One of my favourite video games from that (or any other) era came out right at the beginning of the decade. ToeJam & Earl, designed by Greg Johnson, was released on the Sega Genesis in 1991. Today, it's best known for its oddball sense of humour and funk-inspired soundtrack, but it’s also notoriously hard to nail down, genre-wise. It was inspired by the classic computer game Rogue (a classic dungeon-crawler known for its randomly-designed levels), and games inspire by Rogue are usually called Rogue-likes, but unlike most of its siblings, ToeJam & Earl isn't turn-based, isn't tile-based, and isn't even combat-based. ToeJam and Earl is a Rogue-like in the same way that Portal is a Doom Clone.
The game’s plot, like many from the era, is simple: two aliens from the planet Funkotron crash on Earth, and must track down the ten pieces of their spaceship before they can escape. ToeJam is the smaller, faster of the two aliens, sporting three legs, red skin, and a distinctive set of eyestalks in place of a head. Earl, obese and orange and much more humanoid, is larger and can take more damage. Even more bizarre, however, is the game’s depiction of good old Earth. Here, our planet consists of a series of randomly-generated floating islands, connected by magic elevators and infested with groups of mortar-wielding chickens, giant hamsters in plastic balls, and women pushing children in shopping carts around the middle of nowhere.
And as an interesting side-note, this game doesn't have any bosses. Not even a last one. I have nothing against bosses, but they would be out of place here; ToeJam & Earl is not about combat.
That's not to say that Earth is safe, mind you. The majority of Earthlings (excluding the clergy, opera singers, and wise men in carrot suits) are dangerous, but ToeJam and Earl themselves aren't. Most of the time, they can’t even attack! Instead, you have to rely on the present boxes found scattered about the planet. Each present has a different effect, such as recovering your health, letting you fly for a short time, or even giving you some tomatoes to throw at the Earthlings. Tomatoes actually come in three forms: regular old throwing-tomatoes, slingshot tomatoes, and, of course, raining tomatoes, which can’t be aimed and can damage you as well as the Earthlings. Sadly, tomatoes can’t be eaten; they’re just for lobbing at people. But don't think of them as ammo; for probably more than 90% of the game, you won't have any tomatoes, and will need to rely on other presents to survive.
But here’s the rub: you don’t know what each present actually does when you start the game. There are ways to identify the contents of a present, such as paying the wise man in a carrot suit to tell you, or using it (opening a present without using it and peeking inside is, of course, rude and not an option here), and once you've done that, all other presents of that same type will be identified for you. Unfortunately, not all presents are helpful, or even healthy. Some will damage you, kill you, summon enemies, or even randomize the contents of every present in the game and unidentify them on you!
Since ToeJam and Earl are incapable of so much as a brisk jog without opening the right present, I've always felt that your physical progress through the many Floating Islands of Earth is really only half the journey. ToeJam and Earl’s other goal is to amass a strong collection of identified presents. Getting a Randomizer early in the game isn’t a big deal--you’ve got lots of time to re-identify everything--but by the time you start to get to the 5th or 6th level, and the planet starts to get more dangerous, you’ll want to know what tools are at your disposal. Getting the carrot man to find a Randomizer in your inventory is the most satisfying moment in the game, because it means that you can calmly identify presents without his help for the remainder of your stay on Earth.
Sure, you might still get struck by lightning, lose consciousness, or even lose a life, but at least you won’t do it twice!
ToeJam & Earl is still one of my favourite video games, but I’ll be the first to admit that the controls could have been better. I've always felt that it is exactly the sort of game that needed a sequel or two to stand on its broad shoulders. Look at The Legend of Zelda on the NES. It’s a masterpiece and everyone knows it, but A Link to the Past is clearly the superior game. That’s the sort of progress that I would have liked to see from Toe Jam and Earl 2.
There are two sequels to this game, but not “proper” ones. The first is called ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron, came out in 1993 on the Sega Genesis, and, in some ways, is more polished than its predecessor. The controls are better, and the world just feels like there's more to do and see in it. Unfortunately, it abandoned the original’s rogue-like elements, becoming a platformer instead. It’s a well-made, solid platformer, but there's no shortage of great platformers out there, so Panic on Funkotron simply can't compete.
The third game, released on the Xbox in 2002, tried to go back to the series’ roots, kind of, sort of; ToeJam and Earl III: Mission to Earth combines randomly generated levels and an assortment of presents with Banjo-Kazooie-esque platformer elements. Some people liked the third game, and some didn't. I didn't. It was a noble effort, but, in my opinion, it was not a fun one.
Nostalgia is a persistent little bugger, so what we enjoy as children will impact what we enjoy as adults. I often wonder how many of my favourite video games I would actually hate if I had played them for the first time as an adult. Sometimes, when there aren't any real problems readily available, I worry that I might not have liked ToeJam & Earl at all if I played it for the first time today. But we'll let my alternate universe counterpart worry about that; in this world, I did play it for the first time as a child, and I fell in love with it then, and still love it now. I replayed it when I was in my early 20s, to celebrate landing my first job, and I replayed it again not long ago, and it was beautiful both times. Whatever imperfections the game may have, it’s still a unique, fun, and innovative title. ToeJam & Earl is the king of what it does, and with both of the princes running around pretending to be platformers, it doesn't look like it'll be dethroned any time soon.
