On this day, 28 years ago, the PlayStation audience was introduced to the platformer series Tomba for the first time!
When we talk about the first PlayStation having fun games, we often think of Tomba or Tombi. That game debuted in the West on this day in 1998, a few months after its Japanese premiere.
Tomb was a cute 2D platformer in a non-linear format. The story followed Tombi, a wild boy who lived on an unexplored ocean island. Tombi was significantly different from his peaceful fellow citizens and that’s why he was the ideal person to fight against evil Koma pigs which attacked, occupied and changed the landscape of the island with magical powers. Tombi’s mission was to return his grandfather’s bracelet, which was stolen by evil infants.
Gameplay was reduced to solving different situations through 130 missionand this most often involved catching and throwing pigs. Not all missions were mandatory to complete the game, but they brought different rewards in the form of items and benefits for the player.
Despite the mostly positive reviews from reviewers, Tomba did not achieve notable commercial success. A sequel followed two years later, but after that the Whoopee Camp studio closed. The original game became available in a digital edition on the PlayStation 3 console in 2011, and then in 2024 we saw the return of Tomba in an improved edition, with which the game debuted on PC and Nintendo.