4. Tomba!
The Original
Ill admit that I was never a fan of Tomba! To this day I find it boring. But that doesnt make it any less worthy of this list. Tomba! is an unfortunate case. It was one of the earliest platforming games to introduce RPG elements and has become a bit of a cult phenomenon for gamers. The game involves protagonist Tomba who lives on a group of islands in the middle of the ocean. When seven evil pigs transform his surroundings into a bizarre landscape, Tomba must retrieve his grandfathers bracelet which they have stolen. Its a damn bizarre storyline. But its fairly typical of a platformer and, it does reflect quite nicely the tropes of Japanese gaming. The gameplay involves traversing a side-scrolling environment, similar to Sonic. As Tomba, players can choose to partake in a variety of missions which may or may not be relevant to the plot. The player can also collect adventure points to improve his score and gain rewards. The game was highly praised by critics but was poorly received commercially. It did spawn one sequel which further enhanced the gameplay. Today the games have become a rarities and a copy of either one can fetch hundreds of dollars on EBay. Developer Whoopee Camp has since gone out of business. The Potential Reboot
A reboot could hurt the rarity factor of the originals a little bit. But since I cant afford to buy the originals at this point of time, I dont really care. I envision this one as being more of a Playstation Network/Xbox Live Arcade game. The side-scrolling aspect is probably a little too basic to push out for a console release. Still, imagine if someone out there was to produce it. A true sequel to the originals that returns us to that bizarre world that is constantly threatened by evil pigs. High definition visuals are a must, but why not keep a little bit of that old school 16-bit edge in tact? Wreck-It-Ralph style. I think that if the Japanese and anime aspect of the game was really focused on and enhanced, as well as the RPG elements, it could be a really addictive little arcade download. I bet the fans of the first two would lap it upand there could be quite a few who are still frustrated that they cant get their hands on the classics.