Toree's Panic Pack

This game is worth the 99 cents simply for the soundtrack alone. But gameplay wise, I don't understand what happened. This game is worse than Toree 1 and 2 in basically every way. This game has poor gameplay mechanics, glitches, and frustrating precision platforming that wasn't present in Toree 1 or 2. This is the first one in the franchise that I don't think I'm even going to bother finishing.

Toree Genesis is great, the other two in my opinion are janky, overly strict messes. Just play genesis.

This pack is great, I don't get why there's mixed reviews. The games are free on itch.io? Then play it on itch.io if you don't want to spend $1.50 AUD. Jumble Jam 2 and Missons are strict? What, are you allergic to challenging games? I liked what this pack had to offer. No bugs were experienced. My only gripe is not being able to move my camera up which made some of the Mission levels challenging, but I just learnt the levels and adapted.

play the other toree games...

Genesis is the best of the three games in the pack, and even at 5 or 10 minutes long it struggles from a sluggish camera and uninspired level design that doesn't jell with the character's momentum. Still, it made me optimistic for the other two games, which I assumed would be similar or better. Jumble jam is absolutely awful, each level is a textbook example of how not to design a platformer level. Missions is barely better than Jumble Jam, if only because the levels are absurdly unambitious to the point of being difficult to design incorrectly. I don't know how else to say this, you can't just put speedboosts all over a level that is nothing but short straight stretches on a tiny walkway that has literal 90 degree angles constantly. You can't just put 10 squares floating in space equidistant to each other and call it a level. you can't repeat a level, but take out the enemies, and call it a level. you can't just scatter around platforms semi-randomly over a lava pit and call it a level. The character controller feels good enough, and the art style is nice, but you have to make decent levels with the mechanics or else there is no value to your platformer. If it was hurriedly made using existing code from prior projects, and you yourself know it's mediocre, slapping a low sticker price on it doesn't make it a better game. If it were free, this review would be the same; a game is either worth playing or it's not. 3/10

TOREE GENESIS 4/10 It's funny, considering the fact that Toree in general is pretty similar to the Sonic Adventure games, you'd think a whole game homaging Sonic would be better but, unfortunately, this game has a lot of issues. Don't get me wrong, the gameplay is always pretty fun in these games, the Sonic references throughout (such as the bees clearly being modeled after Big the Cat) made me very happy, and the music slapped. And if you're just there for a fun, short time then, sure, great little thing to run through and then never play again. But, the whole thing with the Toree games is that they generally encourage replayability by giving incentives to doing certain things, like getting all the stars in a level or getting all A Ranks. However, the only incentive in this game comes from the gems, which let you unlock Super Toree. As far as I can tell, there's no incentive to collecting all the stars in each level or winning the race (which I know because I did both throughout my several playthroughs), the latter of which is actually pretty difficult to pull off. Beyond that, the whole point of Sonic games, or at least the type that this game is modeled after, is maintaining speed. This game very clearly was inspired by the Boost Formula seen in games like Sonic Unleashed, which especially focuses on speeding through things, but it's really hard to maintain that momentum when Toree moves so slowly. This is remedied when you play as Super Toree, but the fact that you have to play through the whole game and unlock all the gems just to get to that point in the first place makes this kind of a moot point. And, when you finally DO get there, you're so fast that the short levels blur by and you don't really get to savor it at all. Also, this game does not save your progress when you close the application, at least when it comes to its place in the Steam collection "Toree's Panic Pack", which is where I played this. If you want to play as Super Toree, you cannot close the application after unlocking all the gems or else you have to do it all over again. Again, these aren't really issues if you just want a short, fun time, but they do become glaring issues to anyone who wants more out of the game and, for a series that goes out of its way to encourage replayability, that is a major concern. The one thing I'm not sure of is whether or not there's an incentive for all A ranks (I'm not particularly good at these games), but there absolutely should've been incentives for collecting all stars and for winning the race because, without any incentive, the stars are pointless, and it's frustrating to go through the hassle of winning the race only to get nothing out of it. For all these reasons, while I like the Toree series a lot, I have a hard time saying I recommend Toree Genesis.

After 6 hours of playtime (on ally) I can confidently say all the negative remarks this entry received are valid. The main problem with this game in all honesty is Kalliros. Why Siactro decided it was a good idea to let them develop 2 Toree games is beyond me, but Kalliros took Toree and made a bunch of community workshop maps and charged people money for them. Jamboree 2 has all 3 maps you play in Genesis (made by Siactro) and the rest are just ridiculous maps made by Kalliros. Most of the maps have incredibly tight walkways, deadly obstacles, etc. and there's no way they tested these maps because outside of the glitches it's borderline impossible to get S or A rank on any of them. Mission is an improvement but again it's not something I would pay money for, it's a fan made gimmick you would find in the workshop. I'm sorry for the rather harsh review, but these games are very challenging in a non traditional way. The panic pack is not Toree and it's not fun. For that reason I can't recommend.

Not as good as what came before or after. Genesis is decent and styled after the first two games but Jumbled Jam 2 features overly long, downright trollish level design that feels both imprecise and too demanding at the same time. Missions is more of the same as Jumble Jam 2 once you get past the tutorial stages.

Completed as of writing this review: 100% (?) - All Shards, All S Ranks, All Disks, All Stars To be honest I don't agree with other people giving this game a dislike despite it's issues. It's still Toree! Yes, [b]Toree Genesis[/b] is a little too short, [b]Toree Jumbled Jam 2[/b] is too overwhelming and [b]Toree Missions[/b] is too strict, but I don't know. I enjoyed my time here, even though the first stage of Jumbled Jam 2 was the only bad stage for me. Others are either way too short to overstay their welcome or have forgiving S-Ranks. At the end of the day, this game's goal was, pretty much, to give us more Toree. And I wanted more Toree, so I got more Toree. If you're a newcomer, this game's not for you but if you're a fan... why not try it?

Honestly, even if the water level from the Jumbled Jam 2 was almost fun, the rest of it was a bugged unfinished mess, unlike the first Jumbled Jam that was quite fun, and the mission were either meh or badly done. Just save yourselves time and money and play Toree Genesis separatedly and if you want the first Toree Jumble Jam for free on Itch, they are quite good. If you want to play a good non-free Toree game, play Toree 2