Toki Longplay (Arcade) [60 FPS]

Developed and published by TAD Corporation in 1989

Some guys can't seem to catch a break. One moment you're a hunk of prehistoric manhood strolling through the jungle, the next, you're betrothed has been kidnapped by an evil witchdoctor and you've been transformed into a semi-evolved simian. No, today is not a good day to be Toki.

Not one to let his knuckles drag in a crisis, Toki sets off to rescue Princess Miho from the Golden Palace and fortress of the treacherous witchdoctor Vookimdelo. Despite his somewhat squat stature, Toki is far from useless. Not only did he manage to retain his mental faculties, but he has also acquired the ability to spit various types of projectile at his foes. In fact, the Sega Mega Drive port of the game even went as far as to add the subtitle "Going Ape Spit" to highlight this particular mechanic.

The game is side-scrolling platformer set across six different stages, each of which Toki must complete if he is to rescue Miho and reverse the spell that has led to his current condition. Each level is full of monsters and bad guys to shoot, traps to avoid, and, as is a staple with the genre, end-of-level bosses to beat.

Enemies can be despatched by shooting with Toki's special brand of monkey spit, which can be upgraded to shoot multiple shots, or even a gout of searing flame (my personal favourite). Certain enemies will drop gold coins that can be collected in order to earn a bonus life, but you have to be quick on the draw if you're to grab them in time.

In addition to different weapons, our hero can also equip a football helmet that provides some extra protection against adversaries. Somewhat rarer (but no less useful) are a pair of sports sneakers that allow Toki to jump extra high. Sometimes these items are deliberately placed out of reach and enemies must be used as impromptu trampolines to reach them.

As with most coin-ops, Toki can be a tough game and success only comes with practice. Unlike some games that try to overwhelm the player with insurmountable odds or ridiculous amounts of incoming fire, a lot of the challenges can be overcome with practice and caution.

Toki is a decent enough game, but it's stand-out feature has got to be the quirky sense of humour bestowed upon it by the developers. The facial expressions that Toki pulls when spitting at his opponents are great and are a large part of what makes the game so appealing; I have to wonder whether the team at Rare were influenced by the Toki character when it came to creating the updated design of Donkey Kong.

Visual appeal aside, the game boasts solid, responsive controls that means the game is pretty good fun to play. The only real negative comment I feel I can make is that there isn't a tremendous amount of variety in the later levels; a couple of additional enemies show up later in the game, but there's not a huge amount of variety in the level designs themselves.

Nevertheless, Toki is still a pretty fun game to play and is one of the few of TAD's games that received conversions to home systems. With such a quirky sense of humour, it's a shame that this group of former Data East developers didn't survive long enough to develop more.

#retrogaming
#toki
#arcade

[Ivan-NZ]

This guy knows to the millimeter exactly where everything that attacks him will stop. Many times I moved by myself, as if I was playing a game. I spent a million chips while playing this game when I was a kid. Bravo !!

[rodolforaya]

Cuando era niño veía a otro niño en las arcades que terminaba el juego completo. Lo admiraba mucho y me puse la meta de terminarlo también. Lo logré y desde entonces me lo se de memoria.

[reymicroc]

I love the enigmatic and prehistoric feeling of this game

[calvancandy]

This was a hard game in the arcade loved it.

[TheOneAndOnLEE.]

I used to play this in a local arcade. After it closed, I never saw this game anywhere ever again. It took me *years* to figure out the name of it (thank you internet)

[hamala]

Beautiful arcade. Required so much money to enjoy it back then

[Kenza]

this type a games remember me ... when everything was good and all growing up in a normal life

[Reaperman]

It looks like a good amount of this games difficulty comes from "memorize the garbage for next time."

[masterlasheron]

Holly shit, this is one of those rare cases where the remake is actually harder than the original game

[isyt]

One of the games that got me in to programming and my eventual career today. Trying to recreate the parallax scrolling etc at home on the Atari ST…

[elegguadante]

DESPUÉS DE MUCHOS 😥 AŇOS PUDE VER EL FINAL 😱 GRACIAS 👍

[dreiksrt]

Played this game when i was 5 years old :') you are amazing!

[welsty]

I remember watching this being played in the chippy during lunchtime at secondary school. I couldn't afford to play but often joined a small crowd of kids who would just watch this one older kid get to about level 6 before we'd have to go back to school. He stayed playing and would be late I guess!

[rusher]

i used to play when i was kid at game shop secretely from our father in 1988-90

[BasileusDudek]

I was trying to find this game, somewhere, anywhere, for many many years...
-and finaly youtube offers me this link.

because I never finished it myself, now I don't have to;
my heart can rest as Toki finaly saved his love :D

thank you very much

[soylentgreene]

I used to play this in the arcade as a kid in the early 90’s, while my parents where gambling at the casino next door.

[MrJCarn]

Ok, you are a master of that there is no doubt, for me that game has been one of the impossible, lol I have never finished it but today thanks to you I have seen the end for the first time. I don't know if my age or what happened if I lost my ability to play arcades. And I already read your article, very good. Greetings.

[princeofpersiaasdf]

nothing says im hanging out at the arcades with no money watching the machines like this game

[Black-Scarlatta]

17:55 almost cooked Toki. Awesome playing... ❤️

[gustavobueno]

I'm an old school arcade gamer, and I did play this one a lot. I almost did the end without loose any life, but I make an silly mistake very near to face the last boss. That was a great accomplish in those coin machines back then. In these days I've played again in emulators I could make the end again but never without loose any life... still trying to end my old goal lol. great playing I did enjoy too see some different tecniques than mine you have did in this video. greattings from Brazil!