Toki Tori 2

INTRO:

Puzzle games are not easy to design. They are a genre which has been around for decades, and its consumer markets include jaded veterans who are not so easy to impress anymore.

Toki Tori 2+ is yet one more entry to the genre, as well as the genre of platforming games. It is certainly improved over its predecessor. However, when compared to other titles of the two genres or which are hybrids, such as Braid, it is actually quite simplistic.

Still, the developer, Two Tribes, has managed to craft a game that still does what puzzle-platformer titles are supposed to do: challenge the player’s intellect and skill at observation. On the other hand, it also challenges their patience with its rote puzzle designs.

PREMISE:

Toki Tori 2+ has no narration whatsoever, and starts with almost no exposition on the backstory. Rather, the player is simply introduced to the player character, a dim-witted-looking bird-like critter who appears to be a member of a tribe of similar dim-witted-looking birds.

The player would move the player character about, until it becomes clear that all is not well. Geysers of black smoke are gushing out all over the place, panicking the tribe. The player will not know the reason for this, until much later in the game when the player discovers more about Toki Tori 2+’s setting.

It should suffice to say here that the story is ultimately inconsequential – it is just there as an excuse to have the player overcoming one obstacle after another.

WADDLING ABOUT:

The player character is a goofy-looking oval-shaped bird who seems half-asleep all the time. If not for the fact that it does have limbs, it could have passed off as a not-angry member of the same species as Rovio’s Angry Birds. Henceforth, it will be referred to as the “goofy bird”, if only to reduce the use of the words “player character”.

It waddles along at a usually-acceptable speed; there are very few puzzles where the player needs to have the goofy bird rush over to something by the way. The bird can walk up onto any platform that is half its height; it cannot climb onto anything higher, unless there are ladders.

CLIMBING LADDERS:

For some reason, the goofy bird can climb ladders, despite not having any hands, much less fingers. Furthermore, the ladders that it can climb can be vertical or horizontal, and it climbs along both orientations of ladders with amusingly incredible gusto.

At first, ladders are only there to bridge two platforms across a chasm or a danger-filled pit. Eventually, they are also used for puzzles, sometimes for very specific steps in a puzzle solution. For example, the player will be climbing vertical ladders up to specific heights in order to whistle/chirp to certain creatures (which will be described later).

FALLING:

Falling is the most boring of the bird’s movement methods. When it falls, it flaps its wings, slowing down its descent; this is guaranteed to happen. However, the player has no control whatsoever over its falling speed and direction. The most that the bird could do when it falls is to whistle, and there are a couple of puzzles where this has to be done.

NO FLYING & JUMPING:

Unfortunately, the limitations of the goofy bird’s mobility become apparent quickly. It is flightless (for most of a playthrough), but it is also incapable of jumping.

BUTT-STOMPING:

Perhaps the player character does try to jump, but all it could do is fall flat on its butt. Of course, it might be deliberately trying to do a butt-stomp.

Anyway, its stomp is generally used to drive away other creatures, or to startle them. It cannot be used when the goofy bird is falling, unfortunately; this is a lost opportunity to inject more variety in the gameplay.

CHECKPOINTS:

For better or worse, the game uses a checkpoint system to save the player’s progress. The checkpoint is also where the player character will respawn if it is killed (and it can indeed be slain in a number of ways).

Checkpoints are also the only place to use the song which sends the goofy bird to the ‘world map’ screen. There will be elaboration on the world map and songs later.

GRID-BASED LEVEL STRUCTURES:

The levels in this game are structured as grids of squares. This is most evident in the environment. Most creatures occupy a space of 2-by-2 squares, including the player character, but there are bigger and smaller examples, some of which will be utilized in puzzles where the player needs to direct small creatures into tunnels that are too tight for any other creatures.

CHIRPY SONGS:

Music apparently has a mystical power of its own in the universe of Toki Tori 2+. The player is informed of this by the antics of a diminutive and flight-capable bird, who is apparently one of the protagonist’s allies. If the player still does not know what to do, a text prompt will appear, telling the player to press a certain button to have the protagonist chirp. From here, the player will learn about songs.

There are several songs which the player can learn. (An observant player might also notice that they are usable before the player even comes across the bird who teaches the songs.)

The first of these is the rewind song. The goofy bird will be sent back to the last checkpoint, and the player’s progress will be reset to the point where the last checkpoint was activated. It is mainly to be used when the player character is stuck in some place where it cannot get out of. Indeed, the very first lesson on this song occurs when the player character has gotten into a pit which it cannot get out of.

Another song which the player would use is the collectible-locating song. Once sung, a visual indicator appears around the sprite of the player character, showing the general directions of any remaining collectibles in the current level.

There are some other songs, which will be described together with the other gameplay elements that they are associated with.

SONG & STOMP EFFECT RADII:

Observant players would notice that there are visual indicators which appear when butt-stomps or chirps are performed; they resemble audio waves. These indicate the range of the effect of these actions, and will visibly be altered if there are obstructions in the way of the reach of these actions. These are things which the player will need to keep in mind for some of the puzzles in the latter parts of a playthrough, where the reach of the butt-stomp and chirps is important.

COLLECTIBLES:

One staple gameplay element of puzzle-platforming titles is the presence of shiny things that float just within sight, but are not reachable without some intellectual shenanigans. Toki Tori 2+ is no different.

Curiously, the collectibles look like little metal wings – the significance of these will be described later.

Anyway, the collectibles float about, but will be automatically attracted to the player character after it moves within a distance of three squares. This automatic attraction is not just for the purpose of aesthetics; there are minor puzzles where the player needs to get the goofy bird within this distance from a collectible which it cannot walk into.

WORLD MAP & THE EAGLE:

One of the songs brings up the “world map”, which shows the player character’s current position in the island which the goofy bird and its tribe live on. However, this view is far less useful than the benefits of another song. The only advantage which it has compared to this other song is that it can be used anywhere within a level. It could have been useful if it shows the layout of the level instead, but it does not do this.

The other song can only be used near a checkpoint, and even so, it must be outdoors; if the player character is deep underground, it will not work.

When it does work, a large eagle will snatch the player character, which can seem alarming at least until after the player has learned that just about every avian creature to be encountered is somehow an ally of the goofy bird.

Anyway, like the previous song, the player is brought to a view of the world map, but the player character is also effectively out of any level which it was in.

Anyway, the player can then choose where the goofy bird would make a landing at. Afterwards, the eagle simply drops the player character, who hovers downwards safely. However, the player character can only land at menhir-like monuments, which the player will need to find and ‘activate’ beforehand. These monuments are usually close to specific locations of interest, which will be described later.

It will also be mentioned here that landing at monuments has the same effect as resetting levels. If the player prefers not to do this, the player can have the goofy bird land back on the same checkpoint where it used the eagle-calling song; this will not reset the level in which the checkpoint is located.

The collectible song can also be used while the eagle is holding the goofy bird in the air. This will reveal the general locations of all of the collectibles in the game world, which is certainly useful to players with completionist streaks.

GATEWAYS AND MOLE TUNNELS:

The player will be moving from one level to another via the use of gateways with emblems set above them. Doing so resets both levels.

There is usually a mole mound close to each of these gateways. After the player character has reached the mole mound which is at the other end of a level, a mole will dig a hole in it and the other mole mound, thus allowing the player character to travel from one end to another without dealing with the obstacles in between. This is convenient.

CREATURES IN GENERAL & THE TOKIDEX:

Most of the other creatures who live on the island are dim-witted, being next to incapable of spotting danger.

Fortunately, they are still responsive to stimuli. To elaborate, the goofy bird can manipulate their behaviour with its butt-stomps and chirps. This is something the player will need to keep in mind, because manipulation of their behaviour is the main way to get them to where they are needed for the solutions of puzzles. Each type of creature will be described further later.

One of the goofy bird’s acquaintances is apparently a bird with a camera. For whatever reason, it is collecting photos of the denizens and artifacts of the island. When the goofy bird chirps the song which summons the photographer bird, the player’s controls change from those of the player character to those of the photographer bird instead. The player character is still where it was, however, meaning that it can be harmed by any encroaching hazard.

Anyway, when controlling the photographer bird, the player can only move the bird within the screen’s borders; the camera will not change its position. For the most part of the game, this is not an issue, unless an encroaching hazard is around. Fortunately, the bird can be dismissed with the press of a button, after which the control of the player character is returned to the player.

HERMIT CRABS:

Hermit crabs are among the first denizens of the island which the player would encounter after the birds. The hermit crabs inhabit boxes of varying sizes which happen to act as platforms for ground creatures. They are narcoleptic, only waking up when something loud happens in their vicinity. When this happens, they drag their box-like shells around, effectively shifting platforms about.

If they wake up due to the goofy bird’s chirps, they will move towards it, for whatever reason. They stop just before the goofy bird and then return to sleep, a behaviour which is just as bizarre but is otherwise useful for certain puzzle solutions where the precise placement of their boxes is important.

If they wake up due to the goofy bird’s butt-stomp, they will move away from the bird, even if this might lead them into a hazard. This behaviour is a lot more difficult to control than the previously described one, but practice and observation would eventually reveal that they stop at a distance of several squares from the bird.

HORN-BEETLES:

There are beetles with horn-like mouthparts which will make their own calls when they hear other calls, either by other beetles or the goofy bird. These calls can manipulate other creatures, much like the goofy bird’s own calls can.

The beetles generally stay where they are, but they can be driven away with the goofy bird’s butt-stomps. If a butt-stomp occurs right where they are, they are flipped over, become immobile and will continuously honk.

Some puzzles will require the player to force beetles into specific locations, usually in order to transmit a series of calls and thus manipulate something else at the end of the transmission. They are also useful at distracting other creatures, making them stay in the vicinity of the beetles.

FROGS & BERRY-BUGS:

The island hosts a species of particularly dim-witted frogs, which are incapable of recognizing danger and will eagerly jump off any platform. (They are not hurt by any fall, however.) If they are not jumping off platforms, they would be wandering about the deepest pit which they have fallen into, turning around back and forth when they approach a wall. Despite being frogs, they are also incapable of jumping onto higher platforms.

The frogs are mainly a method of getting something up onto a higher platform that is out of reach. The frogs can provide this by eating what appears to be berry-shaped bugs which grow out of plants. After eating them, the frogs inflate and become immobile, balancing themselves on their bloated bellies.

Doing a butt-stomp in the vicinity of a bloated frog causes it to expel a bubble, which can trap anything in its path and bring it upwards as the bubble rises. The bubble will eventually burst, releasing its content.

As for the berry-bugs, they are only slightly less stupid than the frogs. They will stop and turn around when they reach the edge of a platform, but are otherwise oblivious to other hazards and dangers, including frogs who eagerly hop over to eat them. Fortunately, berry-bugs respawn indefinitely from certain plants. However, each bug-spawning plant is associated with a berry-bug in the current level, typically the one which it spawned; as long as the bug is alive, a replacement will not be made.

Keeping this in mind is important, because there are many puzzles in which the player can reach a dead end if the berry-bugs are stuck in a place where they cannot be killed.

Doing butt-stomps near berry-bugs causes them to roll away, and off edges, which would usually be the intention of the player. Doing a butt-stomp at exactly where they are launches them upwards for a short distance; if they come into contact with a ceiling, they adhere to it and begin to crawl along them instead. Doing a butt-stomp in the vicinity of ceiling-crawling berry-bugs causes them to fall.

TEDIUM OF PUZZLES INVOLVING FROGS AND BERRY-BUGS:

Keeping the behaviours of frogs and berry-bugs in mind is a crucial component of the solution for any puzzle which involves getting something onto somewhere that is not within reach. For example, the player needs to get a frog to eat a berry-bug at specific spots so that the frog could expel a bubble which brings something up onto a higher platform. This something does not necessarily have to be the player character; it can even be another bloated frog.

Unfortunately, there are awfully many puzzles which require the use of the frog and the berry-bug, particularly in the early and mid-game sections of a playthrough. It eventually becomes tedious, after the player has learned to associate the presence of high out-of-reach platforms with this puzzle solution.

The game does try to inject some variety by having the player chain bubbles together or having bubbles go into portals (more on these later), but the former is especially tedious as it requires the lining up of multiple bloated frogs, and the latter often requires precise timing of the popping of bubbles.

POPPING BUBBLES:

When a creature other than the goofy bird is trapped in a bubble, it is practically helpless until the bubble pops, which it eventually does after several seconds. They can also be popped if the giant blue birds grab them.

In the case of the goofy bird, the player can have the bubble popped at any time by entering the input for singing or butt-stomping. This will be important in certain puzzles in which the player needs to have the goofy bird fall down on specific places.

GLOWING & SLEEPING BERRY-BUGS:

In addition to the regular sub-species of berry-bugs, there are perpetually sleeping ones and glowing ones. The former are simply variants of the regular ones, minus the roaming behaviour. The glowing ones behave much like the regular ones, but they are also mobile light sources, which will be of particular importance in levels which take place in caves. (These levels will be described later.)

CHARGING LIZARDS:

Lizard-like creatures appear past the halfway point in a playthrough. When they are undisturbed, these creatures will patrol the platform that they are on. If the goofy bird butt-stomps within earshot of them, they will be aggravated. Spikes protrude out of their bodies, and they will make headlong charges in the direction which they are facing. They will continue charging until they hit a solid object, such as a wall or the box of a hermit crab. Anything in their path will be slain outright. They also will continue charging after they fall from ledges and land.

Many puzzles will require the player to have a lizard face a specific direction before provoking them to charge and ram into objects which have to be shifted. In some puzzles, the player might also need to trick them into charging into hazards.

Interestingly, these lizards can also swim, specifically by skimming across the surface of water. In fact, they are the only ground creatures which can swim.

Unfortunately, this trait of theirs is only used for a couple of puzzles. The other puzzles which involve them simply have them running into bamboo beams or pillars or hermit crabs. This can feel like a wasted opportunity.

GROUND CREATURES CANNOT MOVE UPWARDS:

Observant players will eventually notice that with the exception of the goofy bird, no other ground-crawling creature can move up onto higher platforms on their own, even platforms which are just one square higher than the one which they are on.

This is important to keep in mind, because the solution to a puzzle can be stymied by having creatures which are important to the solution go into a pit from which they cannot get out of.

BAMBOO STRUCTURES:

There are structures which appear to have been made from giant bamboo plants. They appear as either vertical pillars or horizontal beams. The vertical pillars can only be interacted with butt-stomps, whereas the horizontal pillars can only be affected by the impact of the aforementioned charging lizards. Hitting one of them happens to compress them further into whatever surface which they are protruding from, whereas another bamboo pillar or beam will be extended out further in response.

Experienced puzzle-game players would recognize these reciprocal distending/retracting structures immediately. Most of the time, they are used for puzzles in which the player must create a series of steps to allow a creature to get to somewhere.

In the case of the goofy bird, it can become stuck in a pit in which a pillar is coming out from, if the player is not careful.

WATER, DROWNING AND GROWING PLANTS:

There are bodies of water throughout the island. Most of the creatures on the island have one way or another to survive in watery environments. For example, frogs, berry-bugs and hermit crabs have no issue about being underwater.

However, the goofy bird simply cannot swim, sinks like a stone and will drown after ten seconds underwater. It can seem a bit frustrating that the goofy bird does not appear to have any means of dealing with water. (This also puts to the lie claims about this game having Metrovania gameplay elements.)

Yet, there will be many puzzles which require the player to utilize water. More often than not, the deepness of a body of water suggests what the player should do.

Shallow pools suggest that the player should dip the goofy bird in them so that it becomes soaking wet, which can be used for one of two actions, which will be described later. Deep lakes suggest that the player should consider finding some way to cross them, usually through the use of the frogs and berry-bugs or a giant blue bird (which will be described later).

ELECTRICAL SLUGS:

There are slugs on the island which emit electrical arcs between each other as they slither about. Every slug can link an arc to any other slug, and it can link to more than one over a distance of more than a dozen squares. If a pair of slugs is more than that distance apart, the link between them will break.

Furthermore, the links have to be straight, meaning that any obstructions which get between them automatically break the links; this is something which the player will want to keep in mind, because there are a number of puzzles which do utilize this.

Alternatively, the player could deal with the slugs in a semi-permanent manner by dousing them with water; this can be done by having the goofy bird butt-stomp near them while it is wet. If the slugs are already electrified, having them come into contact with water will overload and obliterate them. However, like almost all other creatures in a level, they will return if the player resets the level.

Observant players would notice that unlike the berry-bugs, the electrical slugs can crawl onto another surface that is adjacent, perpendicular and concave relative to the one that they were on. In other words, they can crawl between two surfaces as long as they are forming corners with each other, but they will not crawl over and around ledges.

This will be of particular importance when the player needs to eliminate a troublesome creature that is preventing the player from reaching certain collectibles. The player may need to transfer a slug across the level so as to link it with another slug before luring another creature into their electrical arc.

BLUE BIRDS:

There are blue-feathered/haired birds which flit about the island and the skies around it. It would appear that they have a habit of picking up any terrestrial creature which they can see and carry. It may seem alarming at first when it does happen to the player character, but the blue birds appear to be harmless.

Anyway, the blue birds will attempt to carry and drop off something at their designated nests; more than one bird may go to the same nest.

The blue bird species comes in two sizes: a more common and large variant, and a smaller one. The larger one is capable of carrying almost any ground creature, including the player character. The smaller one can only carry small creatures like the berry-bugs and horn beetles. There is no other purpose for this difference in sizes. (Neither can carry hermit crabs and their boxes as well. This is something worth keeping in mind.)

If the goofy bird or a horn beetle makes calls in their vicinity, they will move towards the source of the calls. This usually results in the goofy bird or the horn beetle being picked up, if it is not obscured by grass. (There will be more on grass later.)

Speaking of which, there are puzzles in which the birds act as obstruction, picking up the goofy bird and dropping it on somewhere earlier in the level. This will require the player to grow grass to obscure the blue birds’ view of the ground, or come up with some other way to obstruct them. There are also puzzles in which the player has to deliberately kill them, generally by luring them into electrical arcs.

While a blue bird is carrying something, it will ignore any call in the vicinity. However, if the goofy bird butt-stomps within earshot of them, they drop whatever they are carrying. Without being informed via third-party sources, the player can only learn this by experimenting. (With that said, there is at least one puzzle in the game which uses this game design.)

GRASS:

The island has a considerable variety of climes, one of which is conducive to the growth of grass. Early on, the grass which the player encounters is short and only there for the purpose of aesthetics.

Eventually, the player will encounter taller grass, which can obscure creatures as small as berry-bugs from sight. There are also even taller grass, which can obscure the goofy bird and creatures of similar size. Such grass is of importance when the player needs to have something get somewhere without getting picked up by the blue birds.

There are places where it looks like grass has been shorn. The appearance of such things usually indicates that the player will need to grow some grass to obscure creatures from the sight of blue birds. This can be done by having the goofy bird drip water over them while it is wet.

Yet, such puzzle solutions are also some of the most tedious in the game, because it will require a few trips to grow enough grass. This is because the player character has to walk out into the open in order to splash water around, so it will be seen by the birds. The player could be more cautious and move slower so that grass can grow around the player character just in time before the birds catch it, but the player character will only stay wet for a limited time, thus necessitating multiple trips anyway.

For whatever reason, certain hermit crabs also cause grass to grow when they move over it. This might be a glitch that was overlooked.

Some other puzzles require grass to be cut, so that something that passes over cut grass can be spotted by the blue birds and picked up. There appears to be only one way to cut grass: a charging lizard has to be incited to charge into it, and it would somehow mow down the grass.

It should be mentioned here that tall grass also obscures the player’s view of anything in the grass; there are only very brief and partial glimpses of it. The only sign that something is moving about in the grass is blades of grass swaying. This will not indicate what type of creature is moving about in the grass, but that is where the sound effects for creatures might be useful (more on these later).

STREAMS OF WATER:

Some locales have streams of water which typically flow from higher places to lower ones. These are not as hazardous as still bodies of water, but have a lot less use in puzzle solutions; their only known usefulness is that they can float bloated frogs and masks downstream, and even then, this is only used for a few puzzles.

STONE GATES:

Scattered throughout the island are semi-autonomous stone gates. These will retract if the goofy bird comes to within a few squares of them, but quickly fall back down after the bird moves away. This can become tedious if the player is supposed to direct a creature to elsewhere through them; the player will need to have the bird wait under or close by the gates while the creature passes through.

The gates can crush almost anything which they fall on, with the exception of the hermit crabs and their boxes. This will be useful to keep in mind, because there are puzzle solutions which require the player to hold a gate which is plugging a chute into which water or lava streams can flow.

PORTALS:

The Toki Tori IP was conceived during a time when video game portals were still a significant fad. Therefore, there is the presence of portals in this game and as expected, the portals are linked in pairs and will immediately transport anything from one side of the link to the other side.

It should be mentioned here though that with the exception of bubbles, the momentum of anything that went into a portal is not sustained when it exits from the other. That means that portals are generally not useful for anything more than dropping critters over to some other place where they cannot reach on their own. There will not be any shenanigans with kinematic physics, because the scripting of the game does not appear to support these.

The portals do maintain the momentum of bubbles, but this does not necessarily mean that puzzles which involve the direction of bubbles through portals is any more fun.

Most of these puzzles require bubbles to pass through the portals, continue floating and then popping elsewhere. Some however, require precise timing of the popping of the bubble, just before reaching the portals.

For example, there is a puzzle where the player needs to have the goofy bird approach a portal while being trapped in a bubble, and then pop it just before it enters the suction radius of the portal. This is because once through the other portal, the goofy bird has to fall straight down. Due to the direction of the bubble before it passed through the portal (it has to be directed vertically upwards), the bird would be above the portal after it passed through; popping the bubble after that simply causes it to fall back through that portal. Practicing for the precise timing to pop the bubble just before the portal can be quite tedious.

Most portals are fixed in orientation in position, but there are portals which can redirected elsewhere. More often than not, these re-orientable portals are used for more than one puzzle.

CAVES & DARKNESS:

The island is not all sun and day. There are places where light does not reach, and where creatures behave differently. These are also where some particularly nasty creatures reside. These places are typically caves. In these places, creatures who usually reside outdoors behave differently, and there are other creatures which are rarely if not never seen outside.

SLEEPING CREATURES:

Some creatures go to sleep when darkness falls on them. These include electrical slugs, who still somehow form electrical links with each other as they sleep. These means that they become static hazards (pun not intended) when they sleep. Incidentally, there are puzzles which have them waking up and moving about only to sleep elsewhere, either as part of the solution or the hazards.

TERRIFIED CREATURES:

Other creatures are not soothed by the darkness at all, and are instead terrified by it. These include frogs and berry-bugs, both of whom will remain in place if their path is not illuminated. Generally, puzzles involving them and the darkness often require bringing light to them so as to get them to move. However, there are a few puzzles where they are to be deprived of light so that they can be rooted to the spot.

MASKS:

The first hostile creature which the player would come across when moving through caves are possessed masks. These float above the ground, but otherwise stay where they are, even after they appear to have spotted the player character. If the player ignores the obvious change in their colour and posture and moves the player character into them, they will, of course, kill the bird outright.

However, if they are illuminated, they revert to simple masks and fall down; if they happen to be floating in mid-air before, they may have a long way to go downwards. On the other hand, if they fall beneath the light, or the light goes away from them, they will revive and float again; this can be unpleasant to learn the hard way, but the game does provide some opportunities to observe this without putting the player character at risk.

BATS:

Bats are mostly found in caves, and perhaps thankfully so. They are usually sleeping and will wake up if there is a disturbance around them, such as the calls or butt-stomps of the goofy bird, honking of the horn beetles and croaking of frogs. When they are awoken, they will proceed to kill any other living thing they see (and they so happen to be able to see in the dark quite well).

Puzzles which involve bats usually have the player manipulating other creatures while staying out of earshot of the bats; waking even one up usually leads to a reset. These puzzles are also some of the most unsettling (or amusing, depending on how mean the player is) in the game, because the solutions generally involve leaving other creatures to suffer death by bat.

There is also one puzzle in the game which involves luring a whole flight of bats into the electrical links of slugs, which can be satisfying.

LIGHT MOTHS:

Light moths are usually found near or in caves, providing light where there is none. Light moths can be called over by the goofy bird’s chirps, and driven away by its butt-stomps. The presence of light moths generally mean that there are frightened or sleeping creatures which have to be goaded into moving again, or masks that have to be disabled so as to provide passage.

Observant players will notice that where the goofy bird is relative to the moths before it butt-stomps will determine which direction the moths are driven to. This is important in puzzles where the player has to drive the moths up to some platforms where the player character cannot reach, so as to illuminate these platforms.

Early on, the player will eventually learn that grouping moths together causes their light to become brighter and thus reach further. Eventually, puzzles which involve them will require the player to get them together while having them avoid hazards.

The light which the moths produce can be doused if the moths come into contact with water; they can still somehow fly while they are soaked, strangely enough. However, their light can be rekindled if the doused moths come into contact with another moth that is already lit. Conveniently, there are also moths which have been caged, just for the purpose of rekindling doused moths.

CANNOT RETURN TO WORLD MAP WHILE IN CAVES:

The Eagle-calling song is useless when sung near most of the checkpoints in the caves. This is understandable, since the checkpoints cannot fire their magical beacons into the air. However, there are a few places where sunlight breaks into the caves through openings, and this is where the songs work.

LAVA:

As mentioned earlier, the island has a lot of climes, including even a volcanic region. Typically, the main characteristic about the region is its lava streams, which destroys just about everything. However, a very early lesson which occurs here is that the player is taught that hermit crabs are somehow impervious to the lava unless it is very deep.

Lava can directed to flow to someplace else, but it will somehow not accumulate further beyond a pool of one square deep. This can seem unbelievable to players who are used to implacable flows of lava in video games.

UNDERWATER BIOME & ITS WASTED POTENTIAL:

Perhaps as an attempt to create a region that contrasts against the volcanic region, there is a level which appears to take place underwater. However, this is just an aesthetic feature; a miraculous glass-like substance poses a barrier in order to form a dry region for the level to take place in. The most which this level would do is to have the player figure out how to create bridges over bodies of water.

LAVA FROGS:

Eventually, the player will discover the main objective of any playthrough, which is to guide four particularly special frogs towards a chamber in the bottom of the island.

These frogs appear to be fiery (and far less cute) variants of the regular frogs. Each of them is different from the other three. One is huge, and will eagerly eat the goofy bird if it spots the latter. One is permanently subjected to reversed gravity. One is invisible, and is quite easy to overlook if the player has been thinking that frogs on fire are what he/she should be looking for. The fourth one can move about in lava without much of a problem. (Perhaps they all do, of course.)

The invisible and huge lava frogs pose short puzzles, whereas the other two are practically levels unto themselves. This is an odd disparity, but then, there is not much that was done with the invisible frog (which behaves no differently from other frogs despite being invisible) and the huge frog (it is already very close to where it needs to go to).

SOLVE LEVELS IN ANY ORDER:

The player can choose to go through any levels in any order, as long as he/she can figure out the way to reach the gateways which lead to the levels which the player wants to go to. This is perhaps just as well, because some regions of the island can test a player’s patience with their permutation of puzzles.

FLIGHT:

After the player has obtained all of the collectibles in the game, four runestones can be activated by depositing collectibles in them. After these are activated, the gate to a certain isolated region in the volcanic region will open, giving the player access to a certain treasure which grants the player character the ability to mimic some form of flying.

This is not very reliable flight however. The most which the player could do is lift the player character up to a certain height above the ground, before gliding downwards onto another platform. The player could attempt to stop gliding and build up height again, but this only works if there is solid ground beneath the player character.

VISUAL DESIGNS:

The Toki Tori series has been described, even by its creators, as looking rather bland and unimpressive. This is indeed the first impression that the game makes; there is the goofy-looking bird, the clean and sometimes sterile artwork for the foreground and the use of the same sprite for all members of the same species other than the goofy bird’s. (Even so, the members of the goofy bird’s tribe look a lot like each other anyway.)

To elaborate more on the sprites, they could have been amusing if they were not so-overused. This in turn is due to puzzles which use a lot of creatures of the same type.

The backgrounds have more effort invested into them though. They are composed of multiple layers which subtly shift in order to provide a semblance of perspective as the player character moves about. There are also animations in the background, which can be seen as the player makes progress through a playthrough. For example, after the player has achieved a milestone of ‘saving’ the player character’s tribe, the player will see a huge bubble - with the entire tribe stuffed into it - which is floating about the island.

The visual designs which are of use to the gameplay are clear and have satisfactory contrast against other visual designs. These include the borders of the player character’s calls and butt-stomps, which have been mentioned earlier, and the dots which represent the line of sight of creatures.

SOUND DESIGNS:

There are no voice-overs whatsoever in the game. These are not needed however, as where critical information needs to be conveyed, there are usually brief scenarios where specific things happen on-screen so that the player could make observations.

Most of the creatures have sound effects which are matched to their species, such as croaks for frogs and chittering for bats. The completely fantastical berry-bugs can sound a bit odd (and a bit cute) with their squealing. In any case, the sound effects serve the purpose of indicating that these creatures are in the vicinity.

The blue birds have chirps which are different from those of the goofy bird’s, which help in realizing when they have spotted something that they could pick up. The charging lizard usually utters little more than grunts, but they do have a different sound effect for when they are agitated, though this is not of much use as the player may be able to see them anyway.

The music is perhaps the best aspect of the game. The soundtracks are composed by Sonic Picnic, and as to be expected from this group, they are catchy and playful, as befitting the looks (though not necessarily gameplay) of the game.

EASTER EGGS:

Perhaps the most rewarding things in the game are its Easter eggs. Some are quite easy to find, such as the Disco room which lets the player run through Sonic Picnic’s soundtracks, including its thumping disco track. Others require a lot more work, such as a giant flower which can only be discovered with the use of the flight ability (which in turn requires the retrieval of all collectibles). Some of these are teasers about what Two Tribes’s future projects, though it is perhaps not appropriate to describe them here.

SUMMARY:

Toki Tori 2+ certainly does not have Metrovania-like gameplay like some players have claimed. Rather, the player character will have a limited repertoire of actions to solve puzzles. The game does try to compensate for the goofy bird’s lack of capabilities by having puzzles which are oriented around the manipulation of the environment. However, many puzzles which occur later are variations of the puzzles which have been solved earlier, with their complexity being provided by different permutations of actions and longer sequences.

Consequently, any fun to be had from learning more about the island, the player character’s capabilities and the behaviour of other creatures eventually gives way to rote familiarity, which in turn leads to tedium. This is yet another case of the latent experience of the game going downhill from a good first impression.