Tomba 2 when

Qualified recommendation. This is a game I had as a kid and could never beat. Playing it again, I can see why. Not every game needs waypoints and to handhold you but there were several times in this game where you've unlocked a quest and have zero indication of where you need to go. Not to mention accessing the boss fights is just a shrug and hoping for the best. BUT the game, once you get going, is nice.

The platforming is a bit stiff so you do bump into enemies a lot but, thankfully, there aren't a ton of enemies. The puzzles are mainly item based so you just need to have the right item on hand to complete each one. It's not a puzzle platformer and it's not a Zelda-like but it kind of feels like both? It's hard to explain exactly what Tomba is but it does give you the itch to keep going once you start solving what you need to progress.

For this remaster in particular, though, it's fine. The rewind option is necessary for the amount of blind jumps you have and I'm glad it was included. However, the game, even in full screen, runs in a tiny window since the game was meant for a teeny tiny screen. It's not so bad and you stop noticing it after a while at least. The part that's baffling is that the game still has the slow load times of the original. Walking into a room or a new screen can be a full loading screen or a black screen for a few seconds which is kind of annoying since you need to backtrack so much. The most frustrating part of this game was all the loading - even though it's short - because to do anything the game has to load. Even opening the item menu is slow. Though it's an old game so what can you do?

If you played it as a kid and never beat it, I say get it. If you've never played it, you might want to skip unless you want in on some PS1 history. Either way it's best to get it on sale.

it's good