ToeJam & Earl

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ToeJam & Earl is a 2-player rougelite exploration/adventure, depending on how you view a slow-paced title where you mostly just avoid enemies, released by the end of 1991. It was developed by two people of Johnson Voorsanger Productions, who are the ones who keep the rights for ToeJam & Earl, not Sega, and published by Sega, who could see it as one of possible mascots for a company before Sonic proved to be the popular one. 8 Megabit ROM, filled with voice sample goodness.

The game that you have here is nothing more than emulation of Sega Genesis version.


Now, technical part about Sega's emulation here:
The Sega Classic games that you purchase on Steam count as DLCs for "Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics" game that should appear in your library.
It has Bedroom HUB which is the one with many features yet lags for many and Simply Launcher which lacks Workshop and Online but at least it works just fine for everybody.
However, Simple Launcher has it's fair share of glitches as well. It can crash. And it does the second time you go to main menu, so always quit after saving there so it doesn't crash when you want to save next time!
Emulation itself, mostly sound, isn't that good but it does it's job. Also, yes, emulator supports quick saves.
As alternative, you can use external emulator to run games that you purchased. Sega kindly placed in all games that you purchased in "uncompressed ROMs" folder that program itself doesn't use, just change file extension to ".bin" or so. The file for this one being "ToeJamEarl.SGD".
I also demand you to read digital manual of this game first. You can find it here on store page or go to "manuals" folder of game root and open "11 TJE1_PC_MG_EFIGS_US_v6.pdf".

Has online (in Bedroom HUB only) and local multiplayer.


The plot of the game is that two aliens, ToeJam being the red short one with three leg, who is actually slightly faster than Earl, who is a fat one, who is fat and slower, but gets more health due to being fat. ToeJam is, of course, the better one, not getting hit is better than surviving more hits. They were driving in space in their Righteous Rapmaster Spaceship, booming out some funk out of speakers like some kind of dubstep, when Earl decided to drive instead and crashed it into one of the asteroids, making spaceship fall onto planet EARTH.
EARTH!!
Full of phantom ice cream trucks, chicken armies and boogie-boogie-boogie men. It's a crazy place, full of people who don't know funk! And you have to escape this, finding 10 spaceship parts over 25 levels. It's also quite a weird Earth, as it appears to be just islands flying over each other, so you can fall down to previous levels.

So, you get to explore the islands in either search for elevator or a part. If there is a part on the level, you will be notified immediately, worry not. Both characters move fairly slowly and the islands are fairly spread out, so expect it to be chill at first, slow-paced. At least roads make you move faster over them. You aren't going to get much thrills there. It's not Diablo, you aren't there to kill all the enemies either. Actually you often have no weapons, unless you get a temporary tomato weapon, so it's mostly about avoiding the occasional enemy as it tries to chase you down. Islands are also quite big and you can reveal hidden passages if you stand close to the edges.

If anything, the main point of this game lies in it's rougelike elements. Well, or rougelite, whatever term is applicable, it's not turn-based dungeon crawler after all, instead being it's own real-time thing. The main rougelike thing about the game are presents. That's the way that you get bad or positive items to help or hinder in your quest. So, each item has it's own present wrapping. The present wrapping is randomized each play, or if you accidentally unwrap the randomizer. There is now way to tell what's inside if you have never opened it before. So it's always an interesting gamble, especially if you decide to unwrap unknown one while being chased in hopes for something to save you.
Or you can find the wise man in carrot-suit who will identify your presents for bucks. Why carrot-suit? Well, he is a wise man, he must have his reasons.

Then again, it also has some rough edges that I am not sure about. Mostly, I am not sure what to think of Total Bogus present that just kills your character. This makes it feel more careful about opening presents. And the more you open presents without getting Total Bogus or Randomizer, the more you are afraid to open unknown presents and rely on existing ones, rather waiting to meet carrot man to identify. I guess it's interesting in it's own way, but it's a bit cheap, you know.

Of course while it's generally chill and easy, it all depends on randomization of object and level layout as well. If game decides that you should be chased by two ice cream trucks then your run is a bogus. Oh yea, and you increase rank by uncovering squares on the map and opening presents, which increases your health.

There are also options. You can play as any characters, albeit in two player mode the characters are fixed. You also can play either a random world or fixed. Random world randomizes the levels layouts as well too on each run! Pretty nice, even more rouge-like than Fatal Labyrinth, which just shuffled levels. And there is fixed world, pre-made by developers, I think, which isn't too bad either. The presents, while have randomized wrappers, aren't randomized themselves. So you always get certain item in certain spot in fixed world.
There is also ability to Jam Out. It's pretty much a sound test albeit without drums in music. Instead you get to have characters do small animations and silly sound by pressing buttons. Just some sillyness. Albeit Earl only gets some lame dings.

And yea, it has some nice voice samples. It's actually surprising how many fancy ones it has for 1991 games. I bet that most of that 8 Megabit rom went into providing space for such samples, with a lot of enemies getting something to show off their personality. Music is also non-stop funk, albeit it doesn't have unique track for intro or ending, it just uses everything in a constant funk loop, pretty much. Graphics are pretty fine for it's time too. Especially seeing that they pulled off split-screen.


Rougelike elements of opening presents isn't the only big thing about the game. Another important half of a game is multiplayer, which is cooperative with two players. The game's box even had “Party together” tag under players number. You can play together, exploring around. Or you can even go apart, in which case the screen will become a horizontal splitscreen. Which, I must say, was a huge rarity and achievement in such early console game with exploration elements. It also has some cooperative gameplay elements in it. Like, players can share lives, in which case the dead player has to mash the button. Or they can average the health with each other, by coming together and pressing action button, which usually makes you sneak around, so snoozing monsters will not wake up. Heck, if one opens the present while both players are on same screen, then this present's effect will be shared with both players! Fun.


But to be honest, while it's unique slow-paced game with rouge-like present fun and nice multiplayer, it's actually pretty, well, boring to play in single-player after a while. Just not all that exciting. So I am not a fan of this game. The 25 levels are way too long for such game, it keeps dragging for a while. Maybe if they cut it to 15 or 20. None the less, that's one unusual game.

ToeJam & Earl is a classic action roguelike with an excellent sense of style, or at least it's a roguelike as long as you don't reload a savestate from the emulator after dying. It's fun yet challenging, and a great co-op game. It's also generally considered the best in the series of numbered TJ&E games, and as someone who started with TJ&EIII at an early age, I very much agree. This is one old title that I'd recommend to more or less anybody today, nostalgia or no.

JEEZ, FINALLY.

This is my favorite game of all time. I still play it every year with my fiance. The play on social stereotypes is great, with things like the NerdHerd, Mom pushing her whiney baby in a stroller, boogeymen, and so many more awesome characters. The music is outstanding, the pixel art is great, the exploration mechanic and random loot mechanic are so much fun (even when you open up a present with something bad in it). GET THIS GAME! Dear god I will play this every year I live.