Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return

About Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return

Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return (1999) is Whoopee Camp's fully 3D platform-adventure sequel in which the feral boy Tomba rescues his friend Tabby from the Evil Pigs, using suits that grant new powers.

Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return in Depth

The pink-haired feral child Tomba sets out to defeat the Evil Pigs, a race of anthropomorphic pigs, and rescue his girlfriend Tabby. It keeps the first game's mechanics and "event" system, quests that are triggered and completed around the world, but moves to fully 3D environments. Movement follows set linear paths, with flashing arrows above Tomba's head where paths cross to show which ways he can go, and some areas can be explored from an isometric view. Signposts act as save points.

Tomba jumps onto enemies' backs, bites them and tosses them away, filling a magic meter in the corner of the screen, and can also find weapons such as flails, boomerangs and mallets. Collectable suits extend his abilities or protect him: the flying squirrel suit lets him glide long distances and the pig suit lets him talk to pigs. Critics praised its variety, controls and visuals, while reception of the audio was mixed and some criticised the many tedious events and simple, repetitive bosses; IGN's Jeremy Conrad called it an improvement on its predecessor, while GameRevolution and GameSpot saw it as a polished repackaging.

Making Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return

Whoopee Camp developed and published it in Japan in 1999, and Sony Computer Entertainment released it internationally the following year. It received favourable reviews according to GameRankings, but its weak commercial performance led Whoopee Camp to disband, left only to hold Fujiwara's assets. It was re-released on the PlayStation Network in Japan in 2011, Europe in 2012 and North America in 2015.