TAD Corporation
Toki

I still remember that damn little monkey. Damn if I remember it.

I was about ten years old when in the bar next to my house, the omnipresent (and all-powerful "Dragon Ninja") was replaced by "Toki".

It was around 1990, I believe. Back then, those damn PlayStations, strategic games so realistic that they immerse you and drive you mad in front of a PC or console, didn't exist. Instead, we had footballs, stones, and the bad taste to annoy all the houses by ringing doorbells and shouting every kind of swear word that our devilish minds could conjure up on the spot. And we had our meeting points.

Kids, but also lively. Now I see them and it saddens me, glued to their super consoles with their super video games. And they get fat as cows.

A different era. The era of which I'm proud. The glorious 80s and the first half of the 90s, before the world went to hell, whether in music, video games, or politics.

But that's another story.

Every afternoon, I spent it there, in that bar. With an indefinite supply of 200 lire, I tried (in vain) to get past the first level of that cursed arcade platformer. "Toki". It was my ruin, my drug.

And yet, everything was based on a simplicity (in terms of gameplay) that was really banal: jump and shoot. You couldn't do anything else. Avoid the enemy shots, or you'd drop dead instantly. And how I hated hearing that monkey scream "Uuuuuuuhhhh!!!!!!" while watching the dead monkey fall down (to disappear to who knows where).

Then, you had to restart NOT from the point where you died (too easy) but from a bit further back, just to make life more difficult than it already was (speaking "video game-wise").

Toki, whose story was based on the kidnapping of the mighty protagonist's girlfriend (a man), by the evil sorcerer Vookimedlo, who decides to attack the peaceful village where our muscular protagonist lives. Fearless, he dives headfirst to save his beloved. But the sorcerer (whom everyone, including myself, believed for years was a witch!) casts a curse on him, transforming him into one of the ugliest monkeys ever seen in the entire anthropomorphic panorama.

A monkey, however, equipped with the strange power to spit deadly "balls" (used as a weapon) against the enemies who will be bothering her throughout the game, which unfolds over a stunning 6 ENDLESS levels! Endless because, in reality, Toki's only strength is collecting coins (every 50 gold coins accumulated grants a bonus life), or the ability to increase damage to enemies by varying his lethal spit, depending on the weapon he collects during the journey (the most powerful is the comet) or, more simply (and more dangerously), jumping on their heads as many times as it takes to kill them. Moreover, our cute monkey can use comfortable tennis shoes, specially sewn by Japanese child slaves of the aforementioned sorcerer, allowing him to make much higher and/or longer jumps, as well as a beautiful blue rugby helmet of the American national team, donated by special concession to our Toki, a die-hard fan.

And it begins. Dying. Yes, because the game is so (damn) difficult that you can't help but die countless times, mainly because you don't have any energy level available. If you get touched, you're dead. If you fall into the lava, you're dead (and that makes sense...); if you fall on spikes, if you're hit by who-knows-what from the enemies, you'll hear that nerve-wracking "Uuuuuuuhhhh!!!!!!!!!" while you watch your damn monkey die, sinking into the screen's depths.

Damn.... It took me years to figure out how to move, how to overcome the various bosses (the first one is decidedly idiotic, easily overcome with a cheap trick). Years to figure out how to avoid the piranhas that shot out and lunged at you.

Not to mention the final level... a tragedy! Reaching it was quite a feat, but reaching the final boss (the damn sorcerer) was like Mission: Impossible!

And that’s when curses upon curses flew.... Greedy horse, curious dolphin, but above all, DAMN MONKEY!

But..... damn, in the end, after 5 or 6 years of playing (in an arcade... That bar closed eventually, and Toki went away) I became so good that with a single token (cost: 250 lire, due to a 25% inflation increase in 5-6 years) I understood how to trick everyone and everything.

And, simultaneously, while accumulating lives, I collected spectators who, curious and fascinated (but mostly curious to learn how to reach the sixth level themselves), surrounded me.

It was amazing to see the little monkey jumping and making those funny moves like wearing a diving mask while swimming or skateboarding on carts inside the gold palace. Carts that raced at full speed, and you had to be careful, both with the (deadly) obstacles encountered and the jumps needed to land on another cart, and eventually the final jumps with which you landed on solid ground where steel-armored guards awaited, ready to kick your ass.

However, in the end, the one who had the last laugh was yours truly. With a single token, I broke the bastard sorcerer's ass (who, at the time, was still a damn witch) and inserted my personal record, always in the first place.

Well…. I don't know how to review a video game, I don't even know what the hell should be written.

The fact is that Toki was a whole part of my childhood and adolescence, along with the mythical "Final Fight", the already mentioned "Dragon Ninja" or, I don't know, "Cadillac & Dinosaurs", "Street Fighter II" and so on. Games that, to survive, you had to spend a fortune on tokens.

Games that today, thanks to emulators, I can play again and remember.

And damn PlayStations, and even more so, damn video poker, a true and real social plague of the moment.

Oh… want to know the ending and, consequently, how to defeat the final boss? Really? Do you care that much?

Ok, ok…. It's important that you all know that ….. “Uuuuuuuuuuh!!!!!!!!!”

Muauahauhauhauahauhauhauahuah!!!!!!