TAD Corporation's 1989 run-and-gun title Toki is coming to the Analogue Pocket via a new FPGA core, it has been revealed.
The core is being developed by Solal retro gaming using Jotego framework, and is currently being tested.
Designed by Akira Sakuma, Toki places the player in the role of an ape (in reality, a human transformed into a primate) capable of spitting deadly projectiles from his mouth.
Toki was a sizeable hit in arcades and was duly ported to several home formats, including Amiga, ST, Atari Lynx, NES, C64 and Sega Genesis / Mega Drive (amusingly, the Sega port was entitled Toki: Going Ape Spit).
An enhanced remake was announced in 2009 by Golgoth Studio, which would languish in development hell until 2018 when publisher Microïds announced that it would be released on Nintendo Switch. A year later, it was also released on PS4, Xbox One and PC.
Nintendo Life awarded the remake 6/10, saying:
Toki is an absolutely beautiful remaster, with fantastic hand-drawn backgrounds, brilliant character animation and impressive boss designs. Aesthetics only go so far, though, and while the game itself is fun to play (if a little cheap with its deaths at times) the reality is it’s an arcade game at heart. As such, its six stages won’t last you too long, especially if you’re the target audience – someone who remembers Toki back in the day and has continued to play platformers for the three decades that followed – and once it’s done there’s no real replay value.