Toki for Nintendo Switch: Beginners Guide

Did you pick up Toki for your Nintendo Switch? I certainly did. It is an incredibly fun game, if not just a bit on the short side. It can also be every bit as frustrating as it is enjoyable. If you are looking for some advice to get you ready for your first dive into the prehistoric world of Toki, here are some tips to get you started.

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Smash that button

Toki is certainly a platformer but it is also a little bit of a shoot em' up. This means that you are going to be hammering that fire button pretty much the whole time. Fortunately, the spitballs that Toki shoots from his mouth are endless so there is pretty much no reason not to fire at will.

Jump like a plumber

When you first dive into Toki you are probably going to assume that your main method of dispatching baddies is going to be by spitting at them with the fire button. You would not be wrong in that assumption. However, it is good to know that you can actually jump on the heads of your opponents to kill them. On many occasions, games are either about shooting or stomping. Toki, however, does not keep those methods mutually exclusive.

Plan to die

Anyone who is familiar with platformers will know that death is just part of the game. Toki is certainly no different. After all, this game was originally released in arcades, which means it was designed to be fun but also to fleece kids like me of their quarters. Fortunately, you don't have to dump more quarters into your Switch every time you run out of lives. You do, however, have to be patient and remember that you are most certainly going to die.

When at first you don't succeed

There is no shame in hitting that restart button. If it is your intention to get all the way through the game in one sitting, then you are going to need all the lives you can get. There might be some occasions where you die a few times in a row on a particular part that you know you can do better on. It is just these sort of instances where I might restart the game in order to take a fresh run at it. Sometimes it's better to retreat and live to fight another day.

Be patient

If you are anything like me, there are going to be moments where you get incredibly frustrated and all you want to do is blast through a level because you are so tired of playing through it. That is the moment that you need to take a deep breath and slow down a little bit. There are loads of parts in the game that are all about timing. If you are moving too quickly, you may end making a simple mistake that you wouldn't have if you were moving slower.

Learn it, love it, live it

Just like any classic platformer, the key to success is having a good memory. I pretty much always assume that the first pass at new level is going to be a wash. That is when you should be committing as much to memory as you are able. Then on your second run you are going to be much more familiar with the mechanics of the level which gives you much higher odds of success

Hopefully, all these tips will make your life in the jungle a little easier and help you on your quest to win back Princess Miho. Good look out there, Toki!

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