Genre: 2d platformer
Developer: Tad Corporation
Publisher: Atari

It takes more than an ape's brain to figure out how to shrink a full-fledged arcade platformer's sprite tilesets down to a 160x102 screen resolution while maintaining recognizability, and without completely breaking the level design-- and yet, here it is: a nearly pitch-perfect handheld adaptation of Toki, with the entire game crammed in! Some of the sprites, such as Toki swimming, almost have a "Donkey Kong Country" pre-rendered look to them, so detailed are they as they move across the many colorful stage backgrounds. The only things missing are the inter-stage map sequences-- and quite honestly, who cares.

A criticism could be made of Toki-- both the arcade original plus its various ports-- that it recycles the same song across all but one stage. There are two arguments to be made in its defense: the game's difficulty and design is structured as a high score chaser, foremost-- and what a song it is! Its minor key neoclassical sound translates perfectly to the Lynx sound chip, sounding as desperately foreboding as ever! Further, most-- if not all-- of the original arcade digital sound effects are "copied" exactly and used for this port. Remember: the Lynx hardware is from 1989!

The closest analog to Toki in terms of level design and philosophy is perhaps "Ghouls 'N Ghosts": in order to kill off the player and get them to put in more quarters, the stages are highly technical and involve discovering, memorizing, and mastering increasingly challenging sequences, strung together into discrete stages. What makes Toki distinct however is that it has "schmup" aspects to it as well, with the character always firing-- and sometimes dodging-- projectiles as the means of hunting a high score.

Toki has always been an enjoyable arcade game with wonderful music and disturbing imagery-- this reviewer practically has nightmares about that floating, steam-spitting ape-powered monument in the first stage!-- but this Lynx port really takes the cake, as it's difficult to imagine a better conversion to Dave Needle's and R. J.'s little "Handy Game" device. Peeling things away then, Toki is fun to play yet difficult to master-- making conquering it some serious monkey business!