Game Review: Toki Tori (PS3)

Toki Tori for PS3

Having already enjoyed a sequel on PC, Toki Tori is the super cute retro throwback platform puzzler which quietly nestles itself into your brain as you work through its cause and effect style gameplay.

When presented with the screen, you’ll see a cute yellow bird that looks like a clay modelled potato. That’ll be you. You can move and climb from platform to platform but in a key twist, there is no jump button. This, along with the drip fed extra abilities like block swapping and teleporting (all of which are usually limited to a certain number of uses per level), is key to how you play the game. You must traverse the level and collect all the bird eggs. Of course, fall down a pit and you can’t jump out of it again. Get hit by an enemy? Game over! Toki Tori starts gently but by the time you are on the second world switching walls about and avoiding lava things start to progressive ramp up. Your brain will need to work out the exact pattern to make it round the level unscathed – and when there’s a lot going on – it gets tough!

Delightfully, Toki Tori has a rewind button. This lets you rewind all your actions, a frustration busting tool which I loved in Funky Lab Rat too, and let’s you re map your path over and over whilst you work out the best way round the level. Once you’ve done the main levels, there’s then another set of expert ones waiting for you. Also of note, if you already own the PC version is the ability to use the move controller and an exclusive set of 16 levels. The graphics have a notable bit of extra polish over the PC version and also the controls work much more intuitively than how I used the arrow keys on the keyboard. There’s no delay in response times and no additional run on when you stop moving the character.

Positives

~ Adorable graphics and audio

~ Great difficulty curve

~ Superior port of the PC version

Negatives

~ If you own the PC version, there’s not tons to make you re buy

Conclusion

If you haven’t played the PC version, grab this gem of a game immediately! It’s cute and taxing all at the same time. This is the definitive version to date