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Every few years, memories from my childhood come flooding back and I seek out the odd PlayStation game that my brother and I were obsessed with but never finished playing. An internet search leads to the following: The game, featured on the red and black PS1 demo disc, depicts a pink-haired wild child taking on pigs and ass-like trees. The results show that the game I’m looking for is a platform game from 1997. Tomba!then we get lost in the nostalgia, then we forget all about it, and the cycle repeats.
So you can imagine my surprise. A re-release by Limited Run Games was announced earlier this summer. Tomba! In all its wacky glory for modern consoles. Tomba! Special Edition is available digitally on PS5, Nintendo Switch, and PC. A packaged version, a plush toy series, and a themed NEO S controller (unfortunately sold out) are also planned for release. And now, nearly 20 years after its release, I’ve finally played it through to the end, Tomba! It’s even crazier than I remembered.
The player character, Tomba, is a feral child who lives on the outskirts of society, hunting wild boars and sleeping under the stars. One day, his peace is disturbed when a group of rogue pigs attack, wreaking havoc and stealing his grandfather’s gold bracelet. To retrieve it, Tomba travels to a nearby town to find and defeat the evil pig leader. Along the way, he meets a series of quirky characters who will guide him on his mission, but only after completing them.
It’s a 2.5D platform game, which means that for the most part the game behaves like a two-dimensional side-scroller, but occasionally you can move into the background or foreground to explore the map more deeply. Tomba! Special Edition Not much has changed from the original game; the graphics are still PS1 polygonal and the controls feel clunky. However, there are some convenience additions; specifically, a rewind feature. This is extremely useful, as the game proved to be quite tricky in some places; I found myself needing multiple tries to get certain moves right.
Nearly every aspect of the story and its environment is absurd: Tomba can climb walls, swing from branches, jump with superhuman strength, and apparently store things (including living things) in his stomach and regurgitate them later when he needs them. As mentioned before, the Butt Tree is However, when Tomba jumps on them and squeezes them, a cloud of magical gas flows out. They encounter a dwarven village, but are only able to communicate with them after jumping on a few dwarfs’ heads and learning their language. In another village, everyone has been turned into rats, and for some reason, they are all upset by the disappearance of actual baby rats that were not human.
One of the most memorable areas is definitely the Mushroom Forest, a bad trip location filled with creepy, clown-like anthropomorphic flowers and mushrooms. Jumping on these flowers and mushrooms will cause Tomba to catch certain diseases. One will make Tomba laugh out loud, and the other will make Tomba cry, which is very unsettling. To be honest, the first time this happened, I was shocked and scared. Tomba infected with both mushroom diseases will not be able to handle weapons and will scream and wave his arms around if you try to attack him.
Overall it’s a surprisingly complex game, and visually impressive thanks to its bright colours, but the confusing map layout can mean many of the challenges can be hard to complete. The boss fights are particularly frustrating, as instead of just punching and killing evil pigs you have to capture them one by one and toss them into a bag… but the bag is floating and, most of the time, rotating.
Although I often feel angry, Tomba! It was fun to watch again; it’s consistently silly and the soundtrack had me feeling nostalgic from the moment the steel drums started.Tomba! Special Edition Both the original soundtrack and the remastered version are included, and both are great. Special Edition The release revealed why Tomba! It has stayed in my memory for a long time, and I can honestly say I have never played such a great game.
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