Tomba! | The Good, the Bad, the Problematic

Maybe it's a good thing a lot of people haven't played the first Tomba!

Tomba! released in 1997. It’s a 2.5D sidescroller about a boy fighting magical evil pigs who took his grandfather’s bracelet. I think he lives in the jungle. He only wears shorts, they change colors depending on their ability, and has puffy pink hair.

My first encounter with Tomba! was through a PlayStation demo disc. I never played the whole game. It would come up every year and then disappear from my mind. I started seeing some circulation about Tomba! getting a re-release in the next few years. I heard this rumor in 2022. I was excited but didn’t pay it any attention. The rumor started gaining traction in 2023. I held out hope for as long as possible. With no release date, trailers, nor talks of the developer, I accepted it may never come back. I decided to scour the internet for an emulator tutorial & a downloadable copy of Tomba! I finally lived my childhood dream of playing Tomba! early 2024. I completed it, checked it off my backlog, and that was that — mission accomplished. Fast forward to Summer Game Fest… ya’ll, tell me why they finally give Tomba! a release date, a trailer, mention the special edition?! I was absolutely triggered and filled with rage. All this time I’ve been looking, searching, begging for a Tomba! game, and now it’s just here? I already played, I’m not going to play it again. That is a promise to myself.

I know you’re thinking, I should be happy that it’s finally available, but I’m not! I hope everyone else gets to enjoy it. I have already been through the dark dungeon that is Tomba!

Tomba! has some problematic portions that I hope they fix in the Special Edition. The enemies in the game include pigs, flowers, turtle-crocodile-looking things, and more animals until we get to the Jungle. This is already weird because Tomba lives in the jungle. Or the whole thing is a jungle? But the jungle portion shows the first human enemy. They're blue, with bones in their nose, a shield, tribal outfits, big lips, and spears. This was made in 1997. It’s not hard to deduce what they’re depicting. The entire game is fun, lighthearted, and has no undertones — at least ones I recognized, until we get to the jungle.

This is one of the reasons I won’t play Tomba! I made a few suggestions during the stream of what they could have done differently. The Special Edition looks like it’s the same game, it doesn’t look remastered or updated from the trailer. We’ll have to wait for more to determine if there are changes, especially to this level.

Let me know if you’ve played this game. If you’re looking forward to it. Or if you think there doesn’t need to be any changes.