Two Tribes goes into detail on the many changes implemented for Toki Tori 2+: Nintendo Switch Edition
Toki Tori 2 originally released for Wii U back in 2015. This week, the game made its way to Switch.
You might be interested to know that the Switch release is quite a bit different than the Wii U title. Developer Two Tribes has made a number of improvements and changes over the years, and in bringing the game to Nintendo’s console, lots more was implemented – both big and small.
Two Tribes went over everything in a new blog post yesterday. You can read the studio’s thoughts below to get a good idea as to just how much effort went into the Switch version.
Continuous improvement
At first blush, Toki Tori 2+: Nintendo Switch Edition may simply seem like it’s the same great game we released in April 2013 on Wii U. But in fact, in the nearly five years since that initial release, we kept improving the game.
When we brought it to Steam in July 2013, we included achievements, a whole bunch of new puzzles, better presentation and even a level editor (that we unfortunately can’t bring te consoles). We felt the game had become so much better, we added a plus to the title.
Then, when we launched it on PlayStation 4, exactly two years ago, we included a new hints system.
And now on Switch, we again made a major effort to make the game better. Somehow, though, we kept our programmers from adding more plusses to the title!
So what exactly did we change? First of all, here’s our official line on what’s new:
Toki Tori 2+ is better than ever on Nintendo Switch, with lots of gameplay tweaks and even some new secrets and puzzle solutions. Plus, you can now create checkpoints wherever you like, allowing for easy experimentation.
- Tweaked gameplay, new secrets and solutions
- Buttery smooth graphics at 60 fps
- Featuring in-game Achievements
- HD Rumble support
- Video capture support
Unfortunately, such a short marketing message doesn’t convey all the detail that went into this version. So let us elaborate on a few points:
A great Switch release
First of all we wanted to make this a great Switch release, plain and simple. Like our first Switch release, RIVE: Ultimate Edition, Toki Tori 2+ runs at full resolution (1080p in TV Mode, 720p in Handheld Mode) and at 60 fps. We also made sure to fully support HD Rumble and video capture.
On top of that, we built a completely new menu system that’s much faster than the old one, including our own in-game achievements implementation (again, like RIVE). So you can hunt for achievements on a system without native support for them!
Teaching an old bird some new songs
We added the possibility to create a checkpoint wherever you like. So if you want to experiment to solve a puzzle, you can whistle the checkpoint melody (if you’ve discovered it) to spawn a checkpoint. If you die after that, or whistle the rewind melody, you’ll return to the checkpoint you just created.
Additionally, we improved the fast-travel melody. It can now be used (almost) anywhere, so no need to be above ground and near a checkpoint anymore!
Finally, we took out the map melody. Instead, we gave you a button to get a better view of the world!
Plus tons of other things
After all these years, we felt it was time to go through the entire game to fix little niggles, and even add something new and better here and there. Our main goal was to make the gameplay more predictable, decreasing the chance that when you already know how to solve a puzzle, you’ll still fail at executing your plan.
There are so many things, we decided to list all our release notes. Warning: Might contain some spoilers!
Gameplay
- Added checkpoint melody, spawning a checkpoint wherever you like
- Completely overhauled the checkpoints system, they’re more intuitive and fair now, and faster too
- Added HD Rumble to a lot of instances that didn’t have rumble in other versions, including ambient rumble in the crystal room and escape bubble sequence in Tower Town
- Flying Toki (spoiler!) is a bit easier to control now
Fast-travel / island map
- You can now whistle the fast-travel melody everywhere (except in some caves), no need for being near a checkpoint anymore
- Quick access to the island map with the minus button, removed the map melody
- Stomp button cancels the bird’s eye view and goes back to the last checkpoint
- Golden wings are larger, and shown 20 seconds instead of 7 on the map
- Map shows golden wings permanently after all Ancient Frogs have been found
- Better feedback in the few instances where it is not possible to use the fast-travel melody
Creatures
- When dropping Toki in a nest, birds now have a ‘cooldown’, so they won’t instantly pick you up again when walking out of the nest
- Birds don’t stop anymore when they sense vibration, making them less annoying when accidentically stomping near them
- No more random sorting of creatures: they all appear on their assigned depth value, preventing smaller creatures from sometimes getting lost behind bigger creatures
- Fixed the ‘spawning multiple camera birds’ bug
- Slug corpses can’t kill anymore, so no more accidentally walking into them and dying
Bugs
- When stomped, berrybugs and copybugs now always hop the same distance (3 tiles), making their behavior more predictible
- Berrybugs now briefly stop if they detect an edge above their heads while walking on the floor, making it easier to stomp them onto a wall
- Copybugs and berrybugs get stunned when they’re in the trajectory of a to be spawned bubble, so they can’t hop/roll away before bubble is spawned
- Glowy berrybugs now use the same turn animation as normal berrybugs, so no more faster glow bugs
Frogs and bubbles
- Bubbles now prioritize Toki Tori over other entities, so no more accidental berrybug ballooning
- Added a small delay before catching an entity in a bubble to allow for catching Toki Tori, even if he’s a little further away than an entity
- Added possibility to queue a ‘turn by whistle’ while the frog is running towards a berrybug, so you don’t have to wait before being able to let the frog face the desired direction
- Fixed a problem where a fat frog won’t belch anymore
Achievements
- In-menu achievements system, including progress achievements
- Added a number of new achievements
- Tokidex completion is now a progress achievement (you can see how far along you are)
- Fixed the Fried Chicken achievement, so it’s less hard to get
- All electrocuted entities now count for the X-Ray Enthusiast achievement
Menu
- Completely new, streamlined and fast to access menu system
- Ability to set language from menu
- New font
Graphics
- Improved presentation of telepathic Ancient Frog messages, fixed a problem where sometimes they’d spawn multiple times
- Fixed black flickering when buttonbashing during fades and level transitions
- Screenfades are now 100% black
- Added button prompts to the first time you need to use whistle and stomp
Areas and puzzles
- Added l-ife area for Ife <3
- Added an extra landing stone in the wasteland area
- Added more snow globes 🙂
- Water mountain approach: berrybug in the ‘pro’ puzzle can no longer be lost
- Water mountain top: frog for Ancient Frog puzzle now starts bloated, added light to make ‘pro’ puzzle easier to execute
- Shaft top: Small tweak to make sure berrybug isn’t killed by the slugs midway through the level
- Water cave: made the light shaft where you need to whistle the hermit crab a bit wider, created hole for frogs at end of level to prevent them from falling down, made some ‘pro’ puzzles a bit more forgiving
- Dark forest: lowered warp when entering dark area, so it’s easier to travel up with a bubble
- Lava cave: improved bat puzzle
- Meadow: made some pro puzzles less difficult
- Hideout: removed alternative solution for Ancient Frog puzzle
- Descent: made it easier to pick up fat frog at beginning
