Toejam & Earl Vintage Collection incoming

Sega, master of secrets, has yet again let another unannounced game slip by: Toejam & Earl Vintage Collection. Achievements listed here: http://exophase.com/game/svc-toejam-.../achievements/

For those too young to have ever played Toejam & Earl, you're in for a treat. The original remains one of the most unique games ever to grace a console. Toejam & Earl was a 90's-influenced funk-themed roguelike for the sega genesis with an outrageous sense of humor. Featuring endless randomized worlds, it hit a peak that I feel none of the sequels ever came close to approaching.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...m_%26_Earl.png

Toejam & Earl 2 changed things up drastically, moving the game from a randomized rougelike to a platform game that, while extremely high quality and very fun, wasn't quite up to the standard of the first.

http://www.consoleclassix.com/info_i...creenShot2.jpg

The third Toejam & Earl game was Ready, Aim, Tomatoes!, a menacer lightgun game that took place on the Earth of Toejam & Earl 1. Nearly all the enemies from the original game returned, including my favorites, the boogey man and the mad dentist.

http://www.mobygames.com/images/shot...m-tomatoes.png

Many years after Ready, Aim, Tomatoes was released, a fourth TJ&E game, confusingly named Toejam & Earl III, was released for the Xbox. It largely replaced Funk with Hip-Hop, and wasn't nearly as good as the rest of the series, but I still have a soft sport in my heart for it.

The Toejam & Earl games had an incredibly heavy focus on multiplayer, more so than most games at the time. They're all co-op affairs, and a good portion of each game's features aren't available to you unless you're playing with a friend. For example, in Toejam & Earl 1, you could gain exp by donating portions of your life to your partner by highfiving them.

The Toejam & Earl collection will without a doubt contain Toejam & Earl 1 and 2, and perhaps Ready, Aim, Tomatoes (which is, sadly, largely forgotten). I wouldn't count on TJ&E3 being included. However, the bigger piece to take away from this is that Sega apparently has some sort of deal with TJ&E Inc in place - Sega doesn't own Toejam & Earl. If Sega has been dealing with TJ&E Inc lately.... perhaps they're in Sonic All-Stars Racing Transformed? Dare to dream.

Good to see Sega putting out some nice digital release lately. I'd really like to see a collection featuring some of the super scaler games.

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Originally Posted by zetastrike

Good to see Sega putting out some nice digital release lately. I'd really like to see a collection featuring some of the super scaler games.

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Well, Sega put out Super Hang-on 3D, a port of the super scaler game of the same name, with added 3DTV support. It's pretty awesome, and in 3D it blows Outrun 3D on the SMS away.

Sega is in the habit of going the extra mile on their DD packages. Following their subpar ports of Crazy Taxi and Sonic adventure DX, all their DD releases have had at least one noteworthy addition, be it a full HD upgrade like Jet Set Radio, translating unlocalized games like Monster World IV, or adding 3D support like Super Hang On. Perhaps if we're lucky this will include online play.

Also, I would kill for Sega to put out a Space Harrier collection with planet harriers included. And, of course, the inevitable Fantasy Zone collection with Fantasy Zone II DX.

I don't think Ready, Aim, Tomatoes! is the third game. I'd say it's a spin-off. And even if it weren't a spin-off it still wouldn't be the third considering it came out before TJ&E2.

Nitpicking aside, holy crap! If Sega are actually giving this to M2 rather than to Backbone I'mma be a very happy man. And I guess this is finally making up for that 2009 poll the original TJ&E won (remember that?). Sad that they didn't work out a third game in there so that it's like the other SVC releases, but it's still pretty damn good. Also now that I think about it... I wonder if Sega are also making Japanese translations for both games, considering TJ&E was released entirely in English over there (and on the Virtual Console) and TJ&E2 wasn't even released there.

And if this also means some TJ&E action on S&ASR Transformed... hell yeah!

I'd bet anything the 3rd game in that pack is "Art Alive" which, of course, features T&J:

http://i38.tinypic.com/10cs2mv.jpg

That's if it is 3-games in one, that is. Either way, I'm definitely getting this. They did a smashing job with the Wonder Boy collection.

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Originally Posted by The Jackal

I'd bet anything the 3rd game in that pack is "Art Alive" which, of course, features T&J:

http://i38.tinypic.com/10cs2mv.jpg

That's if it is 3-games in one, that is. Either way, I'm definitely getting this. They did a smashing job with the Wonder Boy collection.

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The achievements list only TJ&E and TJ&E2, so those are probably the only 2 games, unless the other games have no achievements.

I'd personally like to see Wacky Worlds, since that one also has TJ&E on it. And it's much better.

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Originally Posted by M4R14NO94

I'd personally like to see Wacky Worlds, since that one also has TJ&E on it. And it's much better.

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I'm of the opinion that neither are very good, although I'll admit to playing the shit out of Wacky Worlds on sega channel.

I always wondered how far in production the original TJ&E2 was before it was canned in favor of the 2D game.

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Originally Posted by NeoVamp

I always wondered how far in production the original TJ&E2 was before it was canned in favor of the 2D game.

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er, wait, what? I've never heard that they started over on the sequel... got a link where they talk about this?

Anybody ever beat the original Toejam & Earl, btw? Funkatron at the end is so weird looking. It's kinda strange that they made this entirely different tile set for a small section of the game that most players probably didn't even see.

This is great news. ToeJam & Earl needs (on-line) co-op play. SVC Streets of Rage had it, so I'm sure this will as well. I'm only sorry we had to suffer through Backbone for so very long. My only SVC complaint is the odd way Alex Kidd's game selection was handled, and I still wish SVC Monster World was as complete as the PS2 collection. Everything else has been stellar.

Wacky Worlds is terrible. It and Ready Aim Tomatoes would be an OK bonus and nice to see for completion's sake, but they're hardly going to sell people on the release.

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Originally Posted by TheSonicRetard

er, wait, what? I've never heard that they started over on the sequel... got a link where they talk about this?

Anybody ever beat the original Toejam & Earl, btw? Funkatron at the end is so weird looking. It's kinda strange that they made this entirely different tile set for a small section of the game that most players probably didn't even see.

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Yes, it remains one of my favorite endings ever. It is kind of odd that they put that much detail into Funkatron. I wonder if the tiles could have been simple palette swaps.

I'll probably have to pick this combo up just so I can play some TJ&E with my buddy online.

I think only 12 people played Ready Aim Tomatoes. That alone would make this worth it. I don't think I want to reassemble my Menacer just to play this; it's a whole day venture I tell ya.

I never really was able to get any enjoyment out of any of the ToeJam and Earl games.


Ready Aim Tomatoes was not it's own game. it was a mini game built into the Menacer's Super Scope 6 cartridge. Oh, did I say Super Scope 6? Yeah, the Menacer was quite the rip off.

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Originally Posted by TheSonicRetard

er, wait, what? I've never heard that they started over on the sequel... got a link where they talk about this?

Anybody ever beat the original Toejam & Earl, btw? Funkatron at the end is so weird looking. It's kinda strange that they made this entirely different tile set for a small section of the game that most players probably didn't even see.

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Game was halfway through development and even had prototypes before they changed the whole layout of the game to a sidescrolling platformer. The 2nd was supposed to be more like the original. Digital Press user and prototype mafioso DreamTR supposedly has a copy. Some people on a forum tried to raise funds to buy it before he apparently backed out of the deal and sold it to someone else or something.