Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return Special Edition Review

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Fast Facts

Party Like It’s 1999 (Or Not) 

We all have that one friend, right? The one who swears that some obscure game from 1999 is actually one of the GREATEST games ever created, and for me, that friend is obsessed with Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return. For years, I’ve had to listen to him go on about how this game is a ‘lost masterpiece’, how it ‘revolutionized the genre’, and how it’s a criminal offense that I haven’t played it. He hyped it up as this mind-blowing mix of RPG depth and platforming perfection, and you know what? I believed him. 

So, with the recent release of the Special Edition, I finally caved, grabbed a code for review, booted it up, and prepared myself to be amazed. 

And… I’m just confused. Is this it? This is the game you’ve been worshipping across our entire friendship? Look, I don’t want to be a hater, and it’s not a bad game. It functions. It has colours. You can jump on stuff. But calling this a masterpiece feels like the nostalgia talking, and it’s talking really loudly.  

It’s Not Deep, It’s Just Confusing 

The first thing my friend told me was, ‘You’ll love the Event System, it’s like a Metroidvania before those were cool’. 

Okay, technically, yes. You get quests (Events) and you have to solve them to move forward. But let’s be real about how this actually plays out, shall we? In a modern Metroidvania (or even a good classic one), exploring feels organic, but in Tomba! 2, it feels like running errands for people who just outright refuse to give you clear directions. 

I spent half my playtime just wandering back and forth across the same areas: not because the puzzles were clever, but because the game is terrible at communicating what it actually wants from you. You’ll get an item that seems important, but you can’t use it until you talk to a specific NPC who offers zero context… that’s not ‘depth’, that’s obscure padding, and by god, it got annoying. 

The 2.5D Headache 

Then there are the visuals. My friend swore the switch from 2D sprites to 3D polygons was a miracle.  

To me, it just looks messy. The first game (which I looked up for comparison) had this crisp and stylish flair to it, but Tomba! 2 just feels like it tried to be clever and didn’t quite nail it. 

The bigger issue, though, isn’t even the aesthetics – it’s the gameplay. The game uses this 2.5D perspective where you move on a 2D plane, but the path curves and winds through a 3D world. It sounds cool (and it can be), but it makes depth perception a nightmare. There were so many times I tried to jump on a platform or boop an enemy on the head, only to phase right through them or miss entirely because the camera angle was playing tricks on my eyes. Sure, that might’ve been down to me at times, but honestly? It just felt clumsy. I never felt 100% in control of Tomba, which is kind of a dealbreaker for a platformer. The save state system does make it more forgiving, but it’s just a band-aid for what otherwise feels like antiquated game design. 

The Middle of the Road 

I know I’m sounding harsh, so let me give credit where it’s due. The game does have some cool ideas. The suit system is genuinely fun – changing into a flying squirrel or a pig adds some variety to how you move around, and the boss fights are creative and chaotic in a good way. When the game actually clicks and you’re flowing through a level, capturing pigs and using your abilities, it’s… fine. It’s decent. 

But that’s all it is. It’s a perfectly average platformer that tried to do too much and ended up tripping over its own feet. I’m sure it was good once, but in 2026? You’ve got so many better options that it’s not worth digging up the past. 

Conclusion 

If you played this when you were eight years old, I get it, you have that emotional connection to the bright colours, the weird world, and the memories of playing something a little bit different. But coming into it fresh in 2026? It’s a clunky, confusing, and unattractive historic curiosity. I’m glad I played it just so I can finally tell my friend to shut up about it, and, perhaps more importantly, tell him that he’s been completely wrong about it all this time. 

Rapid Reviews Rating

2 out of 5

2

You can purchase Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return Special Edition for PC on Steam here.
Thank you for reading this review!