1989 was a glorious year for gaming, as it introduced us to a number of heroes and franchises. Among them was Toki, Fabtek’s fun side-scrolling adventure featuring a heroic ape pursuing his true love, spitting all sorts of firepower at enemies along the way.
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The game was a modest hit, and did pretty well on the home market between Taito’s NES release of Toki and the Genesis sequel Toki Going Ape Spit. Now, all these years later, the ape is making a comeback, set to hit the Nintendo Switch next month.
Not only will Toki bring back all the thrills of the original arcade game, but it’ll do so with a sweet new hand-drawn art style, along with entertaining gameplay and a special collector’s edition, complete with a mini-arcade cabinet to put your Nintendo Switch in. Neat!
We managed to catch up with Toki‘s original lead artist Philippe Dessoly and Microids lead developer Pierre Adane to get an idea of what the team wanted to do with the ape’s revival, as well as what can be expected when the game arrives this December. Time to go ape!
Back From the Past
First off, when did you guys decide to remake Toki? Did you feel that the original game was worth revisiting since the old days of the arcade and NES?
Philippe: When I was asked to work on a Toki remaster, I’ve said yes with no delay! I was a big fan of the arcade game and I’m responsible of the Amiga and Atari ST versions for Ocean Software back then.
Pierre: Philippe was the one that told me about this project and I’ve been
incredibly excited from the get go. Not only about the project, but also because we would recreate our original team. Just like him, I was a huge fan of the arcade machine. We were lucky enough to have the arcade cabinet at the Ocean Software office (which was pretty rare at the time) and we were playing the game every chance we had during the development of the 16-bit versions.
How tough was it to design this game with hand-drawn design from the ground up?
Philippe: It was not that hard since for this version, I had the freedom to design the graphics I wanted. Back in 1989, it was not possible to create a game this way, we had to work pixel by pixel. With this generation of consoles I thought the hand drawn look was an absolute necessity. Of course, as you can imagine, it takes way longer than the version done with pixels.
Why the Nintendo Switch? And What’s Next?
Tell us about the remixed music. How did that come together?
Philippe: For the music, it felt natural for us to reach out to Raphael Gesqua, whom worked with us on the game Mr. Nutz. He did all the music and the audio design of the game which was not easy especially because the arcade version of the game only feature a small amount of music so he had to compose some brand new tracks.
Pierre: Partnering with Raphael was for us the insurance to have the best possible result and someone invested 200 % on this project. He provided us with a lot of variety in terms of music and sound. It’s been a pure pleasure to listen to his creations throughout the development.
Why did you guys decide to bring the game to the Nintendo Switch? Is there a chance we could see Toki on other platforms if it’s a success?
Philippe: The Nintendo Switch is the ideal platform for this type of game.
Pierre and I are big fans of platformers and the Nintendo Switch reminds us of the Super Nintendo 😉 We would love for the game to be ported on other consoles. Maybe this will happen..
Were there any other games that you’d like to revisit in the future? Something along the lines of Elevator Action, perhaps?
Philippe: Definitely ! Titles like Liquid Kid, Plotting or Bubble Bobble would be awesome. There were so many great games published by Taito ! When we were working for Ocean Software, we were specialized into arcade game ports.
Pierre: Saying that there is a lot of little gems from that era to revisit is an understatement.
That Awesome Toki Mini-Cabinet…
Is there any extra game content we can expect in Toki besides the general quest? Challenge mode, perhaps? New Game +?
Pierre: At first, we focused on bringing the players an experience that is the closest it can be to the original arcade version, whilst taking full advantage of the modern hardware. We are definitely planning to add new game modes shortly after the launch like modified levels, speedrun…
Tell us about this special edition that comes with a mini arcade cabinet. Were you inspired by the game’s retro style to put this together?
Philippe: I’m really happy with the collector. The little arcade cabinet pays a tribute to the original machine. I am a big fan of the very popular arcade games we used to find in bars, cafes and arcade rooms in France. Microïds helped us design this Retrocollector edition and filling it up with signed lithographs, an original comic and some stickers. It’s really a great version of the game and I hope the gamers will be happy with it.
Toki‘s physical version releases on December 4 for Nintendo Switch. The eShop digital edition hasn’t been dated yet, but is expected around the same time.
