Like a 90s mascot platformer, Stitchy in Tooki Trouble is a simple but ultimately forgettable single player sidescroller. With flavorless level design and a flawed scoring system, this “me too” platformer is easily overshadowed by the countless other titles on the Switch eShop.
You play as Stitchy, a scarecrow on a quest to retrieve stolen corn from tiki monsters. In other words, it is Donkey Kong Country’s story only swap bananas for unshucked corn. There are no noteworthy set pieces or stage designs either. Everything here has been done a million times before and art assets repeat throughout the campaign.
Part of the problem with the boring stage design comes from the limited moveset: A jumps and B slams (ground pounds). Outside of double jumping, there is nothing else for Stitchy to do. Since he cannot perform other actions, the most challenging aspect of the stage design comes from cheap enemy placement. Most stages have at least one unfair platforming segment that was deliberately designed just to prevent the game from being a total cake walk. Unfortunately, cheap difficulty does not equal fun.
The most annoying aspect of the overall design comes from the scoring system. Each stage grades the player’s performance out of three stars. However, earning all three stars requires a minimum of two play throughs since the game scores the player on time and collectables. In order you beat each stage’s ideal time, you need to run without stopping, essentially speed running the game. If you stop to snag a collectable or look for any kind of secret, like the three hidden totems in each stage, you will not beat the target time. This artificially extends the gameplay and doesn’t respect the player’s time.
Grabbing one of these totem pieces is also a detriment to the player as the screen fades to black for a few seconds. This stupid fading effect puts an emphasis on grabbing the thing but then it annoyingly doesn’t let the player see anything else. It is such an odd effect that only frustrates instead of congratulates. Making matters worse, the silhouette trees and objects in the foreground needlessly get in the way so the player is moving blind every few seconds. It would also have been nice to switch the controls too. Instead of old school NES controls, mapping the jump and action button to Y and B would have been preferred over using B and A. The lack of music on the level screen also makes the game feel incomplete and the never changing super close up of the metal totem face during the frequent and long loading screens is annoying and even a little creepy at best.
Stitchy in Tooki Trouble is a budget platformer and it shows. Like all those mascot platformers from the 90, this is another title that will be overlooked and forgotten.
Not As Good As: Jet Kave Adventure
Also Try: any Donkey Kong Country game
Wait For It: another Toki sequel/remake
By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com
Twitter: @ZackGaz
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