Toki Tori 2+: Nintendo Switch Edition

Genre: Puzzle-Platformer

Players: 1

.

Review:

Toki Tori 2 is a family-friendly Puzzle-Platformer originally released in 2013 for multiple platforms and ported to the Nintendo Switch in 2018, with the “+” in the game’s title referring to reworked music and added puzzles. While bearing some similarities to its predecessor, Toki Tori 2 is largely a very different game. Players once again take the role of the same flightless non-jumping bird from the first game, but this time they’re not playing through small, self-contained levels, and they’re not constrained to the use of item abilities. In fact, players barely have any abilities at all – all they can do is thump the ground they’re standing on, and whistle notes with birdsong. Yet with these extremely simple mechanics, Toki Tori 2 manages to be both a more streamlined game and, interestingly, a far more ambitious one.

The one element of the first Toki Tori I found to be most impressive was that game’s graphics, and Toki Tori 2 actually improves on them. The game still features simple cartoony character designs with some absolutely superb animation, but now the environments they’re in feel far more organic, with a lot of lush background and foreground elements, lighting effects, and other nice elements. What’s more, this time around all of the annoying music and sound effects that frustrated me I the first game are gone, replaced with a lovely soundtrack that does a great job of accentuating the soft, lighthearted nature of the game.

When it comes to the gameplay, cutting down your character’s abilities to just whistling and stomping would seem like it really limits the game, but the way it’s worked in here is really ingenious, with players encountering numerous obstacles and different types of wildlife, each one reacting differently to both of your abilities as well as each other. A large part of the “puzzle” element of this game is understanding the different ways each of the game’s elements interact, and making use of them to accomplish your goals, and as a result many of this game’s puzzles feel extremely fresh and creative.

In fact, I won’t spoil it, but suffice it to say that one of the things that really sets this game apart from… well, pretty much everything else out there… is that it is almost a Metroidvania in disguise. That’s because one thing this game cleverly does is it provides players with multiple options to explore that they aren’t initially aware of, and don’t gain access to these options through new items and abilities, but through learning how the world works and how different things interact. Toki Tori 2 doesn’t quite have the same degree of exploration and empowerment we typically associate with Metroidvanias, nor is its world interconnected to quite the same degree as Metroidvanias tend to be, but the way the game gates off later areas with knowledge you only gain later in the game is comparable to the way Metroidvanias gate off areas with abilities you gain later in the game.

Toki Tori 2 is not without its flaws. There were definitely times I felt frustrated by the inability to jump, despite that this is kinda’ the point. Also, the pacing here could have been a bit faster. The touchscreen controls of the non-Nintendo Switch versions first game have apparently been abandoned entirely in all versions here, so the Switch version is no worse off in that regard, however, it bears mention that the PC version of the game included a level editor not present here, so the Switch version is once again lacking features from another platform.

However, on the whole, Toki Tori 2 is a delightful surprise, especially after the somewhat mixed bag of good and bad that the first game was. Fans of Puzzle-Platformers should absolutely give this game a look – where the first game was a fairly standard take on the genre, Toki Tori 2 is one of the most original approaches to the genre I’ve seen in a while, with a great presentation.

tl;dr – Toki Tori 2 is a Puzzle-Platformer that plays very differently from the first game, with players limited to only two basic abilities, and progressing through the game by learning how the various parts of the environment react to those abilities and each other. It’s a refreshing and streamlined approach that suits the game very well, making it a unique experience that’s bolstered by an excellent presentation, with some extremely clever puzzle design.

Grade: A-

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}