Tomba! is a game I didn't even know existed until a few years ago when a friend was lamenting this loss of his copy, having lent it many years earlier to a friend who never returned it. Great game, it turns out. I both understand why my friend would be so upset about losing it, but also why his ex-friend would be so inclined to steal it from him.

Tokuro Fujiwara of Ghosts N' Goblins fame was both the director and art designer on Tomba!, which probably explains both why it feels so good to play and why it's so great to look at. The titular Tomba has a very particular way of moving, a specific gravity to him, which gives platforming a well defined feeling. Similar to Ghosts N' Goblins, it feels as if a lot of consideration and care was put in to designing how Tomba control. If I jump as Tomba I know where I'm going to land, and that's the key to making any platformer feel good. The character designs are equally as great, and the 2D sprites that depict them compliment the vibrant 3D environments they're set in perfectly.

Tomba! has an interesting structure to it, being primarily built around completing individual missions and earning points which can be cashed in for items, upgrades, and to advance the story. A sizeable amount of these missions are optional, you only need so many to complete the game, and this in turn provides the player with quite a bit of freedom in how they want to take on the adventure. Puzzle-platformers can be pretty hit-or-miss with me, but I really liked figuring out some of the missions in Tomba!, and looping around to previously explored locations while chipping away at them never felt tedious or frustrating like they might in other games.

It also has the distinction of being the only game I've played that actually made my Raspberry Pi overheat, which is... interesting. I'm curious how exactly the game is rendering its characters and environments and if something about that process just isn't optimized. I also experienced quite a bit of slowdown which might not be present if played on actual hardware. I am curious how well the game runs in other emulation environments, but have yet to test it on my Pi 4.

Really though, it's a testament to how fun Tomba! is that I was not only willing to push through bouts of slowdown and having to let my Pi cool down but had a pretty damn good time despite it. It's a shame this series was so short lived, but poor sales of both Tomba! and it's sequel put Whoopee Camp under pretty quickly. Then again, considering how "good" Tomba 2 is...