There’s this peculiar thing that happens to me and, I’m sure, many others while playing adventure games that I decided to “call the snowball effect”. It’s when you’re stuck not progressing for a long time, but then you solve one tiny puzzle and suddenly, everything is in motion again.Continue reading
Last time in Tomba!, I tried getting past the spiked wall in the back area of the Mushroom Forest, because I was sure the monster I needed to defeat was there. After half an hour of jumping and reloading, I finally made some progress.
I did quite a lot of things in this Tomba! session, but for some reason, my memory about it is a bit fuzzy. Because of that, I’ll try and reconstruct it from screenshots this time.Continue reading
I finally got a chance to test what happens if you lose all of your lives in Tomba! You die and it’s game over, pretty much. After a reload, I decided to be more careful and went on to fight my first boss.
I only had another 30 minutes to play Tomba! but I managed to squeeze quite a few things into those, primarily because I seem to be more focused when I’m in a hurry.
Only a week passed since I last played Tomba! this time, so I wasn’t as lost as I was in my previous posting. Since I was only able to play for about half an hour, I took the time to tie up some loose ends.
I finally got through Grandia and I’m about to complete Link’s Awakening as well. Since I started Tomba! months ago, I decided to stick with it and complete it, before going to anything else. It’s a fun game and I’m in danger of burning out on RPGs. The problem is, I can’t remember a thing!
As I already said, Grandia bugged out on me, freezing at a certain spot. My plan was to transfer the saves to my PC and continue the game with an emulator, but in the meantime, I decided to start a fresh game on the PSP, a platformer, of a sort.
This game really brings me back!
Tomba! is a very strange game. It plays and controls like a 2D platformer, but it’s way more complicated than that. The whole idea of the game is that you explore the colorful world, find obstacles and then talk to interesting characters and collect items to help you deal with those obstacles. Basically, it’s a platforming adventure game that plays more like a mix of equal parts Super Mario, Castlevania and Monkey Island, of all things.
It’s really hard to explain, but I found the demo, which is the only thing I’ve ever played as a kid, extremely fun and interesting. In fact, I found it so interesting I decided to put Tomba! on my PSP now and play all the way through it.
The plot of Tomba! is simple. You’re some sort of caveman kid who likes to eat pork and have fun. Somehow, you run into a bunch of evil pigs who knock you out and steal your grandpa’s golden bracelet. You really like that bracelet, so you decided to save the world and destroy the evil pig empire to get it back.
The colors!
I started the game and talked to the old man at the beginning, which got me my first few events:
The first one will be with me until the game ends, but the other two, I’ll solve really soon.
You can hold up to jump in that direction while swinging on a branch.
The beginning part was in the demo, so I remembered some of it. I jumped on the wall of the building behind me and got to the other side of the fence, where i got the Furious Tornado from the mailbox. Then I jumped back to the front and climbed the first three to talk to a hungry monkey:
Soon enough, I got to the fog and used the Furious Tornado to clear it. On the way there, I also found a frog which I need to take home, but to do that, I had to get through a lengthy area without getting hit, which I failed to do. I continued to go right and soon got to a mountain and climbed to the top of it. On my way there, I destroyed four eggs and picked up the chicks inside.
At the top of the mountain was the house of the 100-year-old man, so that was another event I cleared. He told me all about the dwarves and their troubles and gave me the 100-year-old key, which opens a bunch of chests, so I went back to collect the treasures inside those. On the way to the old man, I also found the AP Box, which requires me to gather 50 000 AP.
Cartoon cutscenes!
I also gave him the chicks from the Kokka Eggs, so that event was over. One of the treasure chests I went back for contained the 100 Year Old Bell, which teleports me to the 100 Year Old Man’s hut upon use and it has infinite uses. I also found a pair of Charity Wings. These are a single use item that transports me to any location I already visited.
Tomba stores items in his stomach.
Next up, I went past the 100 Year Old Man’s hut to the Forest of 100 Flowers. This is where I found my first dwarf and was told I need to bite a few of them to learn their language. This is what I did on my way to their village, so I was only missing one when I got there. I also discovered another event where I need to collect a certain amount of Leaf Butterflies. I got a total of six before I got to the village. At the village, I bit the last dwarf and learned the language. I also learned Seven dwarves as well as a dwarven child are missing. A female dwarf has also lost something in the forest and I need seven evil pig bags to defeat the pigs.
When I got back to the forest, everything was swarming with pigs and spores. I soon found a couple of the lost dwarves and discovered two new areas, where, after a while, I’ve found the rest of them.
Long story short, I got to the nearby mountain, found the dwarves, found the child, filled a bucket with water and doused some evil pig’s campfire. Then I fed the monkey, brought the frog home, rescued a puppy and went on to find some medicine for it (still looking). The dwarf elder gave me the first pig bag and I think I’ve found the first evil pig’s hideout with the telescope on top of the mountain.
The lair of the first evil pig?
All of this took me about an hour, maybe less. Next up, I’ll explore my current area for a bit to see if I missed anything and then I’ll go past the Phoenix Mountain to see what I can find there.
I got a bunch of event related items, but I’ve acquired some equipment upgrades such as the Jumping Pants which heighten my jump, as well as the wooden boomerang which is, I think, a stronger weapon. The hungry monkey tanked me for the bananas by teaching me how to run.
My first impressions of Tomba! are very positive. The game has aged really well and it still looks good, especially on the small PSP screen. The mechanics are unique even today, so It’s a refreshing change for me, after all these RPGs.
As I promised, today, after about 15 years, I can finally say I’ve accomplished all the goals in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. It took me a few days of persistence and it probably did some damage to my nerves, but I did it.
The most difficult level? I’m surprised to say it was Un-Bearable. It contained the last clear gem I got and I found what I needed to do by pure accident. I kept missing about 20 boxes at the end of the level and I was sure I didn’t miss any forking paths or anything of the sort. On one of my many attempts, it just so happened that, on the point where the big bear falls through the wooden planks,very few of the planks got broken. At that point, I was sure I had to now jump over the gap and go back to find some hidden passage.
That save slot looks so nice I’d like to frame it and put it on my wall.
I failed to jump over, but I managed to fall in. THAT was the secret passage. You actually have to jump into the hole. About ten lives later, I managed to get through it to, and even found the two sneakily hidden extra life crates at the only checkpoint in the area. Finally, I got the last gem.
My reward? An extra ending scene where Coco, Crash and Nitrus Brio use a cannon powered by all the gems to destroy the Cortex Vortex. Well, I got that, a nice “100 %” on my save slot image, and the satisfaction of completely clearing one of my most fondly remembered games.
I’ve 100% cleared Crash Bandicoot 2 and all I got was this scene.
What now? I’ll move on to another one. I also might write up a short guide on all the gems,or at least on how to get those I personally found the most difficult to find or get.
Well, it’s the last day of the year and I managed to squeeze in one more game before it’s over. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back is completed.
I’m not done with the game, though. Even though I beat the last boss and gathered all the crystals, I still have loads of gems to collect. Luckily, the game gives a convenient “percentage completed” statistic, which now tells me I’m at 73% overall. I was in the higher sixties when I beat the last boss, so I did make some progress towards 100% completion, but it will still take a while. As a kid, I never managed to reach 100%, partially because I was a kid and partially because I didn’t have Internet access so I couldn’t “cheat” my way through by reading guides. I’ll try not to cheat my way through this time as well, but I make no promises. If it gets too dull, or I get stuck, I’ll find a guide.
As I said, I’m at 73%
I love the look and feel of the game. It aged really, really well and the graphics don’t look outdated at all, thanks to a great, timeless style. Most of the levels, I’ve enjoyed, but some of the last few got a bit annoying. The levels which contained bees got a bit tedious towards the end, but by the two most annoying levels were definitely the two where you used a jetpack to fly through a space station – “Rock It” and “Pack Attack“. These two were simply too different compared to the rest of the game. It was disorienting and annoying to play through them. I do get why they exist, though. The last boss uses the same control scheme, so the game had to get me used to it. I’d prefer if Cortex just didn’t use this mechanic, though.
In any case, Neo Cortex was defeated and everything was well and dandy, but as I said, I still have a whole bunch of gems to collect, which I’m guessing will allow me to destroy the Cortex Vortex and beat the third mad scientist, whose name I forgot. As of now, I got close to half of the grey gems, I think; as well as one of the several colored gems. I also managed to find two of the five secret levels.
And what about the Cortex Vortex? It’s still up there.
I’ll make use of the plethora of spare moments on train rides I have to complete the collection. The PSP is a great gadget for stuff like that, and Crash Bandicoot is an excellent series for short sessions. Well, the first three games of the series are.