Toki Tori (2001)

History:

Nope, never heard of this one for any console, though I understand it's been ported all over the place!

Expectations:

Mole Mania immediately jumps into my head when I look at this game, and while that's not necessarily a "bad" thing, I'm just not a huge fan of these kinds of puzzle games. At the very least I'll play through a bit of it and hope for the best.

Day 1:

Right out of the gate this game is oozing with charm, which is fantastic. Everything is so fluid and vibrant, that I could easily forget I'm playing a GBC game, and mistake it for an early GBA game instead. The puzzles are fun, quick and simple enough, and the game moves along at a decent pace. New items are fun and make puzzle solving really enjoyable. It's not too long before I make it through the game's first world!

I decided to switch over to the GBA Player on the Gamecube at this point, and I'm glad I did. The creepy castle area is even better than the first stage, and puzzle complexity is taken to a whole new level.

Solving these stages is even more rewarding with the added difficulty, while still not being overly difficult.

And then there were the Slime Caves...

This was the point of the game where the puzzles were less fun, and more reverse engineer until you get a migraine then consult a guide. Once you have to start looking up solutions for a puzzle game, what's really the point in playing anymore? Now you're just testing your abilities to follow instructions...

Conclusion:

To be clear, I'm not a big fan of puzzle games, so the fact that I spent a sold two and half hours playing this one today should speak to its quality. My problem isn't with puzzle games themselves, but the way they're played. I love Tetris Attack, but I'm only going to play it for small chunks of time. When I try to play games like this over an extended period they just get monotonous.

For the time Toki Tori is fun, it is very fun. The style's fantastic, the music is good, and the gameplay itself handles really well. I mentioned Mole Mania in the beginning, and this is definitely the better game,

This is a game I can easily see myself pulling off the shelf to kill some time in the future, but for now I'm quite worn out on it.

Liked:

- Charming and fun visuals make watching this game in action enjoyable.
- Tight controls and neat items make it so it never feels like playing this game is working against you.
- Sound effects are fine, and music never seems to grate on you, despite its repetition.
- Puzzles are fun, challenging and rewarding.

Disliked:

- Later in the game, complexity seems to get arbitrary, leading to screaming things like, "Really!? THAT'S the solution!?"
- No rewind feature like in future versions of this game, meaning one misstep or accidentally pressing the wrong button can mean restarting the entire level.

Personal Score: