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Hey! Toki Tori is... pretty fun, and not exactly like something you can probably download from the Virtual Console! Well, provided Eggbert doesn't show up anytime soon. Now, Toki Tori is inexplicably 1000 points for Americans, despite being a 900 point game for Europeans. Good lord, why? Is an "import" surcharge getting tacked onto it? That pretty much makes no sense. Oh well, it's actually a good game, so still completely worth it. Tasty review below.

(Beating this game made me want an omelet, and also made me feel ashamed of that.)

Eggbird Birdegg

If you stumble across the European retrogaming scene, you'll find immense love and nostalgia heaped upon a game called Eggbert that youve probably never heard of. It was an MSX puzzle game, where a egg-like bird creature is looking for sibling in other eggs scattered across levels in four worlds. They're scattered around levels designed to either kill you or get you stuck and force you to retry if you go after the eggs in the wrong order, misuse the tools available to you, or run into an enemy.

Some of the developers of Eggbert formed their own company, Two Tribes, and produced a Game Boy Color game called Toki Tori that was basically identical to Eggbert in premise and gameplay. It was a good game, good enough that Capcom was willing to publish it, and the reviews were positive. It had the misfortune of coming out well after the Game Boy Advance was on the market, though, so nobody bought it.

Two Tribes is back with a WiiWare version of Toki Tori, and it is easily one of the best games currently available for WiiWare. It's very similar to the GBC version of the game, spreading its levels across the same four worlds, each with its own hand-drawn 2D tileset and usually an exclusive mechanic or two. Each world has ten normal levels required to get the game's ending, and then a varying number of bonus Hard levels that are simply there to provide extra brainteasing. In all, the game has around 70 levels to clear. It is not a direct port of the GBC version, instead more of a remix that blends old and new levels.

Century Egg

There's a glorious retro SNES vibe that comes across in playing Toki Tori. The graphics are rich and colorful, blending the 2D tiles with the pre-rendered 3D sprites for Toki Tori, the eggs you collect, and the games four different foes. Each of the four worlds has its own, quite memorable sense of design and some absolutely amazing music to listen to while you play. Controls can use the Remote alone, the Classic Controller, or the Remote & Nunchuk together (probably the most comfortable style). Toki Tori moves back and forth at a rapid clip, key to puzzles where you have to outrace enemies, and can use a variety of tools in each puzzle.

Sometimes he gets unlimited uses of them, but in other times you can only use a given tool so many times. Tools include bridges to lay over gaps, a one-tile teleport, the ability to move small blocks, pebbles that turn into big blocks when dropped, a freeze ray that turns enemies into blocks, a ghost trap that makes certain enemies tumble through the ground, and a bubble suit in the final underwater level that lets Toki Tori float for brief periods of time. Some tools and levels change Toki Toris sprite a bit, and if you leave him sitting he has a clever variety of wait animations hell go through while you make your decisions. (I like the one where he juggles.)

Puzzles are generally designed so that there's really only one way to properly solve it and get all of the eggs without dying or getting stuck. There's a handy Restart function from the pause menu that you'll probably be using a lot while you try to work out a correct egg-grabbing and tool-using sequence, or try to get a twitch-oriented segment of play completed just right. You have functionally infinite lives to try each puzzles with, and if you're really stumped you can use the Wildcard item to skip it. The catch: there's only one Wildcard, and you cant get it back until you solve the skipped level correctly. Fortunately, the developer's website has a hint section to help out the truly desperate.

Short Order

Toki Tori is really, really fun to play, and this ends up exacerbating the game's main flaw: it's a brief chunk of gameplay for ten dollars. I started Toki Tori yesterday morning and had cleared the 40 normal puzzles by about six o' clock that evening. I'm working through the Hard puzzles as I type this, and I expect to be done with them before I go to bed tonight. Some people may play more slowly, of course, but unless you get stumped this just isn't a game that'll last awhile. There's no significant multi-player to speak of (just a way for a second player to point their Wii Remote cursor at things), and nothing to do with the game once you've solved all the puzzles. You will frankly get more playtime out of one of the Lolo games available on VC for about half the cost.

This isn't to say Toki Tori isn't worth your money. It is, especially if you enjoy action puzzles but missed Toki Tori's GBC debut. It's a beautiful game with wonderful music and a sense of sheer joy that's going to appeal to the jaded retrogamer who wishes they still made 'em like they used to. Yes, you could just play a Lolo game, but the feel isn't quite the same. Occasionally as you play through your Toki Tori game, you'll get little Wii e-mails as rewards, postcards where Toki Tori tells you what he's up to with adorable production artwork attached. I don't mind dropping 1000 Wii Points to support that kind of charm and quiet cleverness in my WiiWare games, and neither should you.

PROS: Really great soundtrack; fantastic visual design; puzzles are fun and tricky without being too frustrating.

CONS: Too short; no online or multiplayer modes; promotes cannibalism.

GRAPHICS: 4.50

SOUND: 5.00

CONTROL: 4.50

FUN FACTOR: 4.00

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