Now Playing: Tomba!

 What a Pigpen!

 Tomba! is a game about pigs. It's also a game that I've longed to play for quite some years now. I first heard, or rather, read about Tomba! back in my N64 days, when I used to read Gamepro and Xpert Gamer, and would run across ads for Tomba! every now and then. Funny story, I eventually got my hands on Tomba! 2 and I can clearly remember being surprised at the 3D graphics, I was expecting 2D sprites as the ads for Tomba! 1 promised! Regardless, I would eventually enjoy Tomba! 2, even though I never did finish it(Something that I plan to change this year), it made me want to play the prequel.

 And today, for the first time, I played Tomba! and it was glorious. Well, not quite, it's fun, but I'm still not completely sold on it. I like the look of the game, I like the structure, but the game is a bit... it kinda throws you into the wild, so to speak. It's also a joke, since Tomba looks like a Jungle kid, but I digress. Y'see, the game explains little to the player, you have to find out about equippable items by yourself(Not that it's anything close to Rocket Science, but still), heck, the 'Events' are but a name, and you have to figure by yourself how to figure them out. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the lack of hand-holding, but I think the game might be a bit too vague at times. Like Experience Points, what the hell do they do? I'm level 4 already and I haven't noticed any change to Tomba!

 Surprisingly, I'm digging the Metroidvania-like elements, getting the Jump shorts allowed me to reach new places, and I've already been promised a Swimming ability, which will open up another route. I can get behind that. Seems backtracking is the name of the game, and as long as it's fun, I'm cool with it. Bottom line: I like the game, but I'm still not OK with everything. As fun as it is, is it 100+ bucks worth of fun? ...I'll get back to you on that later.