Toki Tori 2+ Review

Toki Tori was a popular puzzle game on the PC back in the early tensies (I think that’s what you call the current decade) but originally it made its debut all the way back in 2001 on the Game Boy Colour. Toki Tori 2 originally came out on Wii U in 2013 and now appears on PS4 with quite a few differences from the original Toki Tori.

You are in control of a little yellow chick who hasn’t fully learnt to fly yet so you are limited to what skills every chick is supposed to be born with; the abilities to walk right to left, whistle a few tunes and stomping. Toki Tori 2 is a cute 2D platformer where you must use your whistling and stomping abilities to complete a variety of environmental puzzles. At the start of Toki Tori 2 you don’t know why you must progress forward as the story isn’t plain to see but it has something to do with black goo that is invading the world you’re learning about.

Whistling attracts the various creatures you encounter towards you whilst stomping makes them do some kind of action. For example stomping on an insect on a higher level will knock it down a level, this insect is then eaten by a frog. Whistling then makes the frog face you, go near the frog and stomp and it will release a burp bubble which encases you, rises up and takes you to a higher plain. In other cases you can make crabs move or attract birds to pick you up and drop them into their nests much higher up. These attributes help you get to where you need to go but for a lot of Toki Tori 2 you don’t really have any idea about what direction you need to go which can make things quite difficult especially in the open world you’re part of.

There will be many points where you will have passed a point of no return and have to sing a tune to return you to your last checkpoint which luckily are placed in many locations. There are four other tunes that you unlock on the way via some helpful bird friends which help increase your skill set. Similar to many other platformers you collect items as you walk around but that part of the game doesn’t really add much to Toki Tori 2. The branching paths encourage you to explore the Toki Tori 2 environment fully but these non linear puzzling can make things very frustrating due to the almost complete lack of guidance. Trial and error games can go one of two ways for you, you either enjoy the repetitive nature of slighting changing your strategy until you get it right or just get bored and quit playing.

Toki Tori 2 is one of the most colourful games you will come across with a world containing very vibrant colours and lots of very cute little animals. The soundtrack follows in a similar vein sounding exactly what you expect a game containing cute platforming animals would sound like. Navigating around the Toki Tori 2 world is achieved through an interconnected map which is something you would have experienced in other similar games as you move from one stage to another.

Toki Tori 2 is a cute little platforming puzzler that gets more interesting and fun to play as you make your way through the game. Yes it becomes a very challenging game probably more down to trial and error but it’s open world mechanic allows you apply open world thinking. It’s vividly bright environment helps lighten the frustration you will surely experience with the limited move set on offer. If you enjoy cute little platformers that challenge the mind than Toki Tori 2 is definitely worth spreading your wings for!

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Sony Playstation 4 code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.