Toejam & Earl: Back in the Groove (PC, 2019)
Graphics-7 Sound-8.5 Control-6.5 Challenge-7 Story-6.5
Level Design-7/6* Frustration-8 Fun-7/6* Originality-6
Overall Score-6.5**
*When luck is against you
**7 if bugs are fixed
+
Each char has 6 stats here (movement speed, hp/life bar, inventory size, searching - area of effect for when you press the search button to detect which objects have an item in them+chance to trigger a random screen covering auto-search (similar to the funk scan in T&E 2 but has some scaling to it), present skill - broken presents blow up less often+increased chance broken ones to be fixed on pick up+chance to receive amped presents+mystery presents may turn normal when picked up; luck - can save you from falling in hyperfunk zone+give you a bonus from mail boxes+can give you an extra roll with the cosplay nerds' dice mini-game)
Can upgrade/amp up presents (lets you use some of them twice)
Difficulty options+a tutorial mode (can adjust the difficulty on the fly)
Offline and online co-op (up to 4 players)
Better spring shoes controls (can hold the button to stop) and speed upgrade items are a bit less unwieldy
Some cool new presents (luring/here I am, earthling disguise - your player also talks to some earthlings which is pretty funny (doesn't pause gameplay), good earthling summon, randomly change a present, duplicate a present, random teleport, heal friend (co-op), temporary body swap (co-op), nice rocket skates - manual toggle and more zoomed out view, big sneeze - knock earthlings backwards and into pits (can also be done while in the protection bubble), black friday - all nearby earthlings attack each other) and earthlings (pharao - follows you around and empties all item containers on screen a few times for 2 bucks, runaway elf - catch it for a present, ghandi - area of effect safe zone)
Healing item shops
See the first game (this one also includes the hyperfunk zone/auto-scrolling runner and rhythm mini-games from T&E 2 - the former is a bit more zoomed out+slightly slower and there are multiple floors to most levels)
Enemies are also affected by the bowling ball trap (and an amped "burnin' up" present makes earthlings catch on fire as well)
Plays faster and smoother than the first game (there's also less dead space)
Can see down to the floor below the one you're on
"Show wiseman" works like a teleport to him if you amp/upgrade the present (same with show ship piece and show elevator) - no such present for the wizard though
If you use an unidentified "show ship piece" present on a level where there isn't one (or an "identify present" one when you have no unidentified presents) then it isn't wasted
Pretty nice intro and overall presentation (hand drawn parts - 80s-early 90s US hip hop/street art mixed with some 90s cartoon styles such as Rocko's Modern Life)
Some night levels (and torch presents, have a small flashlight on you by default)
Comedic tone with some good jokes
Can play as latisha and lewanda here (can also unlock flo, peabo and geek jam from T&E 2-3; the oldschool toejam and earl versions are also a bit different) - these all have different starting stats and minor one special ability (toejam uses Hitops and Spring Shoes for twice as long, Earl can eat bad food, Latisha does extra damage with all Tomatoes, OS Toejam uses Hitops and Nice Rocket Skates for twice as long, OS Earl - gets 2 for 1 Sushi and Rootbeer gives 5X health, Lewanda uses all Coin Meters for free, Flo gives a boost (?) to others when hi-fiving (especially Earl), Peabo can use Icarus Wings a while longer, Geek Jam - Gets a stat bump with every School Book and 2 for Amped (normally this puts you to sleep))
Can make your own beats in the rhythm mini-game (can't choose between a pre-made beat and making your own though, can't change the tempo)
Can hide among sunflowers here
If you fall down and talk to a wiseman he might spawn an elf for you
Slippery surfaces/ice in snow levels and small hills/slopes (T&E 2)
If you have zero presents and/or low health then some NPCs might help you out with an item or make you invisible (there are also a couple of dialogue choices in these situations as well as in the hot tube on Level 0)
Hidden alternate ending and side dialogue providing some character development (a fairly touching story initiated by Toejam & Earl if you leave them idle)
The interactive epilogue returns and choosing two things (1 char and 1 power hat) to unlock is added - would've been cooler if you still had your presents and could access the mini-games though
Interactive and skippable staff roll (fly through it)
Unlockable power hat gear (stat buffs and other effects, see notes; have to be playing on normal difficulty to unlock one which feels backwards since they make a run easier) - asks if you want to activate them when exiting an elevator after entering a new floor but it's random whether it'll work or not
Satisfying sfx overall and the OST consists mostly of rearranged classic tracks as well as some new tracks (pretty much all of them are good-great)
Adds a mini-map which can be enlarged to near full screen (first game had a separate screen)
Easier to tell good and bad food apart overall
Money is more common and there's a wiseman on every level
Can permanently unlock the presence of certain presents in a run (you'll occasionally find a flying present that you have to catch; means they're more likely to show up in later games you start though for me I had found some presents in a game that I later found as flying presents)
+/-
Save anywhere
Very similar gameplay to the first Toejam & Earl (MD)
Broken presents - there's a chance that they'll blow up so it's a gamble though your present skill increases your chances
Not much voice acting in-game and you can't talk to some NPCs
Can't save found food for later if you have a full life bar
Very small gaps are auto-jumped over if you move towards them
Timed instead of ammo-based thrown tomatoes and slingshots
Cool that you can find hidden funkotron levels but they play just like normal levels besides the UFO enemies (at one point I found one that was empty and had no evelator; UFO enemies also end up appearing in the regular levels later on) - seems that finding them is purely luck-based as well
Some trapped elevators (hard to react but can press down when going into any of them to avoid one)
Still a collectathon (10 ship pieces in random locations)
Level ups randomly increase 3 stats (there are no probability tweaks based on starting stats so they tend to stop mattering after a few levels which is a bit of a shame)
No respec stats item (there is a demotion/level down present but it's rare and you of course have to grind a bit to regain the exp if you use it)
Burp and fart jokes
Doorway is basically the same as the timed teleport present
Incorporating more rhythm elements to either the main gameplay or hyperfunk zone might've been cool
Levels are too small for 4 players?
Backer islands - meet backers as NPCs and get some money (these are cool but usually require an item-based jump or flight to get to and don't open up a shortcut back to where you were after getting to them)
An active icarus wings item is wasted if you go into a hyperfunk zone
Since the power hats basically make the game easier it's a bit weird that you have to play fixed mode or random mode unlock them
Can't hit cupid (flying enemy) with thrown tomatoes - can jump into him with spring shoes though
-
Save games get deleted after a game over (plus there's just one slot per game which can't be copied so it's completely gone if it happens!, there's also a lives system and 1-ups are kind of rare) - happens even on easier difficulties and there's no warning on either
Found items (including NPCs) might drop into pits if the item container object you shook was close to one
Some control/interface issues (the game doesn't sense PS4 controllers so you have to translate the XB360 buttons to it, found items sometimes drop behind obstacles making them hard to see unless you move close enough to make the obstacle semi-transparent, can't put an active item back into the inventory (saving its current state in terms of how much time you have left to use it) - would've been useful for the spring shoes for example since you can't interact with anything while using them or when you fell down and want to get back to the elevator quickly but not waste the whole item (there is an express elevator item that takes you back to the highest visited level or the next one if you're at the highest but it's rare), can't access the tutorial/mechanics and items explanations from the in-game menu, inconsistent confirmation button - sometimes cross and sometimes square, somewhat unforgiving hit detection on item drops - breaks flow a bit (with some NPCs it's the opposite problem - you might want to interact with a button or coin slots/parking meters and you end up talking to an NPC instead), sometimes sloppy hit detection when interacting with the buttons and parking meters - you can be pressing the button from one angle while standing very close and it doesn't work but then it does from a different angle but the same distance, can't manually control the camera zoom - zoomed out is generally better, found mailboxes/shops aren't marked on the map, the wizard NPC isn't marked on the map after finding him (would've been useful for when your stats are mutated by a UFO; the fixer guy being marked on the map would've also been useful), can't see your current rank title in the stats menu, shows the char select screen when loading a game even though you can't switch chars, can't input your own notes on the map nor check previous levels on it without visiting them, minor movement delay+loss of momentum when jumping into water, the flashlight defaults to pointing south when you stop moving even if you were moving north, can't speed up dialogue with NPCs, can't map the timed teleport move to its own button (same as sneaking and interacting with objects/NPCs))
Default movement is pretty slow and there's no run button (plus items that increase speed don't last that long and can only be used once; while you move faster on roads they are pretty rare) - some sort of permanent version of the hitops (or a version of the panic button in T&E 2) would've been good or at least being able to teleport to the elevator on a beaten level
No strafing or dodging means combat/avoidance gameplay is pretty basic
The frequency of items used to combat or disrupt enemies is a bit too low in general
No point in having the togetherness call present in 1p mode
The button and parking meter trails from T&E 2 feel kind of pointless here since there's no challenge in getting to the next one (no timer and level design is basic) - they can also lead to an enemy/negative item/into a group of pre-existing enemies in the level which kinda sucks
Uneven difficulty at times (black ice cream truck kills you instantly, the rhythm mini-game starts off kind of hard and you only get one shot at getting a "great/wow" rank (letting you proceed once) even in the tutorial game mode - would've been better if you could keep going until you fail and it had more of a progression curve to it)
Some tedious aspects (rain clouds follow you to other levels when using elevators, sometimes you jump or teleport to an island and then can't get back because no shortcut opened up and you have no item to let you jump back, 10+ seconds of loading (sometimes 20 for some reason!)+several unskippable logos when booting up the game and then 5-10 seconds more when loading a game, unskippable elevator loading segments between floors - the dialogue here is a nice touch but they could've let you skip it on a per sentence basis, rubber rings (for swimming) don't last long enough, can't restart from where you were booted out in hyperfunk zone - it always restarts from the first level, stat mutation from UFOs can make you really slow, have to unlock randomized world mode and hard mode (enemies and loot are still randomized in fixed mode), some of the longer narrow paths/bridge paths are just dead ends, identifying presents via wisemen is a bit expensive at 2 bucks each)
Some trial & error (cabbage is poisonous, hyperfunk zone's walls and gates look pretty much the same at the highest speed, the santas tend to fly away as soon as you see them meaning you have to wait for a bit for them to come back - you also have stop quickly when you hear a sound queue and/or see them looking around while sneaking up on them and this can happen while they're off screen, presents that look the same can have different properties and different looking ones can have the same properties, the opera singer also takes out friendly NPCs, using Earthlings or Earthling Hordes presents on Level 0 is safe - doing so will only spawn friendly earthlings and food items)
The random aspects sometimes create either difficulty spikes or longer periods of nothing really progressing much (the bummer present just kills you and the raincloud might as well kill you in some situations, if you don't get a high enough speed stat or the right presents then levels 7+ are just kind of annoying unless you get lucky with presents - some way to reliably buy tomatoes or some other low tier attack/evade item on most levels would've fixed this and a proper respec item that was more common could've also helped, a "spawn road" present could've also helped)
Can't enter houses (you just shake them like bushes and other container objects to find items)
In-game visuals are a bit mixed in quality (so-so looking 3D parts of the backgrounds - could've been 2D or more like in Wind Waker or something, overall the in-game animations look kinda cheap (flash-style puppets on a string), Hyperfunk zone looks a bit worse, Earl's idle animation looks derpy and the tomato throwing animation looks sloppy)
No jukebox/music playlist feature
Lacking feedback from rose bushes and tomatoes hitting enemies (they just flash slightly - there's no proper hit animation)
NPCs are less fleshed out than in T&E 2 where they had a bit of personality to them
Some of the gimmicks and mechanics from T&E 2 are missing here (regular jumping, springboard surfaces, blinking/short range teleporting through walls, underwater swimming, floating bubble platforms, pushable blocks, context sensitive dodge, funk vacuum though the tomato rain is similar, panic button - invincibility+super attack+faster movement, arrow pointing towards the next earthling - could've been a present that spawns an arrow pointing towards the nearest helpful earthling/ship piece/elevator)
Simple story at its core which is also basically the same as in the first game and it pretty much isn't present between the intro and ending besides the hidden idle dialogue (and the ending cutscene is pretty short as well as identical regardless of the char you picked - it also doesn't show any development between the 4 initial chars or what they ended up doing after the adventure)
No build-up towards the last ship piece (there could've been either a boss or some sort of organized earthling effort to stop you as well as unique buildings in the last level)
No new game+ besides the hats in fixed mode (the current save is deleted when you beat the game)
Gets a bit repetitive after the first 15 levels or so
Notes:
-Power hats: https://toejamandearl.fandom.com/wiki/ToeJam_%26_Earl:_Back_in_the_Groove/Power_Hats
Bugs:
-At one point the game stopped letting me pick up presents and money
-The game doesn't fully pause even if you use the pause option in the pause menu (earthlings and even enemies can still move around though you won't be attacked at least, you still sink down to your waist in sand)
-The lights around a ship piece don't light up in a night level
-It looks glitchy when NPCs fall down pits
-Sometimes comments from your avatar don't align with what's happening in-game ("found the final piece" for example)
-Phones and elves can glitch out (I've seen phones just disappear as I walk up to them and elves being non-interactive and then disappearing)
Comment:
Not a bad update to the MD original besides the bugs, but not great either. While there's a bit more to do (besides new content it incorporates some ideas of the second game into the top down rogue-lite formula), and it moves and plays smoother and faster while having less dead space, there are unexpected issues with hit detection, difficulty balancing and some underdeveloped ideas.
Level Design-7/6* Frustration-8 Fun-7/6* Originality-6
Overall Score-6.5**
*When luck is against you
**7 if bugs are fixed
+
Each char has 6 stats here (movement speed, hp/life bar, inventory size, searching - area of effect for when you press the search button to detect which objects have an item in them+chance to trigger a random screen covering auto-search (similar to the funk scan in T&E 2 but has some scaling to it), present skill - broken presents blow up less often+increased chance broken ones to be fixed on pick up+chance to receive amped presents+mystery presents may turn normal when picked up; luck - can save you from falling in hyperfunk zone+give you a bonus from mail boxes+can give you an extra roll with the cosplay nerds' dice mini-game)
Can upgrade/amp up presents (lets you use some of them twice)
Difficulty options+a tutorial mode (can adjust the difficulty on the fly)
Offline and online co-op (up to 4 players)
Better spring shoes controls (can hold the button to stop) and speed upgrade items are a bit less unwieldy
Some cool new presents (luring/here I am, earthling disguise - your player also talks to some earthlings which is pretty funny (doesn't pause gameplay), good earthling summon, randomly change a present, duplicate a present, random teleport, heal friend (co-op), temporary body swap (co-op), nice rocket skates - manual toggle and more zoomed out view, big sneeze - knock earthlings backwards and into pits (can also be done while in the protection bubble), black friday - all nearby earthlings attack each other) and earthlings (pharao - follows you around and empties all item containers on screen a few times for 2 bucks, runaway elf - catch it for a present, ghandi - area of effect safe zone)
Healing item shops
See the first game (this one also includes the hyperfunk zone/auto-scrolling runner and rhythm mini-games from T&E 2 - the former is a bit more zoomed out+slightly slower and there are multiple floors to most levels)
Enemies are also affected by the bowling ball trap (and an amped "burnin' up" present makes earthlings catch on fire as well)
Plays faster and smoother than the first game (there's also less dead space)
Can see down to the floor below the one you're on
"Show wiseman" works like a teleport to him if you amp/upgrade the present (same with show ship piece and show elevator) - no such present for the wizard though
If you use an unidentified "show ship piece" present on a level where there isn't one (or an "identify present" one when you have no unidentified presents) then it isn't wasted
Pretty nice intro and overall presentation (hand drawn parts - 80s-early 90s US hip hop/street art mixed with some 90s cartoon styles such as Rocko's Modern Life)
Some night levels (and torch presents, have a small flashlight on you by default)
Comedic tone with some good jokes
Can play as latisha and lewanda here (can also unlock flo, peabo and geek jam from T&E 2-3; the oldschool toejam and earl versions are also a bit different) - these all have different starting stats and minor one special ability (toejam uses Hitops and Spring Shoes for twice as long, Earl can eat bad food, Latisha does extra damage with all Tomatoes, OS Toejam uses Hitops and Nice Rocket Skates for twice as long, OS Earl - gets 2 for 1 Sushi and Rootbeer gives 5X health, Lewanda uses all Coin Meters for free, Flo gives a boost (?) to others when hi-fiving (especially Earl), Peabo can use Icarus Wings a while longer, Geek Jam - Gets a stat bump with every School Book and 2 for Amped (normally this puts you to sleep))
Can make your own beats in the rhythm mini-game (can't choose between a pre-made beat and making your own though, can't change the tempo)
Can hide among sunflowers here
If you fall down and talk to a wiseman he might spawn an elf for you
Slippery surfaces/ice in snow levels and small hills/slopes (T&E 2)
If you have zero presents and/or low health then some NPCs might help you out with an item or make you invisible (there are also a couple of dialogue choices in these situations as well as in the hot tube on Level 0)
Hidden alternate ending and side dialogue providing some character development (a fairly touching story initiated by Toejam & Earl if you leave them idle)
The interactive epilogue returns and choosing two things (1 char and 1 power hat) to unlock is added - would've been cooler if you still had your presents and could access the mini-games though
Interactive and skippable staff roll (fly through it)
Unlockable power hat gear (stat buffs and other effects, see notes; have to be playing on normal difficulty to unlock one which feels backwards since they make a run easier) - asks if you want to activate them when exiting an elevator after entering a new floor but it's random whether it'll work or not
Satisfying sfx overall and the OST consists mostly of rearranged classic tracks as well as some new tracks (pretty much all of them are good-great)
Adds a mini-map which can be enlarged to near full screen (first game had a separate screen)
Easier to tell good and bad food apart overall
Money is more common and there's a wiseman on every level
Can permanently unlock the presence of certain presents in a run (you'll occasionally find a flying present that you have to catch; means they're more likely to show up in later games you start though for me I had found some presents in a game that I later found as flying presents)
+/-
Save anywhere
Very similar gameplay to the first Toejam & Earl (MD)
Broken presents - there's a chance that they'll blow up so it's a gamble though your present skill increases your chances
Not much voice acting in-game and you can't talk to some NPCs
Can't save found food for later if you have a full life bar
Very small gaps are auto-jumped over if you move towards them
Timed instead of ammo-based thrown tomatoes and slingshots
Cool that you can find hidden funkotron levels but they play just like normal levels besides the UFO enemies (at one point I found one that was empty and had no evelator; UFO enemies also end up appearing in the regular levels later on) - seems that finding them is purely luck-based as well
Some trapped elevators (hard to react but can press down when going into any of them to avoid one)
Still a collectathon (10 ship pieces in random locations)
Level ups randomly increase 3 stats (there are no probability tweaks based on starting stats so they tend to stop mattering after a few levels which is a bit of a shame)
No respec stats item (there is a demotion/level down present but it's rare and you of course have to grind a bit to regain the exp if you use it)
Burp and fart jokes
Doorway is basically the same as the timed teleport present
Incorporating more rhythm elements to either the main gameplay or hyperfunk zone might've been cool
Levels are too small for 4 players?
Backer islands - meet backers as NPCs and get some money (these are cool but usually require an item-based jump or flight to get to and don't open up a shortcut back to where you were after getting to them)
An active icarus wings item is wasted if you go into a hyperfunk zone
Since the power hats basically make the game easier it's a bit weird that you have to play fixed mode or random mode unlock them
Can't hit cupid (flying enemy) with thrown tomatoes - can jump into him with spring shoes though
-
Save games get deleted after a game over (plus there's just one slot per game which can't be copied so it's completely gone if it happens!, there's also a lives system and 1-ups are kind of rare) - happens even on easier difficulties and there's no warning on either
Found items (including NPCs) might drop into pits if the item container object you shook was close to one
Some control/interface issues (the game doesn't sense PS4 controllers so you have to translate the XB360 buttons to it, found items sometimes drop behind obstacles making them hard to see unless you move close enough to make the obstacle semi-transparent, can't put an active item back into the inventory (saving its current state in terms of how much time you have left to use it) - would've been useful for the spring shoes for example since you can't interact with anything while using them or when you fell down and want to get back to the elevator quickly but not waste the whole item (there is an express elevator item that takes you back to the highest visited level or the next one if you're at the highest but it's rare), can't access the tutorial/mechanics and items explanations from the in-game menu, inconsistent confirmation button - sometimes cross and sometimes square, somewhat unforgiving hit detection on item drops - breaks flow a bit (with some NPCs it's the opposite problem - you might want to interact with a button or coin slots/parking meters and you end up talking to an NPC instead), sometimes sloppy hit detection when interacting with the buttons and parking meters - you can be pressing the button from one angle while standing very close and it doesn't work but then it does from a different angle but the same distance, can't manually control the camera zoom - zoomed out is generally better, found mailboxes/shops aren't marked on the map, the wizard NPC isn't marked on the map after finding him (would've been useful for when your stats are mutated by a UFO; the fixer guy being marked on the map would've also been useful), can't see your current rank title in the stats menu, shows the char select screen when loading a game even though you can't switch chars, can't input your own notes on the map nor check previous levels on it without visiting them, minor movement delay+loss of momentum when jumping into water, the flashlight defaults to pointing south when you stop moving even if you were moving north, can't speed up dialogue with NPCs, can't map the timed teleport move to its own button (same as sneaking and interacting with objects/NPCs))
Default movement is pretty slow and there's no run button (plus items that increase speed don't last that long and can only be used once; while you move faster on roads they are pretty rare) - some sort of permanent version of the hitops (or a version of the panic button in T&E 2) would've been good or at least being able to teleport to the elevator on a beaten level
No strafing or dodging means combat/avoidance gameplay is pretty basic
The frequency of items used to combat or disrupt enemies is a bit too low in general
No point in having the togetherness call present in 1p mode
The button and parking meter trails from T&E 2 feel kind of pointless here since there's no challenge in getting to the next one (no timer and level design is basic) - they can also lead to an enemy/negative item/into a group of pre-existing enemies in the level which kinda sucks
Uneven difficulty at times (black ice cream truck kills you instantly, the rhythm mini-game starts off kind of hard and you only get one shot at getting a "great/wow" rank (letting you proceed once) even in the tutorial game mode - would've been better if you could keep going until you fail and it had more of a progression curve to it)
Some tedious aspects (rain clouds follow you to other levels when using elevators, sometimes you jump or teleport to an island and then can't get back because no shortcut opened up and you have no item to let you jump back, 10+ seconds of loading (sometimes 20 for some reason!)+several unskippable logos when booting up the game and then 5-10 seconds more when loading a game, unskippable elevator loading segments between floors - the dialogue here is a nice touch but they could've let you skip it on a per sentence basis, rubber rings (for swimming) don't last long enough, can't restart from where you were booted out in hyperfunk zone - it always restarts from the first level, stat mutation from UFOs can make you really slow, have to unlock randomized world mode and hard mode (enemies and loot are still randomized in fixed mode), some of the longer narrow paths/bridge paths are just dead ends, identifying presents via wisemen is a bit expensive at 2 bucks each)
Some trial & error (cabbage is poisonous, hyperfunk zone's walls and gates look pretty much the same at the highest speed, the santas tend to fly away as soon as you see them meaning you have to wait for a bit for them to come back - you also have stop quickly when you hear a sound queue and/or see them looking around while sneaking up on them and this can happen while they're off screen, presents that look the same can have different properties and different looking ones can have the same properties, the opera singer also takes out friendly NPCs, using Earthlings or Earthling Hordes presents on Level 0 is safe - doing so will only spawn friendly earthlings and food items)
The random aspects sometimes create either difficulty spikes or longer periods of nothing really progressing much (the bummer present just kills you and the raincloud might as well kill you in some situations, if you don't get a high enough speed stat or the right presents then levels 7+ are just kind of annoying unless you get lucky with presents - some way to reliably buy tomatoes or some other low tier attack/evade item on most levels would've fixed this and a proper respec item that was more common could've also helped, a "spawn road" present could've also helped)
Can't enter houses (you just shake them like bushes and other container objects to find items)
In-game visuals are a bit mixed in quality (so-so looking 3D parts of the backgrounds - could've been 2D or more like in Wind Waker or something, overall the in-game animations look kinda cheap (flash-style puppets on a string), Hyperfunk zone looks a bit worse, Earl's idle animation looks derpy and the tomato throwing animation looks sloppy)
No jukebox/music playlist feature
Lacking feedback from rose bushes and tomatoes hitting enemies (they just flash slightly - there's no proper hit animation)
NPCs are less fleshed out than in T&E 2 where they had a bit of personality to them
Some of the gimmicks and mechanics from T&E 2 are missing here (regular jumping, springboard surfaces, blinking/short range teleporting through walls, underwater swimming, floating bubble platforms, pushable blocks, context sensitive dodge, funk vacuum though the tomato rain is similar, panic button - invincibility+super attack+faster movement, arrow pointing towards the next earthling - could've been a present that spawns an arrow pointing towards the nearest helpful earthling/ship piece/elevator)
Simple story at its core which is also basically the same as in the first game and it pretty much isn't present between the intro and ending besides the hidden idle dialogue (and the ending cutscene is pretty short as well as identical regardless of the char you picked - it also doesn't show any development between the 4 initial chars or what they ended up doing after the adventure)
No build-up towards the last ship piece (there could've been either a boss or some sort of organized earthling effort to stop you as well as unique buildings in the last level)
No new game+ besides the hats in fixed mode (the current save is deleted when you beat the game)
Gets a bit repetitive after the first 15 levels or so
Notes:
-Power hats: https://toejamandearl.fandom.com/wiki/ToeJam_%26_Earl:_Back_in_the_Groove/Power_Hats
Bugs:
-At one point the game stopped letting me pick up presents and money
-The game doesn't fully pause even if you use the pause option in the pause menu (earthlings and even enemies can still move around though you won't be attacked at least, you still sink down to your waist in sand)
-The lights around a ship piece don't light up in a night level
-It looks glitchy when NPCs fall down pits
-Sometimes comments from your avatar don't align with what's happening in-game ("found the final piece" for example)
-Phones and elves can glitch out (I've seen phones just disappear as I walk up to them and elves being non-interactive and then disappearing)
Comment:
Not a bad update to the MD original besides the bugs, but not great either. While there's a bit more to do (besides new content it incorporates some ideas of the second game into the top down rogue-lite formula), and it moves and plays smoother and faster while having less dead space, there are unexpected issues with hit detection, difficulty balancing and some underdeveloped ideas.