SEGA Vintage Collection: ToeJam & Earl Review
Game: ToeJam & Earl
Developer: Johnson Voorsanger Productions
Publisher: SEGA
Available on: Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network
Reviewed on: Xbox LIVE Arcade
Take a trip with us back to 1991. The year the Soviet Union collapsed, the gulf war happened, John Major was Prime Minister and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was on our TVs. It was the was the height of 90’s cool, and the year SEGA released ToeJam & Earl on its Mega Drive home console, a game that is infused with the same early 90’s ‘cool’ that we know, and love, The Fresh Prince for. Was ToeJam & Earl 1991’s best seller? No, that honour goes to the wonderful Super Mario World, but it did go on to become a cult hit and spawn a sequel, Panic on Funkotron, which is also included in this package.
So what is a ToeJam I hear you cry? And who is Earl? Well, ToeJam and Earl are both aliens, from the planet Funkotron. They are a pair of cool dudes who wear baggy shorts and sick sunglasses while listening to hip-happening funk and rap music. That’s rad, man. In the original game, the two of them are minding their own business in their spaceship when something goes wrong and they crash land on the planet Earth. ToeJam and Earl must then search high and low looking for parts of their busted up spaceship so they can get home to Funkotron.
Being 21 years old and hailing from the Mega Drive’s early days, it’s fair to say that ToeJam & Earl hasn’t exactly held up very well in terms of its appearance. Your view of the gameworld is akin to Sonic 3D and Super-PacMan, isometric in style with a raised view of the action. At the start of the game you pick which character you want to play as, ToeJam or Earl, two people can also play in split screen, something that I recommend as it spices things up a bit (more on that later). The action takes place on floating grassy islands, as you guide your character around looking for those elusive spaceship components.
Along the way you will come across pickups in the form of gifts. You don’t know what’s in the box, you only find out what it is when you use the item from an in game menu. Once an item has been used once, you can see what it is from said menu. This means that, at the start of the game, picking up items is totally random, because the items are random in nature. Some do good, some do harm, and some are, well, pointless. Spring shoes, rocket boots, a lightning cloud and an inflatable banana are some of the items I came across on my way back into orbit. Again, the nature of the items and their randomness harks back to that early 90’s cool, when being a bit stupid was the in thing. The enemies in the game are a random bunch, too, coming in the form of trash-bins, horny looking devils, bow wielding cupids and mental looking doctors. You can only fight back when you have an item with which to do so, which doesn’t happen often so it’s best to just steer clear of them, and most of them can be easily avoided. As you progress you climb from island to island in an elevator (Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure anyone?) as you continue to find all the spaceship parts you need to get home. That’s all there is to say about the original game, really, and I found myself struggling to see what it is about the game that earned it it’s cult classic label. Yes, there are some interesting things about it, like the randomly generated terrain and item placement, something that was state-of-the-art in 1991, but as a game it’s just a little…boring.
Fast forward two years to 1993 and SEGA decided to play it a lot safer with ToeJam & Earl in: Panic on Funkotron. Seeing that the original ToeJam & Earl game was a critical but not commercial hit, they did what everyone else was doing and released a platform game. Panic on Funkotron holds up much better than its predecessor, its bright colour scheme and snappy animations still look half decent. The story this time around is that when ToeJam and Earl left Earth, they unwittingly brought a clutch of Earthlings with them, and they are causing mayhem on Funkotron, running around, smiling, laughing and taking photos. It’s bedlam.
ToeJam and Earl are tasked with rounding all the Earthlings up and sending them home. All of the usual platform game mechanics apply here, running, jumping and finding pickups. Finding and capturing humans involves rummaging through trees and bushes, before throwing empty jars at them until they shrink and fit in the jar. I know, it sounds mad but trust me, it works. You complete the level by capturing all of the Earthlings and sending them back to Earth via spacecraft, there are also ten secret items to be found which give you points that can be spent on power ups such as the Funk Scan, which allows you to see a colourful reinterpretation of the game world, where items and Earthlings are highlighted to you. The game also features bonus mini-game sections that add an unexpected change of pace, there is a rhythm game, which is joined by trips to the “Ultimate Funk Zone”, a pickup based speed run course. Panic on Funkotron is a good game, and it’s easy to see why it sold more, a lot more in fact, than its prequel.
Both games are backed up by an unbelievably catchy soundtrack, hip hop and funk inspired, I found myself turning the TV up to eleven so that I could rock out to the midi-score awesomeness of it all. Indeed, expect to lose sleep as you try to get these tunes out of your head! On the Xbox LIVE Arcade version of this release, both games are packaged up together in what has been dubbed the “SEGA Vintage Collection”, so it’s safe to assume there will be more releases to come. It’s a tidy little package, as the game boots up into a ToeJam and Earl themed 3D living room-come selection screen, something that will go down well with fans of the series; it’s a really nice touch.
VERDICT: So the question is, if you haven’t played ToeJam & Earl before, should you pick up this package? It’s a difficult one to recommend, since in this reviewers eyes the original game has not aged well, and its only real selling point (its comical take on 90’s urban culture) is badly dated and not relevant to today’s audience. On the other hand its platforming sequel still plays like a charm, holding up 19 years later as a pretty decent little platform title. PS3 owners have the option of buying the games individually, so if you are desperate for a 90s nostalgia fix, give Panic on Funkotron a try. Otherwise, this is one for those looking through rose tinted specs only I’m afraid.
