Tobe's Vertical Adventure
I'm not completely sure if I picked this up in a pack, or on sale, or whatever, on Steam, so I'm not sure how much I paid for it. If I didn't have a fundamental ragequit moment in the 2nd World, it would've been worth the full 5 bucks that it costs. As it is, I only got about 30 minutes of playing in it until it pissed me off.
So what is Tobe's Vertical Adventure? It's a platforming game, which for whatever reason reminded me of Pitfall. I'm not really sure why, it owes a lot more to post-Super Mario platforming than to Pitfall. I'm going to guess it was just the treasure hunting themes that made me thing that.
Unlike most platformers, which tend to be side-scroll affairs, Tobe's Vertical Adventure is vertical. You descend down into a cave or pit in the search for treasure. In all of the stages I played, the screen wrapped around, so sometimes your path would take you off the right side onto the left as you're going down. Another thing in all the stages I played was after you get the big treasure, you trigger the stage to collapse. It rearranges itself slightly, and you have to escape upwards under a certain time limit.
Tobe can run, jump, slide under things, throw ropes he can climb, and use balloons. I think there are other playable characters, but I only used Tobe. There are obstacles to avoid (spikes, moving floating spike things), enemies to jump on, levers to pull, switches to stand on, and treasure to loot. Lots of treasure.
It was fun. I wish the tutorial/on screen directions had been translated to my XBOX 360 controller I used to play it instead of still being in terms of the keyboard, so that's a minus on polish. Not a game breaker though, the game breaker was when the game threw semi-invisible blocks at me. No thanks, your controls are tight enough and I'm not enjoying the game enough to put up with that kind of crap. I'll probably get over my rage and play it some more again one day, but for now, I'm putting Tobe aside.
I'd rate it 6/10 based on what I saw. It was cute and fun, and if I had a kid, I would let them play this without any reservations.
I see that Wikipedia wants to delete the article on Tobe which is kind of hilariously silly. We get articles for every defunct train stop in England, but a product that's actually being sold and that people are using isn't notable enough? How ridiculous.
So what is Tobe's Vertical Adventure? It's a platforming game, which for whatever reason reminded me of Pitfall. I'm not really sure why, it owes a lot more to post-Super Mario platforming than to Pitfall. I'm going to guess it was just the treasure hunting themes that made me thing that.
Unlike most platformers, which tend to be side-scroll affairs, Tobe's Vertical Adventure is vertical. You descend down into a cave or pit in the search for treasure. In all of the stages I played, the screen wrapped around, so sometimes your path would take you off the right side onto the left as you're going down. Another thing in all the stages I played was after you get the big treasure, you trigger the stage to collapse. It rearranges itself slightly, and you have to escape upwards under a certain time limit.
Tobe can run, jump, slide under things, throw ropes he can climb, and use balloons. I think there are other playable characters, but I only used Tobe. There are obstacles to avoid (spikes, moving floating spike things), enemies to jump on, levers to pull, switches to stand on, and treasure to loot. Lots of treasure.
It was fun. I wish the tutorial/on screen directions had been translated to my XBOX 360 controller I used to play it instead of still being in terms of the keyboard, so that's a minus on polish. Not a game breaker though, the game breaker was when the game threw semi-invisible blocks at me. No thanks, your controls are tight enough and I'm not enjoying the game enough to put up with that kind of crap. I'll probably get over my rage and play it some more again one day, but for now, I'm putting Tobe aside.
I'd rate it 6/10 based on what I saw. It was cute and fun, and if I had a kid, I would let them play this without any reservations.
I see that Wikipedia wants to delete the article on Tobe which is kind of hilariously silly. We get articles for every defunct train stop in England, but a product that's actually being sold and that people are using isn't notable enough? How ridiculous.