Toki Longplay (Arcade) [60 FPS] 

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Developed and published by TAD Corporation in 1989
Some guys can't seem to catch a break. One moment you're a hunk of prehistoric manhood strolling through the jungle, the next, you're betrothed has been kidnapped by an evil witchdoctor and you've been transformed into a semi-evolved simian. No, today is not a good day to be Toki.
Not one to let his knuckles drag in a crisis, Toki sets off to rescue Princess Miho from the Golden Palace and fortress of the treacherous witchdoctor Vookimdelo. Despite his somewhat squat stature, Toki is far from useless. Not only did he manage to retain his mental faculties, but he has also acquired the ability to spit various types of projectile at his foes. In fact, the Sega Mega Drive port of the game even went as far as to add the subtitle "Going Ape Spit" to highlight this particular mechanic.
The game is side-scrolling platformer set across six different stages, each of which Toki must complete if he is to rescue Miho and reverse the spell that has led to his current condition. Each level is full of monsters and bad guys to shoot, traps to avoid, and, as is a staple with the genre, end-of-level bosses to beat.
Enemies can be despatched by shooting with Toki's special brand of monkey spit, which can be upgraded to shoot multiple shots, or even a gout of searing flame (my personal favourite). Certain enemies will drop gold coins that can be collected in order to earn a bonus life, but you have to be quick on the draw if you're to grab them in time.
In addition to different weapons, our hero can also equip a football helmet that provides some extra protection against adversaries. Somewhat rarer (but no less useful) are a pair of sports sneakers that allow Toki to jump extra high. Sometimes these items are deliberately placed out of reach and enemies must be used as impromptu trampolines to reach them.
As with most coin-ops, Toki can be a tough game and success only comes with practice. Unlike some games that try to overwhelm the player with insurmountable odds or ridiculous amounts of incoming fire, a lot of the challenges can be overcome with practice and caution.
Toki is a decent enough game, but it's stand-out feature has got to be the quirky sense of humour bestowed upon it by the developers. The facial expressions that Toki pulls when spitting at his opponents are great and are a large part of what makes the game so appealing; I have to wonder whether the team at Rare were influenced by the Toki character when it came to creating the updated design of Donkey Kong.
Visual appeal aside, the game boasts solid, responsive controls that means the game is pretty good fun to play. The only real negative comment I feel I can make is that there isn't a tremendous amount of variety in the later levels; a couple of additional enemies show up later in the game, but there's not a huge amount of variety in the level designs themselves.
Nevertheless, Toki is still a pretty fun game to play and is one of the few of TAD's games that received conversions to home systems. With such a quirky sense of humour, it's a shame that this group of former Data East developers didn't survive long enough to develop more.
#retrogaming
#toki
#arcade