Toki Tori

Netbook Game Review

From the screen shots I had wrongly assumed that this game was just another Super Mario Bros style side-scroller. Toki Tori is actually quite a headscratcher of a puzzle game. To progress through the game, the player must pick up each egg in a level using a set number of tools. Players will have to look and plan ahead carefully while using items such as the Telewarp, Freeze-o-Matic and InstantRock. Additional tools are gradually introduced as the player progresses through the game’s 80+ levels covering four unique worlds.

Don’t be fooled by the first few levels as they’re meant to get you familiar with how the puzzles are laid out and how best to go about solving them. After the first dozen or so I guarantee you’ll find yourself completely stumped. The good news is that you can rewind time a bit or restarting levels to try and get it right – with very little to no consequences. For me, the difficulty curve for this game was quite satisfying. It transitioned very gradually from kid’s play to complex puzzler and kept me engaged the whole way.

The game designers have included a ‘wildcard’ system in Toki Tori. Here’s how the ‘wildcard’ works: if you find yourself stuck, you can use one wildcard in your inventory to skip that level and move on to the next. It acts as if you solved the puzzle! But wait, there’s always a catch, right? You only get one wildcard. Ever. To get it back, you must go back and beat the level you used the wildcard on in the first place. This gets easier the further you get in the game and the farther back the wildcard is — for example, hopping over level 11 and working your way up to level 20 before getting stumped means that technically you should have an easier time beating level 11 now and snatching up that wildcard. As I found, that’s not always the case. (It took me 22 very frustrating tries to beat a level in World 4! I do love a good challenge though.)

While I played the PC version on my netbook, this game is available for iPhone, Windows Mobile and Wii as well. Grab up a copy for yourself, it’s quite inexpensive and will probably give you at least 5 hours of gameplay for your investment.