Tobe's Vertical Adventure

It seems like a nice platforming game that works for others, but I have had no luck at all getting the controls to work. If you are really interested in the game, I would suggest checking if you can get the controls to work as they should and returning it if they don't work.

A good riddance from the ultra realistic modern 2021 games . Or maybe its my personal opinion that most games towards the better side should be like 16-bit only. It certainly took me back to the era of Nintendo when I frankly used to enjoy gaming the most. The look and feel of Tobe's quite resonates with good old konami games, Contra, adventure island, Super Mario, Circus Charlie, Dangerous Dave. And speaking of this, at first glance it sounds cute. Tobe And Nana sets out on adventure. And the game would be best enjoyed in co-op mode. With 4 worlds and 4 stages each world. This is a 2 way game where in you need to traverse each stage 2 times, down the level and once you open a big treasure chest, travel back up where you started but for the second time while going back up, you will have the time limit before the entire level comes crashing down on you. I think that's what best sums up Tobe's vertical adventure. However, be prepared for a challenge as this is perhaps one of the most difficult games I played after Super Meat Boy and terraria. Surviving with limited lives would be a challenge as you proceed the levels and might gonna leave you banging your head and will still force you to glue to the game for as long as I don't get to verdict of this most adorable Brother-Sister Duo Tobe and Nana. Buy it for sure.

Bought this ages ago, thinking it would make a fun co-op game. Wife gave up after a few minutes. I tried it again just now, to see if it would be worth finishing solo... A lot of these other negative reviews are right, the character movement and controls just don't feel right. Everything is slow and awkward.

I really like the idea, especially the co-op aspect of this game, but the controls absolutely need to be worked on. You can assign a controller to both players, however the button layout and the fact that the game doesn't really recognize and thus adapt to your choice of using a controller rather than a keyboard (because they suck for platformers!) is a rather huge oversight in my opinion.

Tobe's Vertical Adventure is a cute-as-a-button adventure platformer. The game has a few technical shortcomings that, at least for me, hamper my enjoyment.

The Good:

• The game's art style is retro. Nice SNES would probably describe it pretty well.
  
• The game has nice music. It's not mind-blowing but it fits the games visual theme and genre.
  
• The gameplay extends beyond simple adventure platforming through the use of consumable tools/items (like ceiling ropes, balloons, etc.)
  

The Bad:

• The controls. A platformer lives and dies with its controls, and moving around in the world is painful. Taking turning around whil running for instance, it's a seemingly-forever animation that heavily penalizes for running in anything but a straight line in the game. Precision jumping feels a bit trickier than need be, but maybe that's just me.
  
• The frame rate. It suffers from an XNA bug (thanks Microsoft!) that locks the game at a lower framerate than what it's supposed to run at. Rather than just looking choppy, this framerate affects the controls as well so the game feels sluggish. See the forums for a post about this where someone links to articles written by other devs who've had to fix the bug in their games.
  
[*] Limited video settings including no resolution adjustment. This isn't a horrible aspect since the game has a decidedly retro look anyhow, but I couldn't find much in the way of graphical settings of any kind. Given that it's made with XNA, my guess is this was because it was intended to (or did?) live on a Microsoft console at some point.

I suspect if the developer ever came back to this game to give it some love, this could be a really fun game. However, its technical shortcomings right now leave it in a state that are mildly frustrating and certainly not worth anyone's time given the quantity and quality of other platformers on the PC.

Game doesn't work for me - crashes on load with a "Some issue with Steam API. Highscores downloaded: True" error followed by a fatal exception window. Messing with settings didn't seem to do anything, and there's no other reports of this error for this old game.

So yeah, not a "real" review, but also not recommended since it doesn't function.

Tobe's Vertical Adventure is one of those games that makes me long for a ~Meh~ option for steam reviews.


Right, right, so what've we got here? Well, Tobe's Vertical Adventure is a Side-Scrolling... Er, Up-n'-Down-Scrolling(?) platformer where the idea is to get from the top of a cave to the bottom and then make your escape back to the entrance, all while collecting gems and animals as you descend/ascend. It offers two different playable characters for singleplayer and multiplayer story modes across four different worlds, each with four levels. So lets get started shall we?


First of all I'd like to mention the presentation. The majority of the game is represented in the form of sprites, with some art slides that are used as cutscenes and such. The style of the art is nice; it's a simplistic style where everything is gratuitously round for some reason or another. I'm being told it's cute, but something about the hips of both characters being twice the size of their heads puts me off... Anyway, it works, but it's nothing I can say is spectacular. The in-game sprites also look okay and have decent animation to them, but I noticed that a fair few of them were blurry or lacked sharpness, specifically the character sprites. Overall, it's a quaint artstyle, but it's nothing to write home about.


Audio is also just okay. Not a lot of music to listen to; There's the menu music, one track for each world, and then some cutscene music. Once again, none of it is /really/ good, just kinda okay. I suppose I liked the 1st and 3rd world's music the best, seeing as I remember them the most, but it's still all... Whatever y'know? Sound effects as well, which really wouldn't even be noted in this review if it wasn't for the fact that many sound effects occuring at the same time will cause the sound to increase in volume exponentially. Collecting gems becomes a little less fun when you start hearing "ding, Ding, DING, DDDIIIINNNGGG" as you pick them up in groups.


Put hey, as long as the gameplay if fun, right?... Er, well, it's okay. That's the word of the day folks. As previously mentioned, you start at the top of the level and must make your way down to a chest at the bottom. You'll encounter stage-specific traps and collect power-ups such as balloons and ropes... Which is to say those are the only items you collect. Balloons allow you to float down for a short period of time and ropes can be thrown to the ceiling where they'll hang down and you can climb them. In all honesty though, I never really /needed/ these items. Aside from using balloons to break my fall simply so I could go down a vertical shaft a little more quickly for my own convenience, everything can be done almost, if not just as easily without these items. They /can/ occasionally be used to make speedruns easier, but speedrunning, while encouraged, is not the main focus of the game.


The worlds don't have a whole lot of diference in them either. The first one is just a cave; there are some enemies that walk back and forth, nothing really special. The second world is an ice world that introduces horizontally positioned ropes, and has invisible blocks as one of it's level gimmicks. There's also a trap that's, like, an impossible-to-see fake wall that'll drop on you from the background, but it only appears twice and it's where you'll be running so fast that you'll pass them without a second thought. Third world is the lava world, so there's lava and stuff. This world has these bubbles that'll pop and bounce you up when you land on them, which make the platforming a little more interesting. Thing is, these bubbles reform waaayy too fast, so you'll encounter vertical shafts with unavoidable bubbles in them so that you can quickly ascend, but on the way down will only bounce you up and reform before you fall beyond them. Lastly there's the pyramid island. There's some shooty traps, there are some annoying spike traps, and some crushers. Nothing entirely notable really.


What IS kinda cool about this game is the escape bit of the levels. Once you get to the bottom, you have to unlock a chest which causes the cave to crumble while you make your escape. You have a limited amount of time, which can be extended by 10 or 15 seconds depending on how well you do on the chest unlocking QTE. At this point in time, the level changes, destroying certain walls and platforms to allow for certain shortcuts and various hazards. It can also make getting the collectibles easier, but you also have a time limit, so you kinda have a risk/reward thing goin' on there. You can even see what blocks will be destroyed when the cave crumbles, so you can semi-plan your escape route on your way down!


Finally, lets talk about the characters. There's not a whole lot to say about them; both can grab ledges, wall-jump, and roll. Tobe, the yellow one, is faster and can do a short wall-run. The controls for the wall-run are fairly clunky and imprecise though, so I'd always screw it up at vital points in time. Nana, the pink one, on the other hand is slower, has less health, but has a double jump. This double jump allows her to make ascend quickly, break a long fall, take short cuts, and basically wall-climb. She is by far the easier character of the two, as reflected by the stricter speedrun times in the achievement sections. The game was short enough as it is, but even after clearing the game 100%, Nana got me through it in a little under a half hour.


And that's kinda the whole problem with the game. It's pretty short, and what little there is of it has a lack of substance. Playing through the game as both characters was probably an hour's work, and that's with doing the previously mentioned 100% completion. And that's not even mentioning the various glitches I've come across, including but not limited to being clipped inside of a wall consistantly after being hit on a particular level, or stuttering scrolling during co-op play. Match that with head-scratching desgin choices like unnoticable but sparsley placed wall traps, or quickly respawning bubbles, and this game is a short, unpolished, substance-lacking "meh" of a game.


The one place where this game shines to it's fullest though is it's co-op, which is still flawed in a way thanks to the lack of duo-controller support and the fact that it's local-only. Still, in co-op, there are some extra moves you can pull off such as head bouncing or pulling the other player up a ledge, which made for some interesting multiplayer-specific shortcuts. Two players also collect gems and animals more quickly and efficiently, making the experience a touch more streamlined. Good luck finding someone who'll play it with you though, even if it would only be a half-hour.


But hey, that's all just my opinion. Cross reference mine with others and determine if this is a game for you. Though personally, there's juuuust enough wrong with the game to lean it towards the negative side of meh, and I really wouldn't pick it up unless it was on sale or something.

What a charming little game. Its rather easy to beat if you know what your're doing. But its a good challenge as well. There are alternate modes after you beat the game as Tobe. They are different and harder. Good to a light great.

I really tried to like this game but the controls are just horrible. Everything about controlling Tobe feels clunky and awkward which makes traversing each level frustrating rather than fun. Considering that the latter half of every level is against the clock such imprecise controls just result in an unpleasent and unsatisfying gaming experience.

Navigating the confusing menus and UI is equally frustrating and, even though you can redefine the game controls, you still have to use the hard-coded defaults to operate the UI. This means that even when dismissing in-game dialogs while you are playing (i.e. when you read a sign) you still have to use the J and K keys.

While the art is quite cute and Cave Story-esque I can't see much else to recommend here.

It's a fun little game, but there's a lot of little things that will make you rage.
The game is short. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not because you get around the material pretty quickly.

Buy it if you're looking for a game you can quickly drop out of if you're just waiting for your girlfriend to put some makeup on.

Light fun with tight controls, good music and enjoyable art reminiscent of NES platformers with a little added panache.

This game is a very short and sweet platformer with an emphasis on collecting all the little critters while running through each map in as little time as possible. The music's catchy and really slick, the art and spritework is topnotch and cute, and the game is very much playable and charming. The game also sports a co-op mode where you can get a friend locally to play the game with you. Plus the game has bonus extras for collecting allt he critters and meeting goals set by the game itself.

The only real big downsides to this game is that it is VERY short and often jsut a wee bit buggy with climbing walls and such, often leading to lost time or clipping. However it's a rare occurance and doesn't take too much away from what is a short and very cute game. It definitely comes recommended!

Shoddily coded platformer that's not particularly amazing. If you have a copy, here are some tips:

- Play as Nana if you're not co-op, double-jump is great.
- The game does not save your settings. Period. So god help you if you want it windowed/lower volume/custom keys, you're changing it every time.
- If you play windowed/alt-tab away, the game will continue tracking your key inputs when it's not in focus! Have fun responding to an IM and then it quits the game on you.
- 4-3 is a fucked up stage. Worst level in the game.

I'm platformer-friendly but damn this thing is repetitive without any real positives.

WARNING: This game is NOT CRT/1024x768 friendly. Now that I played in on my laptop with a better resolution, I can definitely say that this is a solid, charming platformer, in a 16 bit graphic style reminsicent of Sega Genesis Sonic games, but with a mix of Super Mario Bros (Running, Precision Jumps, balloon float jump), Sonic (Rolling, plunger jumps), and modern platofrmers (wall jumping/climbing, hanging, grapple hook, and double jump for Nana Character). Game is best played with a controller, but otherwise a very good, but short platformer (beat in 2 hours) worth it's $5 asking price.

This game is pure platforming awesomeness! I takes a few minutes to get used to the strange contols, and about 20-30min. to get good with them, but it's so very worth it.
Take old-school platforming and throw in some current age elements, and you have this brilliant game. I love that you can take as much time as you want to get to know each level, before opening the 'Big Chest' and starting the countdown.

I bought this on sale, plus a gift copy. Sale or not however, this game is worth the price of admission. Super fun.

Tobe's Vertical Adventure is a vertical platformer where the player must decend levels, then ascend them with a time limit and a slightly different layout. There are three modes, each with the same set of 16 levels: Tobe, Nana, and Co-op. Tobe has basic controls while Nana is slower and has a shorter jump. However, Nana can double jump, which beaks the game (you can get almost anywhere). You're given ropes to get up to places more easily and balloons to make longer jumps, but I found myself rarely using them. Animals and treasure chests are placed throughout the level to collect and some are put in tricky places (as Tobe, at least). For a small game like this, the soundtrack is nice.
My gripes with the game are its controls and its length. Sometimes the controls were unresponsive/odd (on an Xbox 360) controller and there were unpolished aspects. As said before, it's the same 16 levels and the game only took me a couple of hours to beat. If it interests you, I'd only get it at 75% off.

Cute and frustratingly addictive is this platformer. It's ok at first but gets a bit tricky later on and you find yourself trying again and again to complete the level with all the available collectables, but that's just part of the fun of it. You can play as different characters, each with unique abilities so there is also some variety and you can play to your strengths.

I wish I noticed there was a demo before I bought it. Either way, cute game, but unplayable without a controller. Three levels in and I can't feel my arm.

Tried it with a controller. Nevermind, just don't buy this game.

For the love of all that is good and pure in the world, PLAY THIS GAME. It's so ridiculously good and fun you will most likely want to marry it. It'll say "We should just be friends", but you won't be sad. You'll nod, smile, and just play it some more because it's a video game and you're a weirdo for wanting to marry it in the first place. Collecting gems is more rewarding anyway, right?

Bring a controller too, ya keyboard-mashing twit!
(Also the 2 player co-op is local only. No netplay, kiddos, sorry. You've been warned.)

DEM THIGHS.

I really, really want to like this game, but I just can't. There are too many things that just don't work well. 'What then, deejay ? Tell me !' I hear you say. Well, for starters, the controls are terrible. TERRIBLE. I've been playing games for so long and this is one of the first games that I just can't play properly. The controller works a little bit better, but the Escape button isn't mapped at all, so in the end you have to use both the controller AND keyboard. Settings like 'Windowed' and default input device aren't saved as well. Meaning I have to set things up EVERY SINGLE time I play this game. Now, I don't mind doing it a couple of times, I'm a fairly patient man. But this is just annoying. Is that the idea behind it ? To annoy me ? To see when I'll snap ? I'm this close, this close !
But still... Positive things about the game are the graphics (which I love !) and the gameplay itself (even though it's a straightforward platformer).
For now; recommended after a few patches.

[Rating: 70/100]