Toby: The Secret Mine Review

Review Toby: The Secret Mine | Let me point out the elephant in the room, Playdead’s Limbo and Toby is almost exactly the same. While Limbo is a classical masterpiece, Toby can hold his own. Read more about this 2D platform game in this Toby: The Secret Mine review!

THE GOOD

• The artwork in Toby is simply fantastic, even better than Limbo. Backgrounds look amazing and the use of effects and lighting are honestly the best I’ve seen in platform games. Things switch up regularly too, some locations are so impressive that I just stopped and stared. Especially when things drastically change (black becomes …) I had goosebumps because I wasn’t expecting it. One thing that I particularly loved was the use of friendly background animals, it made the game more lively.
• Toby is a puzzle platformer so you’ll come across quite a few environmental puzzles, all of them are pretty easy, so don’t worry about getting stuck. I spend two-or-three minutes on the hardest puzzle, just be sure to always look around for hints.  Don’t expect that the developer reinvented the wheel, everything has a been there, done that feeling but I didn’t mind it. Not one puzzle is repeated so things stay fun.
• You have to find your friends that are locked in cages, presumably by that red-eyed creature. Some of them are right in plain view but some are hidden pretty well. The developer wasn’t shy on hiding them behind black walls (that become visible if you walk behind it) So naturally you’ll be looking at every wall to see if you can find a new friend. I ended the game with 25/26 friends found, I had to use Youtube to find the last one because the game doesn’t tell you on what level you still have to find friends.
• The level design gets tremendous help from the sound atmosphere, making it very immersive.

Mixed Feelings

• You have a villain with red eyes and you save your friends that are locked into cages. Besides that you don’t really know why things are happening. A little bit more focus on story would have been welcome, I didn’t miss it but it would have made the game even better.
• I finished the game in one sitting, it took me around three hours. Very entertaining three hours but I was left with wanting more, I understand that a game like this can’t drag on forever though.

THE BAD

• Weird that you can’t see how many friends you still need to find on the level select menu. You have to replay the entire game or use Youtube to find missing friends to get the achievement for finding all 26.

Score: 83% | Toby: The Secret Mine was a short but powerful experience, with some incredible art design and fantastic sound atmosphere.