Toki Tori looked like a fun puzzle game, and then it was included in the 2011 Steam Summer Camp event where one of its achievements earned a prize ticket, so I grabbed it while on sale. It started out how a fun puzzle game should start out, showing you the basic mechanics and then adding tools one by one. It’s sort of like Lemmings but instead of having a bunch of lemmings walking to their death unless you tell them to use the tools, you have Toki Tori who doesn’t even move unless you tell him to. You still get (usually) limited amounts of each tool, but instead of waiting for the flow of lemmings to get to where you want the tool used, you just need to get Toki Tori there.
Each level has a number of eggs you have to get to, so often part of the puzzle is which one to get last. If you go for that one at the bottom of the pit now, will you be able to get back out for the rest? The later puzzles have multiple eggs that would get you stuck if you went straight for them in what seems like the most obvious and direct way. If you mess up halfway through a level though, there’s a handy rewind button that lets you back up to before your mistake. It comes in handy for levels where you have to time things just right to avoid being killed by porcupines.
I spent almost 12 hours on this game, getting all the achievements. I did look up solution videos on YouTube sometimes when I had a lot of tools and wanted to be sure I was right to use an InstantRock and not a bridge to get over a gap. The puzzles get very difficult toward the end, so if you’re going unassisted you can count on more time (and probably more frustration). In case that’s too much time looking at the same things, the levels are divided up into differently-styled worlds. You start in the forest but also visit sewers, castles, and even an Aperture Science theme, complete with GLaDOS and that shower curtain we’ve heard so much about!
Downsides of Toki Tori are that sometimes the puzzles were just too hard, and typically there was only one possible solution. Sometimes the one possible solution thing was what made it hard. Often you have enough InstantRocks and bridges at the start that you could use either to get past an early obstacle, but when you get closer to the end you’re going to run out of one if you picked wrong. Other times the difficulty came from timing with the enemy creatures; either avoiding them (one touch and you die, though you can rewind a little and try again) or racing them.
Currently priced at $5 on Steam, Toki Tori is a fun little distraction. If you’re not particularly experienced at puzzle platformers you may need more help than the built-in “wildcard” level skip affords, but if you’re not too proud to look for hints you’ll enjoy yourself.