Innovation in games is a good thing. But that innovation really needs to see some polish. So many times, we see a really solid and new idea killed stone dead by less-than-stellar execution. A touch more work would see the game going down in the annals of gaming history ‘ see Ico ‘ but the developer just seems to finish up and ship it without laying on that extra bit of care and attention. Unfortunately, that exact thing seems to be what’s happened to Tecmo’s Tokobot.
Tokobot sees you playing a 16-year old agent named Bolt, who is tasked with discovering all that he can about the mystical Tokobots. To do this, you must take Bolt through a serious of challenging puzzle-based platform levels; defeating enemies, crossing seemingly uncrossable chasms, hitting switches’you know the drill. You are assigned six Tokobots to assist you in your quest, and more can be obtained as you progress through the game. These assistants can be set to move in varying patterns, each of which provides a new move or new range of skills to Bolt. From the outset, you can have the bots surround you, stand in a line behind you, or stand three on each side. If they’re standing behind you, they can be used as a whip or a ladder (since they stick to certain panels and can then be climbed or walked along) ‘ and if they’re standing either side of you, hammering the square button causes them to spin around, providing a nice zone of protection and a dose of metal pain for your foes.
This is all well and good, until the game decides that you really didn’t want the Tokobots to do what you asked them to. As an example, if you get stuck in a corner against an enemy and need to attack three times to get rid of it, you can use that ‘whip’ attack to hit it the first time ‘ and then the second. When it comes to the third shot, you hold your right shoulder button to ready the bots, you press square to attack – and nothing happens. By the time you’ve done it successfully, the enemy seeker has had enough time to knock you down. If you only have one energy block left ‘ well, its goodnight from you.
Another issue that occurs frequently involves the camera. Too many times, you need to drop from one level to another practically blind, since there’s no real camera control. Even the left shoulder button-controlled ‘centre camera’ command doesn’t help, since you still can’t see over the ledge. You may be falling to a platform below, but you’re more likely to be falling into water ‘ and its goodnight from him.
As with most games, if the game idea hooks you then these problems can be overlooked. Tokobot does have the potential to hook you ‘ don’t misjudge what I’m saying ‘ but you will either love it or flat out hate it. Graphically, Tokobot is very crisp and has a nice, smooth style, whilst the music and effects (barring the massively annoying ‘YAH!’ every time you attack) are quirky enough to suit the game perfectly. On top of this, the control system is intuitive enough and aside from ignoring you at some very inconvenient times ‘ works well.
But, as I found myself progressing through the stages, I could feel myself leaning towards the ‘if I die due to a glitch one more time, I’m turning it off’ rather than ‘if I die due to a glitch one more time, I’ll try again’ far too often ‘ and that isn’t a good sign.
