If you’re as old as I am, you might remember the heyday of demo discs that came with Official UK Playstation Magazine and, if you do, you might remember Demo Disc 37. On this disc was a demo for an odd little platformer called Tombi! (Tomba! In other territories), a demo that I quickly fell in love with. Whether you only played this demo or successfully begged your parents for it, I have great news, Limited Run Games have brought it back with Tombi! Special Edition.
Opening with pigs beating up a child like a horror parody of Peppa Pig, I can tell you right now that Tombi! gets no less strange during its runtime. The premise is that you are said child and have been robbed by said pigs of your grandpa’s bracelet. So, the only thing to do is to follow them and get your precious keepsake back, drawing you into a wider plot surrounding Seven Evil Pigs and the curses they have placed upon the world.
In Tombi!, you’ll be doing a lot of platforming… very floaty platforming. It’s forgiving at most points to balance that out, and you do get some abilities and items later to help you with tighter and trickier platforming challenges, but you will notice immediately how long it takes for you to land, especially when it comes to combat in the game. Combat is basically jumping on the enemies to bite them and then throwing them at walls, the ground or other enemies.
You do acquire various weapons in the game, some of which provide a dual purpose of dispatching enemies and collecting distant items, but most of the enemies (and some of the allies) can be managed simply by the pounce and munch technique. The bonus with the weapons though is that you can aim and power them up by holding the attack button, so if a tricky enemy is causing you problems, you can dispatch them in a single hit.
This game is divided up into quests, of which there are 130 in total. Some of them are compulsory, such as the ones to hunt down and catch the Evil Pigs, and others are just for fun, really. The interesting thing about this being that each Evil Pig accounts for more than one quest. Clearing their curse on an area, and finding the correct Evil Pig Bag (yes, you read that right) to trap them in are separate quests.
Even more interesting is that the Evil Pigs are never hiding in the areas they have cursed, so you must find the Evil Pig Bag first to be able to see the doors they are hiding behind… but you also need to figure out where said doors will be. Once you do, you’re thrown into a simple puzzle encounter with these potent porcine adversaries as you need to work out how to throw them into the bag in the arena. They range from insultingly easy to infuriating, but honestly finding their doors is the hardest part.
Most of the other quests in the game involve simply fetching something either for someone or that you need to clear the way to progress, but the trickier ones are downright esoteric to work out – looking at you “Red+Blue=?”, which is not as simple as that sounds. I will say though that this game is so daft and charming throughout that you will likely find all the quests – or at least the lion’s share of them – simply by wistfully exploring and engaging with the various characters.
Speaking of which, also littered throughout the game are chests of increasing value. Each of these you can only access after befriending the old men of increasing ages in the world, where you’ll be given a key that is precisely the same age as each of them, so it’s a great idea to swing back through previous areas from time-to-time. Between these chests, the hidden quests, a ton of optional items and everything else Tombi! throws at you (including a little go kart mini-game), there’s a lot of “game” here to play in the best possible way.
Tombi! Special Edition’s release is pretty much the experience as it was back on the PlayStation – the in-game visuals don’t appear to have been touched at all in the game. It’s still the same colourful, cartoonish nonsense it was in the original release – with Limited Run Games instead focussing on a handful of quality-of-life changes, extras and an enhanced soundtrack.
The biggest of these additions is the ability to save anywhere instead of at signposts in the world which is an absolute godsend in this game, while a rewind feature gives added assistance, but honestly hinders more than helps. Another neat little addition is a new gallery, containing promotional graphics, box art, and other art pieces from the game not only from the European release but the Japanese and North America releases too.
Even the FMV cutscenes have been left untouched, so they retain their grainy appearance and wonky voice acting, which I’m so thankful for. The Special Edition has, however, remastered the soundtrack, and I’m unsure about this change. It feels odd to remaster the soundtrack but not the visuals, especially if you have kept the sound in the cutscenes unchanged. It’s hardly a dealbreaker, but you’d expect a remaster either do it all or none of it, right? That said, the soundtrack is joyous, and I’m happily humming it as I write.