Cute, cartoon coin-ops are always good fun to play and Toki is no exception. Whizzing a hunched-up little ape around various colourful areas is great for a laugh or two!

The plot of the game begins with a young couple, living happily among the leaves and flowers of a peaceful jungle. Toki is a brave warrior. His deeds are the stuff of legend, made immortal by the songsmiths of the surrounding tribes. His girlfriend, Miho, is also famous. Her beauty attracting admirers from many lands.

Everyone in the area knows of Toki's heroic exploits, one person in particular - the evil Bashtar. He is jealous of the mighty warrior and wishes to steal Miho away for himself. One day, as Miho and Toki are wandering through the jungle, Bashtar sends one of his demonic manifestations, in the form of a gigantic hand, to kidnap the fair Miho. As the hand ascends the trees towards Bashtar's mountaintop hide away, Toki rushes forward to rescue her. But Bashtar has one more trick up his sleeve...

As Toki gets close to grabbing the hand, Bashtar appears and unleashes a bolt of blue fire. As soon as the flame touches the brave hero, he begins to change shape, becoming a lowly Neanderthal ape!

Monkey business
This little mishap isn't enough to stop Toki though. Oh no! He is determined to battle on and defeat Bashtar, releasing Miho from the clutches of the evil wizard.

You take control of Toki in his multi-stage quest. You begin on the outskirts of the jungle near the entrance to the lower caves of Bashtar's fortress. You are armed with a little magic of your own - the ability to spit small fireballs at your enemies. You must fight through the hordes of Bashtar's devilish minions, either stamping on them or shooting them.

Occasionally, you will find tokens either lying around the scenery or dropped by killed creatures. When you pick these up, Toki's power is temporarily increased, allowing him to bash through enemies with alacrity.

At the end of each section, a hefty guardian appears. These move around absorbing shots and flinging smaller creatures at you. To overcome these beasties, you must shoot them until their energy bar (at the bottom of the screen) is empty, at which point you can move onto the next area of Bashtar's domain.

Jolly colour
Ocean France have managed to grasp just the right graphical feel of the Toki coin-op, retaining the colourful appearance and jolly animation that made the original such a hit. Unfortunately, the sound doesn't really match up to the high-quality visuals. The music is overly twee and rather tinny to boot, while the effects are much too wimpy to add any real sort of an atmosphere.

The gameplay seems to have missed the mark a little too, introducing glitches in the control method and a few anomalies in the way enemies appear and react. There are times when enemies start doing things they are not supposed to, sending the player into walls of confusion and frustration.

At some points in the game, some serious quirks pop up which are most distressing. The game seems to forget where the restart points throughout the levels are supposed to be, putting you back beyond the last restart reached, it sometimes put s you further on than where you died!

The most disturbing foible is the game seems to crash with alarming regularity. This is particularly galling if you just managed to get to a point you've been battling to reach for the past hour.

These annoying glitches could easily have been put right with a little more playtesting, and the fact that they are there at all means that the game loses some of the appeal of the arcade original. This is a shame, since if as much care had been taken with programming the gameplay as has been lavished on the pretty graphics, then Toki would have been a corking little platform game. As it stands it's just a pretty good conversion.

Why is it that arcade machines such as Mitchell's Pang and Taito's Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, Plotting and The New Zealand Story don't become popular until they are converted to the home machines? It'd be understandable if they were dogs. But no - not only are they well-crafted and extremely playable, even top game designers find them an invaluable source of inspiration. Maybe these corky coin-operated releases aren't suitable fodder for arcade-goers who demand short, sharp thrills to get them hooker. Oh, I don't know. And I don't really care, just so long as they keep 'em coming.

Toki's another of those run 'n' jump romps, there's no denying that. What makes it stand out from the rest of the whoop is the fact that it's such a well-rounded pieced, with all its learning curves in the right places and some neat features to boot. It's real pretty too, not to mention smooth. No expense has been spared with the colour, and combined with the layer of parallax for the background a healthy arcade feel is created. (Having said that, all this is more testimony to Ocean France's conversion skills than the quality of the Tad Corporation's coin-operated original).

And so to the plot, which doesn't offer anything new, that's for sure. A boy, Toki, meets a girl, Miho, and they fall in love. Aah. Enter the evil wizard Bashtar. Now, Bashtar has the hots for Miho. Oooh. His bug blue magic hand picks up Toki's missus and steals her away, along with Toki's manhood...
No, it's not what you're thinking - before Bashtar does a runner he knocks Toki down to the lower rungs of the evolutionary ladder by turning him into an ape. Booo. But this chimp's no chump. He's still man enough to retrieve his true love (and his original form for that matter) and give Bashtar the bashing he deserves. Why, it's almost a scrolling Donkey Kong in reverse.

Believe it or not, being an ape does have its advantages. Toki has new-found versitality and a range of facial expressions which exceed that of most actors. He walks. He jumps (and can be manoeuvred while he's in the air). He crouches. He climbs. He swims. He swings. He instinctively ducks to allow him to crawl through narrow gaps. He curls up into a ball and covers his head when he gets dobbered. And, best of all, he spits glowing balls in eight different directions (and he even gets a grobbly together before he gobs), which comes in handy for removing the wildlife from his world. Toki's pucker power can be booster too, though this is more convenient than essential.

The ape's remarkable repertoire, along with the aforementioned arcade feel and the lush parallax-scrolling scenery (the underwater section especially - oh, and the dark forest's snowy stuff, and the waterfall) are just three of the Tasty Tibits in my Toki Top Ten. The other seven are as follows...

• Time limit permitting, you can scroll around the environment to your heart's content. This also proves useful when it comes to disposing of creatures or avoiding their projectiles.
• Restart positions are plastered all over the shop, so when Toki loses a life play is always resumed near the point of death (well, unless it was his last life and the CONTINUE option is used, in which case he goes all the way back to the beginning of the level).
• Sound and music are used to good effect. There's a different tune for every stage (including the map screen) but not at the expense of sound effects. Choosing between one or the other just isn't necessary as every worthwhile event has an associated noise and the music suits the pace which is... pleasant, I suppose. Leisurely sounds too dull, and it's not that.
• The creatures all have character - especially the Bosses. Being able to gain extra height by jumping on the little buggers is also beat (and occasionally useful for collecting items which are otherwise out of reach).
• The scenery is a little more interactive than usual, with walking up and down diagonal platforms and - best of all - the business with the seesaws and the 16-ton weights.
• There's always just enough warning to allow disaster to be avoided. Some sections seem far too hard, but once a technique is sussed, it can be done again and again... well, almost. It's never so straightforward that you can stroll on through a whole level.
• The ending is... No, I shan't tell you what happens, but suffice to say that it's (sigh) nice.

So, if Toki's so mighty fine, how come it hasn't a higher rating? IT is difficult to put down - in every sense. The problem is that the six levels are small but near-perfectly formed. What's there is so good, there should be more of it.

However, the biggest gripe I have about Toki has nothing to do with the gameplay, on the fact of it anyway, and it hasn't actually affected the rating, though maybe it should. You see, it's the packaging - in particular the manual, a tiny, uninspired, two-colour booklet, two thirds of which isn't even in English. For £25.99 I expect a complete package. It's not just Toki. Too often software is treated like meat.

It's terribly disappointing to open a box to be greeted with an expanse of white and a plastic bag containing a disk and a small manual. Why can't the care and attention lavished on the program itself extend to the packaging? Yes, a glossy full-colour manual would obviously be less cost effective for the publisher, but so much more could have been done even with a two-colour affair.
(Indeed, what do you think about the current state of computer entertainment software packaging? What are the most and least impressive packages you own? What improvements would you make? Write and tell us at the usual address...)

Still, at least if the mood takes you, you can always take the box lid and rub its edge against a matt surface to recreate a sound not entirely dissimilar to the grunting of an angry gorilla. How very appropriate.

As scenarios go, Toki must rank as one of the weirdest ever. Whilst out with his beloved, the beautiful Miho, Toki could only sit and watch as a giant disembodied hand appeared from nowhere and whisked her away. As Toki stared in horror, the evil wizard Bookimedio appeared, boasted of his love for Miho and swore that if he couldn't have her, then nobody would.
Immediately after the kidnapping, he cast a powerful spell on our musclebound hero, transforming him from his statuesque self into a lowly ape. With the evil wizard's laughter ringing in his ears, Toki dragged his arms along the ground and prepared for a trek across the six lands standing between him and his beloved.

In terms of gameplay, Toki runs along pretty familiar lines. Using a variety of ropes and ledges, Toki must run, jump and climb across the eight-way scrolling play area until he comes face to face with Vookimedio for a final confrontation. However, as well as having to contend with the assorted obstacle-based hazards, our hairy hero must also avoid contact with the evil wizard's countless minions who patrol each of the six areas.

Fortunately, despite being reduced to a humble primate, Toki has gained an unusual ability to protect himself by spitting vile goo at the attacking creatures, and this phlegm-throwing skills can also be upgraded to the likes of fiery breath or three-waydribble when specific coins are collected. Similarly, along the way Toki can protect himself from harm with the addition of a crash helmet which provides limited invulnerability from enemy fire.

Each of the levels reflects a different graphical theme, and Toki's adventures take him through an eerie cave system, under a monster-infested lake, and on to a fiery cavern followed by a massive ice palace and a sprawling jungle. The final battle takes place in the massive Golden Palace where Toki's beloved is being held.

In each stage, the graphics are nothing short of superb, and are almost perfect recreations of the original coin-op. The game's developers, Ocean France (who wrote Pang for Ocean), have crammed nearly every feature of the arcade parent into the relatively humble Amiga, and, with the exception of the odd load, I defy you to find any major differences - even small touches, such as Toki donning goggles when he goes underwater, have been retained. As well as the superb backdrops and smooth parallax scrolling.

Toki also plays host to some of the wildest sprites ever to appear in an Amiga game. Whereas most of the sprites are left to patrol certain areas, Toki also comes up against mortar-firing apes and small demons who suddenly appear and lob spears at him - contact with which results in the loss of one of his five lives. In addition, each level's nasties tie in nicely with the general theme of each stage, with pd-spitting plants materialising in the jungle, whilst sharks and mutant turtles harangue our friendly primate during the underwater scenes.

Once Toki has made it through to the end of the stage, he must destroy one of Vookimedio's larger aides. Keeping in with the game's general 'weird' theme, Toki's end-of-level guardians have been given names like Rambacha, Mogulvor, and Zarzamoth, and take the form of massive heads and spear-wielding fish. As has become a rule with end-of-level guardians, each must be killed with a repeated succession of shots, and when they finally keel over, there is a brief pause as the next stage is loaded.

As coin-op conversions go, Toki must rate as one of the best yet. Even so, it also falls into the unfortunate category of 'if you don't like the coin-op, you won't like this'. Another slight fault is the game's difficulty level which has been set slightly too high, and makes progress slow and frustrating. That said, there is a lot to do in Toki, and whilst the basic gameplay doesn't vary a great deal it's extremely entertaining stuff and well worth a shufti.

Ocean France is shaping up as rather 'les chien's testicules' when it comes to coin-op conversions. Having coded the brilliant Pang, it's now turned its attention to the Tad Corporation Arcade game Toki - and what a corker it is too!

This is rather a spook coincidence since "what a corker" is exactly the phrase used by the decidedly evil Bashtar when he sit his bloodshot eyes on Toki's young lady, Miho. Bashtar decided he wanted Miho to be his-ho and, as a true p[roduct of the Thatcher generation, what he wanted he took. Before you can say "oooh I think I saw a nipple", a semi-clad Miho is snatched away from her loved one by a large blue hand. (No honestly these things happen. Why only the other day in the ZERO offices... but that's another story).

Toki's attempts to pursue her are slightly hampered by the fact that he's promptly turned into a small monkey. Ah well, perhaps Mrs Toki has a thing about baboons. If not, then Toki is wasthin his time charging off over six levels of parallax scrolling to rescue her. You'll get to see them on a map on the opening sequence and as you progress you'll see the little monkey at the bottom move along toward the end (you hope).

As small primates go, the new vesion of Toki is quite an adaptable sort of fellow. Fortunate really, considering the range, ferocity and downright peculiarity of the creatures he's going to come across. He destroys opponents by spitting fireballs at them: not a trick often displayed by the inhabitants of London Zoo. Then again, how many animals do you see wandering around their cage wearing American football helmets? Perhaps if they were as careful as Toki they wouldn't have ended up there.

As well as helmets (for invincibility) Toki can pick up money (obligingly dropped by dying beasties) with which to buy extra lives. At 30 coins a time, life doesn't come cheap. It's worth the investment though, 'cos there are surprises and beautiful screens round every corner. More importantly, round the last corner of all there's the lady Miho. "Darling will you still love me when I'm short, fat and hairy?"

David: Ocean France has come up trumps again, with yet another brilliant conversion of a slightly obscure arcade game. Well, maybe it's huge in France but I've never seen Toki over her. This is a shame 'cos it means I'll have to take Ocean's word to the fact it claims to have improved the parallax scrolling over that of the coin-op, specifically in the undersea bits. Even so I can still appreciate how slick the coding, 32 colour graphics and gameplay really are.

The beauty of Toki lies in the addictive arcade adventure gameplay of the original and in the slightly off-beat scenario. This is evident not only in the weird monsters you meet - such as huge flying blocks, complete with lethal gas-spitting gargoyles, being operated by two little monkeys paddling away on top - but also in the actual progress through the levels.

Frequently, Toki will come to a little see-saw device, by jumping on this, a large weight flies into the air, then falls back on the see-saw and launches you way up onto an overhead platform. Oh, and check out the underwater section, where Toki acquires a swimming mask and goggles. Little touches like this make the whole game really neat. My sole reservation could lie with the longevity. It's so addictive I'd probably play it till I'd completed it - and I managed level three on the second sitting. Still, apart from that, if you're into arcade adventures then Toki is well worth checking out.