Toki
Nintendo Switch

Developed By : Golgoth Studio
Published By : Microids
Category : Action, Platformer
Release Date : Dec 4, 2018

You may be wondering why the name of this game sounds familiar, and there’s a few reasons you’d be right. If you’re thinking it has to do with a game about a bunch of birds, sorry you’re wrong, but thanks for playing! However, if you’re making the connection to an old NES game then you are definitely on the right track!

Toki on the Nintendo Switch is an incredible, visually overhauled beauty of a remake of an old NES and arcade classic. The game puts you in the role of the titular character, who is a tribesman and lives in the jungles of an island in the South Seas. Princess Miho, a potential suitor of Toki’s, is kidnapped by a witch doctor, Vookimedlo and taken to a massive golden palace at the island’s summit. To make matters worse, all the humans on the island are transformed into any manner of animal or beast, including Toki himself who takes on the form of an ape.

Luckily, this also comes with an unexpected side effect of being able to shoot a wide variety of projectiles from his mouth. It’s this super-spit ability, combined with Toki’s running, jumping and climbing, that will be the keys on his quest to rescue Miho and restore order to the entire island and tribe. For the most part, Toki’s shot is very generic, firing a single pellet in one direction and damaging any foe or weakened structure that it hits. However, you’ll come across numerous power ups on your adventure that can tweak this shot by either making it stronger, or producing a “shotgun” style spread-shot.

Across each of the games levels, you’ll encounter a different theme of an area on the island, whether it be deep in the jungle, the lake, an ice palace, and many more. The enemies tend to change appearance with each location, but the method of elimination is still the same. Shoot them down before they can get to you. However, it is much easier for the to take down Toki than the other way around, since our titular hero dies with a single touch. There are no health bars, and no big/small mushroom induced versions here. Nope, just the monkey-man himself in all of his one-hit glory.

Overall, Toki is a pretty fun experience. As I stated above, this game is beautiful visually. Every single thing about it has been artfully hand re-drawn to give it an extremely new appearance. The environments and characters take on a crisp, ultra-realistic style look that is jaw dropping to see on the Switch (and on no other console, cough cough). One thing the game did keep from it’s old days is it’s high difficulty, Toki can definitely be tough, especially factoring in only being able to take one hit. Thankfully, there are checkpoints throughout the levels (and they are quite lengthy too), so if you do take that one hit you won’t go back too far.

But, fear not! If you’re not a fan of the earlier generation of super tough and unforgiving games, Toki comes with a new easy mode, so you’ll be able to kick back and relax without ripping out any hairs. Either way, whether you’re in it for the toughness or not, this is a really great game, for old players and new. It doesn’t matter if you played the original, or never even heard of it. Any and all players will enjoy a play of this title, making it well deserving of a spot on your digital or physical library shelf. So don’t let Vookimedlo try to destroy your chances either, run over to the eShop or, if you’re in the States, hit up your local GameStop and grab your copy of this game today!

Buy Now
$39.99

Be notified : the physical edition is exclusive to GameStop in the United States, and is called the Retrollector Edition that comes with a number of physical bonuses such as a Toki mini Arcade machine, so the physical price is more expensive and can be found for $49.99 new, with prices fluctuating on who is re-selling a used copy!