Toki Tori 2+

Toki Tori 2+ is an adventure puzzle game about a cute chicken trying to save his village from a dangerous crystal. With the use of a very limited moveset and clever environmental manipulations, Toki Tori 2+ builds a smart metroidvania world where progress is only gated by knowledge. This pioneer of the now beloved "metroidbrainia" genre offers a relaxing yet challenging open-world adventure.

Toki Tori 2+’s world has a classic metroidvania structure: you explore the available areas of a 2D world up until you find something that unlocks previously blocked paths. Usually, that "something" would be a movement upgrade or a new item. But Toki Tori 2+ only uses knowledge and puzzle solving skills as a way to block your path. You can go anywhere as long as you know how; the game lets you gradually figure out what you can do with your very few abilities. You have all the tools you need right from the beginning.

Metroidvanias are usually associated with platforming, yet Toki Tori 2+’s hero cannot jump. Your little bird can only do two things : whistle and stomp. Both actions emit a sound wave in a limited radius that allows you to get the attention of animals and trigger specific events. For example, when a frog eats a berry bug, it will stop and inflate. If you then use your stomp close by, the frog will release a flying bubble which you can get into in order to reach new heights. Studying and learning the various interactions between the bird and the environment is the core of the game.

Toki Tori 2+ starts easy, but gets harder as you go deeper into the countryside. The puzzles get trickier and sometimes bigger, so setting things up correctly often requires a fair bit of patience, as well as some resets from time to time. You will indeed find a lot of precise puzzles, and brute-forcing is never an option. The checkpoints are really common though, so the game is not punishing at all.

As a metroidbrainia, Toki Tori 2+ has its share of secrets. You will have to explore mostly everything if you want to finish the game, but some secret routes and collectibles are still optional and well hidden. Due to the nature of the game, you'll have to backtrack a lot if you want to reach 100% completion; for a smoother exploration, there's a map you can use to spot quite easily where you missed a path, later complemented by a fast travel system.

Toki Tori 2+ is a sequel to the 2001 game Toki Tori. However, the original game played differently, with multiple items; it is not required to play it before the sequel. As to why it is 2+ and not just 2: the game was updated a few months after the initial release, with new music and puzzles.

This description was written by Andréas Andrieux.