Game:

Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return (1999)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 3:00:27

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0

Originally recorded: August 27, 2023
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Is it possible for a game to start getting better *and* worse at the same time? Because that seems to be what's happening at this point in the game. I'd describe the Tomba duology as a adventure-style game in the same vein as Simon's Quest or The Adventure of Link, just with a greater emphasis on platforming. The problem is that, when saddled with our pink-haired protagonist's base moveset, things feel a bit incomplete. As I've been approaching the end of the game though, Tomba's abilities have started to round out, which makes things a lot more fun. Hell, one of the last things I did in this stream was restore Baron to life, which gives me infinite fast travel throughout the map. I also managed to unlock the health extension, boosting my maximum health from 8 to 11, though honestly, I doubt I'll find enough pots of health to get that high.

I also managed to fight two of the game's bosses this time around... which brings me to the argument that the game's getting worse. The boss fights in the original Tomba! were probably one of the weakest parts of the entire game, and Tomba! 2 manages to not only be more of the same, but even more irritating that the original. The gimmick essentially remains the same: grab the Evil Pig, toss it into the bag three times and you win. The problem is that the game decided to flex its new polygonal artstyle and adjusted the perspective on the bag tossing portion to make it just that much more annoying. Worse yet, the second boss fight I tackled this time introduced obstacles in the background, which introduced an additional layer of strategy into an already aggravating boss fight. Like, I think I can understand the reasoning -- I just admitted myself that the boss fights were pretty simple in the original game -- but wouldn't a better solution have been turning them into, oh I don't know, legitimate boss fights capped off with the traditional bag throw to finish them off?

That being said, I'm sticking to my guns with how Whoopee Camp should've handled Tomba's transition to 3D. They should've made the game into a 3D platformer akin to Super Mario 64 or Banjo-Kazooie with some OoT influence to help round things out. Given the fact that the Dual Shock controller was already well and truly out by the time Tomba! 2 hit the scene and the PlayStation's slim offerings in the genre, it could've definitely filled a niche, while avoiding the pitfalls of being a paint-by-numbers sequel with what some might've argued were improved graphics... at the time of release, anyway. Of course, it's easy to make such bold declarations more than 2 decades after the fact, but who knows? Maybe they would've stuck around longer with something like that under their belt.

To wrap things up, is it just me or did the quality of the translation seem to take a nosedive when I reached the Water Temple? It seems like a lot of the dialogue got twisted to either be directed at or said by the wrong characters as the game moves on. The fact that many of the voice actors sound a little confused at times... or just outright go off-script isn't really helping matters much either. Then again, having a full English dub was pretty impressive for a PS1 game in the first place, so it's understandable that corners would eventually have to be cut. It's just a shame that it's happening just as the game's starting to draw me back in.

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