, an earthquake will sound, lowering the lava level down for Samus to advance deeper into the planet to take on a new batch of Metroids. The actual Metroids come in all shapes and sizes: alpha, omega, zeta, etc. Each form has its own attack strategies and patterns. The first Metroid form met just slowly hovers to Samus to attack her merely by touch. A barrage of five missiles will obliterate the pest. The later Metroids in the game take on lizard-like appearances, float around the screen, are fast, shoot out fireballs from their gaping mouths, and can stand up to twenty missiles before perishing. It can be difficult tracking down the last Metroid needed to move on to the next area of the game as they can be well hidden.

"Don't mind me. I'm just here to exterminate you."

Though as I stated already, the lack of a map is not only a consistent complaint regarding Metroid II, but it's a reason why Metroid hunting is so annoying. In the original Metroid, the game's rooms and corridors were different colors, so at least they could be distinguished from one another. This isn't so on the black and white Game Boy sequel. Lots of rooms resemble one another, and it can be challenging to assuage which blocks can be destroyed, passed through, and which can't. I had to eventually resort to using a color-coded map to complete the game, and even then it was taxing.

Like every Metroid game in existence, Return of Samus grants Ms. Aran with a bevy of new abilities to reach otherwise inaccessible areas. Returning abilities include Samus's famous and patented Morph Ball and Ice Beam moves. The Morph Ball allows her to curl up into a ball, rolling through narrow passageways as well as dropping bombs to blow up blocks and enemies. But that's not the limit of the Morph Ball's abilities this time around. Samus can learn the Spider Ball and Spring Ball powers. The Spider Ball allows her to stick, scale, and cling to walls whereas the Spring Ball gives her the chance to jump while in Morph Ball form. A series mainstay, the Space Jump, makes its debut to the franchise in this game. By timing Samus Aran's jumps carefully, she can leap infinitely, though practice makes perfect on that one.

These statues hold each of Samus Aran's new abilities.

There are also numerous missile expansions and health-increasing extra energy tanks strewn about SR388. Unlike most games in the series, there is no completion percentage achieved by nabbing a certain amount of expansions/energy tanks. Instead, the only facet of the game that is judged is a player's time to beat the game (the best ending is achieved by reaching the end of the game in less than three hours). That isn't to say that collecting these goodies is without a doubt useless. If one wishes to have a fair shake at survival, these become a necessity - unless that player is really firing on all proverbial cylinders, of course. With the scarce amount of save points in the game and the incredible amount of damage Samus can take from Metroid assaults, players will need all the help they can get. Though the save point issue fixes itself if the Virtual Console version (available on the Nintendo 3DS system's eShop) is played thanks to its save state functionality.

Some rooms are carbon copies of others.
This makes for some befuddling moments.

Metroid II suffers from being on the Game Boy. A significant portions of the rooms look alike, causing lots of confusion to the player. That said, the visuals are astounding. Samus herself takes up more real estate on the screen than in her original Metroid days, but this doesn't really affect the gameplay all that much. Regardless, it amazes me what was done on the simple and humble Game Boy. The sound, too, shines in some aspects, while it falters in others. The music starts off with the feeling of the beginning of a grand adventure, but in later areas it feels entirely atmospheric, driving home the point that Samus is indeed on a mission alone, isolated from humanity and fully immersed in danger. Not all is great on the sound side, though, as there is a sound effect that is heard every time Samus jumps. It gets grating after a while, especially in areas with subdued or no music playing.

Metroid II: Return of Samus is nowhere near my favorite entry in this science fiction action adventure series. I'd be amiss, however, if I said I did not enjoy my time with the game. Sure, I had to use a pre-made map to get my bearings throughout my journey through SR388 - finding and eliminating the Metroid menace far and wide, but Return of Samus is a game that I can see myself returning to - constantly trying to speed run through the game, scoring excellent times, and obtaining the best ending. If you are interested in seeing the Metroid series's roots on a portable gaming device, Metroid II: Return of Samus is the perfect game to do so.

[SuperPhillip Says: 8.0/10]

Freakyforms Deluxe: Your Creations, Alive! (3DS) Trailer

I greatly enjoyed the eccentric Freakyforms: Your Creations, Alive! when it debuted on the Nintendo eShop in the latter half of 2011. Now Europeans are getting a retail version of the game with more parts to create Formees with as well as a new dungeon mechanic. Freakyforms Deluxe debuts in Europe on July 28th.