This puzzle game’s cute looks belie how much it was able to stump and frustrate me at times. But its charm and quality of life features won me over in the end.
The Toki Tori series started on the MSX as Eggbert, then had an entry on GBC that was very impressive for the platform. This is a remake of sorts of the latter game, with new prerendered graphics and some very friendly features, chiefly the rewind function. At any time you can infinitely rewind your actions, so a single mistake won’t cause a restart; this is a godsend especially for the longer levels.
This remake has a bunch of ports all over the place, but it’s perfectly cromulent on 3DS. You don’t get the pointer controls the other versions have (buttons are better anyway), but the screen resolution might hurt the fidelity of the graphics. The accessibility of the handheld is a plus, though.
Anyway. Toki Tori may have the appearance of a platformer, but it’s a hardcore puzzle game. I was constantly reminded of Lemmings; Toki has a variety of limited-use functions, such as building a bridge, a short-range teleport, or an ice gun. You have to figure out the logic of where to use each of your tools to find all of his stolen eggy chums, paying careful attention to the grid-based layout of the levels and the interactions of your various functions, and avoiding the occasional red herring. Again, the rewind feature is the high achiever of this whole experience, alleviating much of the frustration of figuring things out.
I was almost ready to pack it in a few times, as my feeble brain and limited patience was stymied by the Dutch masterminds at Two Tribes. However, the game itself prompted me to check out their specially recorded Youtube walkthrough videos if I ever got stuck, and indeed I did a few times, letting me get to the ending. These only cover the “Normal” levels, and so “Hard” and “Bonus” are all up to the player, which for me was a bridge way too far. Sorry Toki Tori!
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