Toki Tori 2 / Version Played: WiiU
Two Tribes / WiiU / April 4th / RRP$19RRP
The original Toki Tori was released in 2001, one of the last big releases for the Gameboy Colour. Despite being ported to many other formats after that, including WiiWare, Playstation Network and IOS, it never received the attention it deserved. Main character and 2d visuals aside, Two Tribes have gone in a completely different direction in this sequel that follows up 12 years later.
Toki Tori 2 looks absolutely stunning. The whole screen is filled with colourful, crisp graphics at all times and I often found myself taking in the scenery of every new level. The game barely has any load screens and never has any slow downs. The animation is silky smooth and adds to the overall experience.
Straight off the bat, i’m going to say that Toki Tori 2 isn’t for everyone. The game starts you out with absolutely no premise and no real idea of what your the objective is. You are given two directions for majority of the game, A to whistle and B to stomp. All of the puzzle solving in the game is based off these two actions and get more advanced as the game go on. The extremely satisfying puzzles is what will keep you playing until the end. It isn’t until about 3-4 hours in that the game starts making sense and the game starts getting structure. Whilst I enjoyed the sense of mystery and discovery, I can see people getting frustrated extremely quickly, as it is never clear that you’re doing the right thing. I can’t help but feel that the game would’ve absolutely excelled if it gave the player a bit more structure and a sense of direction in the beginning.
The sense of accomplishment that you get from solving the individual puzzles is absolutely overwhelming but there are multiple times where you literally do not know where to go next. This isn’t due to the difficulty of a puzzle, it is simply because the game does nothing to tell you what the overall objective is or which path is the right way. This is a huge shame as I feel that it something that wasn’t necessary to make this a great title.
The WiiU allows this game to have a few cool features. An hour or so into the game you unlock a feature that lets you use the WiiU gamepad as a camera viewfinder which ties into the game. Off Screen play works better than ever as well. When playing on the TV, the gamepad show’s your whistle commands and also which way to the closest exit. I found this to be one of the best uses of the gamepad so far. The developers could’ve easily just replicated what was on the TV but this actually keeps your eyes on the tv and has you looking down when you need to.
Toki Tori 2 is one of the best puzzle games in recent memory and lets face it, anyone with a WiiU is dying for games to play so you should go and buy it now. The game is incredibly unique and is satisfying once you get the hang of things. It uses the WiiU’s features incredibly well and is easily one of the best titles available for the system. You will be frustrated time and time again but the frustration will soon disappear as you discover the next area. Those that stay with the game until the end will be extremely surprised how great the game is once the full game mechanics are exposed.
