Toree 3D

Cute little 3D platformer that has some real Sega Saturn vibes with its graphical style and colour palette that feels very condensed in almost all the right ways. I really love the trend of there being more little indie games that understand that being only an hour or two long is perfectly fine, and in the case of Toree 3D, it leads to what feels like a game with all of its best ideas being used and everything else being thrown out in favour of a game that’s far more densely packed with cool ideas and moments. Despite there only being 9 stages, each feels super charming and distinct, with each of the main 4 themes having a regular version and one that takes the core principles that have been applied and then adds some form of a twist to it all, whether it’s making things slightly spookier, adding enemies that camouflage and jump at you when you get close, or levels that take place on the back of trucks on the highway ending in a huge pile up. It makes every stage feel very memorable and charming and I love the vibe of knowing that every level is going to have an entirely different, well thought out concept without the need to pad out game with any lesser ideas.

With that said, the level design itself, while aesthetically perfect more or less, still leaves a fair bit to be desired in a lot of places, consistently feeling extremely simplistic and not really going too far into any one idea beyond the absolute surface level, what you see is what you get, and while that works in some cases, I still wish a bit more were done with some of these mechanics. The final level was also a bit disappointing, being a mishmash of the gimmicks of all past levels, but never really feeling like a properly suitable final level either, especially with the fact that it ends just as unceremoniously as any other one. On the whole this is a good game with good vibes but often feels a bit too simplistic from a design perspective to truly flourish even as a friendly little platformer that anyone can pick up and play. Still highly recommend it, it’s cheap, it’s short, and it made me smile at multiple points.

Toree is a DELIGHTFUL game. For a dollar, this is one of the best budget titles available in the Switch shop. It reminds me of the earliest 3D platformer games I ever played, like Mario 64 and Chameleon Twist, and how colorful, clunky and limited their environments were. As a game Toree is nothing too special, just a set of a few levels where you collect things and reach the finish line, but that understated approach makes it feel like it adds up to more than the sum of its parts. It simply does what it does well, probably because who made it also had fond memories of Nintendo 64 and Playstation 3D platformers. Four more free levels have been released, making this a robust package at its price.