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TRANSFORMING TOKI

monthly guide to everything happening in the homebrew scene/>

Davide Bottino was disappointed with Ocean’s C64 conversion of Toki – and now he has set out to make it better

Modern games get remastered, so it is interesting to see one of my favourite C64 arcade conversions getting the same treatment in our main feature. Elsewhere, we save the processors in Data Man, cast more spells with the Briley Witch Chronicles sequel, plot tactics with the Strife Sisters on PC Engine, escape a ZX Spectrum forest, and look forward to a graphically impressive Master System platformer. 2024 is already shaping up to be great.

Davide Bottino has fond memories of TAD Corporation’s Toki. “In the summer of 1990 my friends and I went crazy for Toki and played it at our local bar,” he recalls. Although Davide saw the C64 cartridge advertised in ZZAP! Italia, he didn’t play that conversion until many years later. “There are several flaws. The sprites aren’t particularly faithful in design and in many cases, are quite ugly,” he tells us. “I was particularly disappointed with the main character. The last level background is of a lower quality than the others. The soundtrack is nice, but it’s just one piece for the whole game and is not played along with the SFX, which are quite poor anyway. Playability is decent, but problems in the control system and unforgiving collisions make the game too difficult and frustrating.”

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Retro Gamer
Issue 256
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