"ToeJam & Earl" is more a Coke Light than good wine



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Before playing Back in the throatI have actively avoided any research. I had read a few words earlier about the general direction of the restart and I did not want to set any expectations by going back to the original. I'm glad I did, because when I started it on my switch for the first time, the nostalgia shot was like taking a double dose of happy pills. The outrageous colors and the exaggerated funk soundtrack of the menu screen immediately brought me back to the early '90s. I felt like I was kneeling in front of a small cathode ray tube.

"This game is … weird, "a friend commented, and he's right, it's clear idiot. In the opening cinematic, our protagonists, the extraterrestrial rap duo Wannabe, ToeJam and Earl, carry their boombox-cum spacecraft on Earth. Their project to impress a pair of female extraterrestrials however goes bad, when Earl presses the wrong button and creates a black hole that rips the gear. To rebuild it, you must wander through the levels of the game by collecting coins while avoiding the terrible occupants and engaging with helpful people. And they are Literally Levels – You progress up a lift and can return to a previous step if you fall off the edge.

This is exactly what I had imagined and I took a great pleasure exploring the first levels while the funky and heavy rhythms of the bass guitar were buzzing in the background. I smiled when I met Gandhi for the first time, who will protect you from enemies of the game if you stay close to him. Oh yes, hula girls! I thought ToeJam was meeting one and could not stop dancing. I immersed myself in the mini-games of rhythm and running, I slipped into Santa Claus and I was crushed by an overweight policeman in a mall, which was not not sure to be my friend or my enemy at first. I've been looking for hidden paths that come to light as you approach, I've picked up each gift (the version of the power-ups game) and shook every bush in the hope of finding some # 39; money. And after half an hour, I got bored.

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Hiding from Paul Blart

That's about how long it took me to meet most of what the game has to offer. Like a frozen Diet Coke, the combination of nostalgia, casual play and catchy soundtrack was refreshing at first, but it soon became lukewarm and uncomfortable. I usually like to explore every nook and cranny of a game, find every object and finish all the side quests. Back in the throat seems, on paper, to be exactly my jam. The whole game is a constant stream of micro-rewards. The mini-map of each level is only revealed when you explore. You can search in your immediate area by simply pressing a button, discovering the trees and bushes that are hiding. Something, Good or bad. You collect money, gifts, experience items, spaceship pieces. But none of this makes sense.

In fact, you could probably finish an entire party as you walk. Almost everything you do in the game earns you an experience, and when you're tired of it, you'll see a man dressed like a carrot (there's one on each stage) to get to the next level. This improves statistics such as your walking speed, your search radius, your ability to wear the present, etc., but you feel like you're doing something. By browsing through the levels, you are recovering gifts forever and you only find the contents of each type after opening it. Maybe it's a pair of rockets or spring shoes that allows you to explore the level faster, but a bad entry can allow you to easily fall to the lower level. Or maybe it contains tomatoes that you can throw at enemies to defeat them, even if it's easier to just get around them.

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Gandhi has your back

The money you collect along the way will pay for the services of friendly landlords. They can repair broken gifts that may explode or reveal what's in it before opening it. I do not know why bother you, though. There is no real need to use gifts as they are – sometimes, a pair of poorly designed rockets can be a hindrance and not a help – so you can just open them at random and see what happens. The only good gift is the one that takes you directly to spaceship pieces, which saves you an otherwise wasted time.

I think I understood my point now: Back in the throat becomes tedious real quick. The idea of ​​difficulty of the game is to simply put more shit on the screen as you go up through the levels. Do not get me wrong, meeting the Segway shopping center cop, the drone pilot, the alien fanatic, the evil elevator or the MIB agent for the first time, infuses a little bit of character into the game. But when you are at the last level and you can barely see the enemies – and for the moment, all you want to do is go to the final lift and the l & # 39; turn off – there is nothing interesting about them. Many enemies push you to contact, sometimes outside the level and at the previous stage. You have to go to the elevator, wait for the loading screen and try again. I can not think of a more frustrating mechanic.

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