Tomba! Special Edition Review: A Trip, Jump and a Dash Down Memory Lane

Back in the early 2000’s, my dad purchased a secondhand PS1 from who knows where. As part of the ‘deal’ the console came with a plastic bag full of Official PlayStation Magazine demo discs, all fanatically collected by the previous owner. In lieu of having dozens of full games to play, I’d spend hours upon hours combing through each demo disc and playing whatever caught my attention: Ghost in the Shell, Spyro the Dragon and, like so many others, Tomba!

Tomba! is a creative platformer that utilizes a 2.5D side-scrolling style, with players navigating through the foregrounds and backgrounds of environments. As Tomba, our protagonist, the goal is to explore the mysterious world in search of a stolen golden bracelet — an heirloom from Tomba’s late grandfather. The main antagonists are the Koma Pigs, who have been stockpiling gold, and are led by seven Evil Pigs that have each cursed different regions of the world. In order to lift the curses in each region, and reclaim his gold bracelet, Tomba must procure seven Evil Pig Bags that’ll help him find each Evil Pig and seal them away. 

This Little Pig Went To Market

Through Limited Run, Tomba! has been given a new lease of life, with both digital and physical versions of Tomba! Special Edition having been released for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam. This expanded edition features a handful of quality of life additions, such as a feature that lets you essentially save your game anywhere, and another that lets you rewind. The latter is a particular godsend, as Tomba! is notorious for the way it handles extra lives. There are a finite amount in the world and, if you burn through them early on, you’ll quickly become acquainted with the ‘Game Over’ screen and sent back to wherever you last saved. The rewind function makes it far easier to ensure that the next hit won’t be your last. 

Additional bonuses include a virtual music player, allowing players to switch between the original and “Special Edition” remastered soundtrack, and the “Museum.” This feature contains concept art, original game manuals, promos and more. For collectors, the Museum will be of most interest, featuring interviews with the original development team, including director Tokuro Fujiwara.

In the UK and Europe, Tomba! was called Tombi! and it was extremely difficult to find in the wild. Or, at least this less than 10-year old thought so, who could only search for games in second-hand shops and car boot sales. The Tomba! demo only took you as far as the end of the Dwarf Village, and whatever awaited me behind that area’s watchtower seemed forever out of reach. It wasn’t until my twenties that I actually got hands on a full copy, owing to the game receiving a port to the PlayStation Network. Even then I could only play it on my PSP, which was very much begging for death and borderline unusable. 

Thanks to Limited Run’s latest release, I finally have answers to the mysteries that plagued my childhood. I made it past the watchtower only to discover that Tomba! is actually a lot more challenging than the demo had led me to believe all those years ago. And, as a platformer, it was incredibly ahead of its time.

An Open World Platformer Before It Was Cool

Originally releasing back in 1997, Tomba! houses a lot of depth in its open world-style presentation. The game is surprisingly non-linear, requiring players to make note of where certain things are, and what might be a solution to a puzzle later down the line. For example, to lift the curse on Phoenix Mountain and clear the storm, you’ll need to find the right Evil Pig Gate and capture the Evil Pig residing within. You’d think that the Pig responsible for causing the storm on the mountain would be somewhere in the same area, but actually this Pig is found in an early area, sneakily hidden in the Dwarf Forest. And this is the same for all of the Evil Pigs and their Gates. The solution is rarely obvious, and requires a few more critical thinking skills than your typical platformer. 

These puzzles do, however, dangerously walk the line of being interesting and frustrating. Instructions and context for certain side quests are almost too vague in places, and can lead to a lot of backtracking just to try and work out where the pieces fit. There’s one side quest called “Leaf Slider” where a Dwarf is guarding an entrance to what you can only assume is a giant slide. He won’t let you pass, saying it’s too dangerous: “The ground past here is like a slide…,” he says. “The locals call it the Leaf Slider. I'm sorry but I can't let you go any further. It's a little dangerous. Crying won't get you anywhere.” Now, I just took this to mean that I’d have to come back later, maybe after I’d cleared some later objectives as had been the case previously. In actual fact, it just meant I had to return to him under the effects of a ‘Crying Mushroom’ from the Mushroom Forest. Maybe I would have worked it out sooner if the Dwarf had implied that, actually, crying would get you somewhere.

Your main traversal mechanics in Tomba! are dashing, jumping and climbing. For the most part you’ll be defeating enemies by jumping on them and throwing them away from you, but you can often stun them with some additional ranged weaponry in the form of boomerangs or grapples. There’s also some equipment that Tomba can pick up along the way, such as augmented pants that allow him to jump further or dash faster, a parasol that lets him glide gently after a jump, or even a fire crystal that imbues Tomba with a unique power. 

The view will change from a side-scroller to an isometric view when Tomba enters towns and settlements, like the Dwarf Village or Baccus Village, reminding you that you’re navigating a 3D space. In areas like the Haunted Mansion, players must manipulate the view somewhat in order to access certain pathways. Facing a certain direction might rotate the mansion 90 degrees, revealing another side of the mansion to explore.

While the Tomba! Special Edition has a slight visual upgrade, it suffers from the struggles that all retro titles have when played on modern screens. The pixels are far more noticeable than when we had the benefit of our CRT-tinted glasses, and perhaps it doesn’t quite look as magical as it did when we were younger. But Tomba! still maintains its vibrancy and unique environments, and its stylized art helps it to endure the passage of time that little bit better. 

That'll Do, Pig. That'll Do

With re-releases such as this, the question will always be: does the game still hold up after all this time? In the case of Tomba!, I certainly think so. With its charming style and dynamic world, Tomba! offers such an interesting take on the platforming genre that it’s clear to see why it remains a cult classic. Thanks to Limited Run, the Tomba! Special Edition is now the easiest way for an audience to revisit this platformer. For those of us that dreamed of what lies beyond the watchtower, never having found a copy of the full game, the Tomba! Special Edition is a must have. If I could write a letter to my younger self, I’d tell her that we did it: we finally played all of Tomba!