"ToeJam and Earl" was published by Sega for the Sega Genesis in 1991. Words such as "quirky" and "offbeat" are often used to describe it. In any case, this action adventure games is certainly unique and if you were looking for something a little different than the typical action/platform games common at the time then this would certainly fit the bill.
The main characters of the game who serve as your avatars are two funky aliens from the planet Funkotron. As you may have guessed, their names are ToeJam and Earl. They have crash landed on Earth and you may control either ToeJam or Earl as they search for the missing pieces of their spaceship.
Though it may not initially strike you as such, this game could be considered an example of a roguelike game. It was heavily influenced by the 1980 adventure game, Rogue. Those influences include things like random level and item generation.
While ToeJam an Earl may have been influenced by Rogue, it certainly adds its own unique flavor. It was quite a unique game for the time it was released. The game is played from a 3/4 perspective and the random level generation means that it never looks quite the same. These levels are portrayed as sort of floating islands of Earth in space. Not only are the graphics unique but they are quite good as well. The same can be said of the music with the soundtrack being as "funky" as the rest of the game.
Gameplay revolves around exploration and item collection. The ultimate goal is to find the ten pieces of the ship and return home. Standing in your way are various hostile "Earthlings" such as giant hamsters, aggressive packs of nerds, chickens armed with tomatoes, and even Bogeymen. As you can probably tell, there is an emphasis on humor with this game.
While this game gets mostly very good reviews there was the occasional complaint. For instance, the game emphasizes exploration in such a way that the pace can be slow. At times, ToeJam and Earl can also be relatively difficult.
ToeJam and Earl was successful during its time but not quite as successful as many other big titles on the Genesis. There have been a couple of sequels. The first was ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron. However, in part because of pressure from Sega, it abandoned the style of the original game and was more of a generic platformer. It still received good reviews and was still a commercial success but somewhat disappointing. There was a ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth released on the Xbox in 2002 which returned more to the original style but received mixed reviews and garnered poor sales. Finally, there was ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove which was released in 2019. However, this was more of an enhanced remake of the original than a sequel.
There's a good chance that you missed the original ToeJam & Earl if you had a Genesis back in the day. If so, you should remedy that and find a way to play this one. The original is still probably the best. I don't know of any re-releases so you would have to track down an original cartridge or make do with emulation.
Read more: https://www.megalextoria.com/wordpress/index.php/2024/04/27/toejam-earl-sega-genesis-2/
Check out my other Social Media haunts (though most content is links to stuff I posted on Hive or reposts of stuff originally posted on Hive):
Wordpress: https://www.megalextoria.com/wordpress
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/darth-azrael
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Darth_Azrael
Blogger: https://megalextoria.blogspot.com/
Odyssee: https://odysee.com/@Megalextoria:b
Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-2385054
Daily Motion: https://www.dailymotion.com/Megalextoria
Books I am reading or have recently read:
Red Sails Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch
The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch
It was such a silly game that surprised me that it ended up as popular as it was. I had a lot of fun with it back in my Genesis days.
I don't know about you but I was hesitant to buy this back in the day because it just seemed so stupid when I was looking at the box (which is all we could do back in those days.) It was a risky choice but one that I ended up being glad I made.
It does seem stupid although the game itself looks querky... I would try it but as you say back in the day all you could do was look at the box.
I didn't have enough money to make risky choices on new games at the time but I would sometimes buy things I otherwise might not have when they were on sale. I picked up Solar Jetman that way on the NES and it became one of my favorites on that system. I don't think I had even heard of it before I got it on sale for less than $10.
As much as I loved Sega and the Genesis as a whole, I never played any of the Toejam & Earl games, I was on a limited budget around this time and side jobs for a high schooler were few and far between (I mainly got work during the summer at a nearby farm, bailing and stacking hay). Some interesting titles had to slip between the cracks for me and Toejam & Earl was one of them.
I always thought it looked interesting but I just never pulled the trigger to buy a copy. That has left me admiring the game from afar for decades, wondering if I made the right choice picking up a couple of used games instead of Toejam & Earl brand new (never seeing it for sale used should have been a tip off that no one was trading it in so it had to be a good game).
Well, I mean there were a LOT of games on the Genesis. I would have been impossible to buy, or even rent them all back in the day unless you were rich. For such an odd title like this, you would almost have to have been able to try it somewhere to pull the trigger on it.
Oh yeah, it seemed like every week there were 10 to 20 new Sega Genesis games appearing at the local game shops. Unfortunately, none had ToeJam & Earl on demo and the staff were all very iffy on suggesting it to me when I asked about it.
oh how i love your retro content 🥰🔥 thanks so much 🙏
I've never played this game, but I have seen Funhaus play it on YouTube. I was looking at this game like "wtf". lol