ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove!

Goodness, me. This is an absolute delight. A faithful recreation of the first game with lots of new elements added including some groovy bits from Toejam & Earl 2 (this thrillingly includes occasional visits to the Hyper Funk Zone). Thanks, Macaulay Culkin! (...no, really)

ToeJam & Earl are odd games. Their structure is unusual, they’re most similar to roguelikes before the genre became popular. The style is drenched in 90s nostalgia and the gameplay still feels fresh thanks to elements such as stealth and how exploration is handled. I had a hard time getting into the older ones on the PS3 (ports of the first two games), but this one won me over after getting used to it with time. The gameplay loop is finding 10 ship parts scattered throughout 25 levels. It won’t be easy as there are pesky earthlings trying to make your life harder. And the levels are connected, you can drop down from level 25 to 24. And if you’re unlucky, you might drop down further. You have tools to help you against the onslaught. There are gifts that contain unique skills, you have good earthlings that can make a huge difference and your stats increase every time you level up. XP is gained through different actions such as exploring a level, using gifts and doing some mini-games. All of this comes together to create something very unique and addictive. It’s super rewarding to learn earthlings’ patterns. It’s impressive that the game has many different enemies to keep the gameplay engaging for a long time. The game also has a lot of personality in every facet. It scores high in art, music and originality. The biggest problem I have with the game is how some of the achievements were handled, mainly the ‘have 10 gifts explode on you’ and ‘unlock all hats’ achievements. The later requires you to complete 15 runs on normal and 4 on hard difficulty. It feels super grindy on normal already but being forced to play hard 4 times makes things infinitely worse. I’ve completed hard twice and it wasn’t a fun experience. I was willing to put up with it if it wasn’t for the other achievement crushing my hope of getting all the achievements. Realistically, you are unlikely to get 10 broken gifts during a run and keep your stat for presents low (to make them explode). You would have to work against the way the game is meant to be played by not leveling up and put yourself in unnatural situations, and still you will not get far. What you will need is a hat of breaking and this one is incredibly RNG dependant. It used to be easier to get the hat you want (by removing it from your current run) but this was changed with an update (you have no control whatsoever now). This achievement shouldn’t be more difficult than completing a run with no deaths, killing every unique bad earthling, having 99 bucks, visit all backers etc. It’s the definition of an awful achievement and it makes me sad to end my time with the game on such a negative note. The game is special, there is no doubt the developers are very passionate about ToeJam & Earl games. I can definitely recommend the game to players who are willing to experiment with something different. But completionist gamers might be better off skipping the game if they want to keep their sanity. Some of the achievements are just too brutal and it makes me question if one of them is intended to be that hard to get. The price of around €12,50 is definitely worth it. I spent around 54 hours getting all the achievements except for the two I mentioned.