Toby: The Secret Mine Review (Xbox One)
In Toby: The Secret Mine, developed by Lukas Navratil and published by Headup Games, players control Toby, who races through levels and solves puzzles in an attempt to save his friends that have been held captive by a mysterious species. Unfortunately, players will do little more over the course of this 2D puzzle-platformer than solve puzzles and execute simple platforming segments.
The gameplay in Toby: The Secret Mine is very straight-forward and simple. Anyone that has ever played a platformer should be able to pick up this game and play it. Controls are very simple and that is not a criticism against the game. I usually don’t complain about a game being too simple as long as it doesn’t get too repetitive. This is where Toby lacks. After getting about half way through the games 21 levels, which you can complete in a day or less if you try, I began getting bored and tired of the same types of puzzles and levels. As stated above, you must save as many of your friends, whom are trapped in cages throughout the levels. Unfortunately, there is no indication on how many of these friends are in each level or how many you have left to find, so it can be hard to find them all.
The graphics in Toby: The Secret Mine are by far the game’s biggest strength. The Limbo-esque visuals are amazing and change enough between levels to help keep the game fresh and interesting, at least for awhile. Backgrounds look amazing and the use of effects and lighting are honestly some of the best I’ve seen in platform games.
Overall, Toby: The Secret Mine is a short, decent platformer. It is available on the Xbox Store for $9.99. I’m not sure I would spend the $10 on this game, unless you are really wanting a short platformer to play through. The puzzles are way too easy and repetitive and there is no real storyline to keep players engaged. There are plenty of other similar platformers out there that are better.
2/5