Sometimes a game will catch your eye for no other reason than an interesting piece of cover art. In the case of Toki Tori, it was the high adorability factor that drew me in.

Toki Tori was originally developed for the Game Boy Color by Two Tribes B.V. and released by Capcom. They have since done versions for the iPhone, Windows Mobile, WiiWare, and PC. The GBC version was itself an update of Eggbert for the MSX 2.

I saw it on one of the many Steam sales last year and picked it up on the cheap. I had heard it was a cross between Lemmings and a platformer. They had me at Lemmings.

It is a simple concept; You are a chicken trying to rescue your unhatched brethren. For some inexplicable reason, their eggs have been hidden throughout a series of maze-like levels. As Toki Tori, it is up to you to use everything at your disposal to save them.

Toki can’t jump or fly, but he can flap his underdeveloped wings (he is a newborn chick after all) to float down from any height to safety. More importantly is his access to puzzle solving tools. At the start of each level, you are given a limited number of tools used to solve that particular level’s puzzles (this is where the Lemmings comparison originates); everything from a gun that turns enemies into blocks of ice to simple platforms you can use to cross gaps. It is really all a matter of figuring out where and in what order to use the given items in to get to all the eggs.

You are given several options on the control scheme. You can use only the mouse, the keyboard, or even plug in a controller on the PC version. I can only assume on the iPhone edition it is completely touch based. For almost the entire first three worlds, I found using the mouse only controls to work really well. Later, once there were a lot more enemies on the screen and precise timing to run past them was required, I found the keyboard controls invaluable.

The Steam version had an update earlier this year that has increased my enjoyment of this game exponentially. Originally if you made any kind of mistake, you had to restart the entire level. The update added a rewind button that lets you go back as little or as much as you want. It feels like cheating at first, but once you hit some of the more complex levels, it will keep you from quitting the game out of frustration.

For a $5 puzzle game, you can do a lot worse than Toki Tori. It is a great one to pick up and play for a few minutes at a time. The difficulty doesn’t start to ramp up until near the end of the second world. If you are enjoying it but find it too easy, stick with it. The main game gets tougher and the 20 unlockable Hard levels put the regular levels to shame.

Tags: capcom, Eggbert, iPhone, Lemmings, PC, puzzle, Steam, Toki Tori, Two Tribes B.V., WiiWare, Windows Mobile

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 6th, 2010 at 11:02 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.