Before I played this game on my channel, I took notes with this Let's Play! Here are those notes! And I gotta tell ya...it's one thing to see this game, it's another thing to play it.
The game begins when Tomba confronts some evil Koma Pigs only to be knocked out. When he comes to, he finds out that his bracelet, an heirloom from his grandfather, has been stolen, and he heads out to get it back. The first place he goes to as part of the search is a nearby village. There, a man in a straw hat welcomes him to the town and tells him that things have changed greatly in the village since he lived here, and to head to the small hut on top of the nearby hill and talk to a "crazy old geezer" for information. He also tells him to check all the signs on the way. To read them, stand in front of one, hold Up on the Control Pad and press Square. After asking about your hair, he then disappears.
The controls are pretty simple. Left and Right on the directional pad let you move around, Circle lets you attack and X lets you jump. You'll be able to do more things as you complete more tasks and learn more moves. Your current weapon is a spiked ball on a string (called the Blackjack in-game), and if you hold Circle, Tomba can wind it up for a more powerful strike. The Blackjack can only stun enemies, but that can come in handy.
The first sign at the beginning of the game is a message from the proprietor of the nearby mansion that tells a certain somebody (who is not specified) to stop stealing their mail or else they will not be responsible for what might happen. There will also be a wooden sign telling you that you are at the Village of All Beginning, which also gives you a prompt to save your game to the memory card if you read it.
Shortly after you start travelling to the right, the in-game action will stop and a nearby monkey will leap up into the tree. You'll also meet up with the Koma Pigs in-game for the first time. Leap onto them with X to latch on, then press X to jump with them in your grasp and throw them. If they run into anything after being thrown, you'll get some experience points on a red gauge and you will get 500 AP, or Adventure Points. AP acts much like experience points in the game, and as your AP grows, you'll be able to get extra lives as well as the ability to complete specific tasks that require a certain amount of AP. As for the red gauge, this will be explained later on. For now, don't worry all that much about filling it up unless you absolutely want to.
The green things with the accordion-like bottoms just squish down when you stand on them. They do have a purpose, however, and that purpose will be mentioned
The purple plants on the ground slow you down.
To swing on a tree branch, jump into the branch, then hold Left or Right to spin around. To dismount, hold the direction you wish to jump and press X to jump off the branch in the direction you've chosen. Remember that the longer you hold X determines how long you jump, not your timing.
By jumping into the edges of platforms, you can latch onto them. Jump and move towards the edge to get on top of the platform.
The white flowers that look like butts produce a green cloud when you jump into them and latch on. Remember that for later...
Collecting fruits and gems will also give you AP. Collecting fruits will also help you refill your health.
The upper-left corner shows your health and your currently equipped weapon. You'll start out with four hit points, and if you lose them all, you will lose a life. You'll be able to increase your maximum health as time goes on, however. The upper-right corner shows your current amount of AP. The lower-left corner shows how many lives you have.
As you approach the big hut further to the right, the man in the straw hat shows up again. He will tell you that there is fog up ahead, and that it is so thick that you won't be able to see anything in it. He then disappears again after asking about your hair and wishing he had something.
Use your weapon (again, press Circle) to break the bubbles nearby. You'll be able to get the nearby fruit for a few AP, and you'll also be able to enter the house from the lower level to find a go-kart. If you walk all the way to the right, you'll get a cutscene of what's up ahead, but you won't be able to go over there until later in the game.
If you hold Up in front of the big hut, Tomba will look towards the background. If that happens, you press can press X to jump up and climb up. If you hold Down at the top of a climbable wall and Tomba is able to look down, you can press X to drop down. Be sure to use this in some areas; you never know what you can climb on!
You can also latch onto certain walls by jumping into them and climb up and down on them with Up and Down.
If you jump onto the top of the house, the fog will show up and you'll get your first of 130 objectives in the game: "Clear The Fog." The game will tell you that you will need something windy to clear the fog.
The red bird that flies around the egg can be beaten by jumping on top of it and throwing it much like the Koma Pigs.
If you jump onto the egg in the nest and try to attack it, you can break the egg and find a Chick. The Chick will be used for a future objective.
There is a wooden chest with gold trim on it in the tree. You can jump onto it and jump again to try to open it, but it will be locked. You won't able to open it until later.
If you go left after climbing up the hut, you'll be in the background. The sign near the tree will tell you how to use your weapon with the Circle button. Head to the left and jump onto the mailbox to get a Furious Tornado and return to the foreground. From here, return to the fog. Press Select to switch to your inventory, where you can use the Furious Tornado by selecting Use Item with the D-Pad and the X button and selecting the Furious Tornado. From here, you'll be able to clear the fog, and after a brief cutscene, the "Clear The Fog" objective will be completed and you will gain AP from it.
The Select Button also allows you to access three other menus: "Event," which lets you see all the events you've uncovered and completed; "Status," which shows what you have equipped and your experience points on the colored gauges among other things; and "Map," which shows you where you are in the game world. Events in black text with pictures are complete; events in red text are uncovered but not completed.
In the items menu, different items will have different colored text. Light blue items are special items, green items are equippable items and can be equipped by simply using them and black items are normal items that may or may not be consumable that can help you out on your quest.
From here, the white things that look like plants with jaws are actually plants with jaws, and if they latch onto you, you'll be stunned for a little bit. If you strike the tiny purple plants near them, you can find a frog. Jump onto the frog and throw it to put it in your inventory. You'll need the frog for later.
The red treasure box can't be opened until later in the game.
There is a house not far from here, and you can go through where the window is. If you interact with this person by pressing X, you'll start another objective called "Where Am I?" If you go further to the right, you'll reach the Ol' Pond, and if you read the wooden sign, you'll find out that is where you are and you can also save your game. (Be sure to do so!) If you press Up at the AP Box, you'll trigger "The AP Box," another objective that requires getting a certain amount of AP (indicated at the box; in this case, it's 100,000 AP) to open it for some cool stuff.
If you jump on the turtle shell, you'll take a ride to the end of the pond, then a man will knock Tomba into the pond by kicking the plank at the edge down. Tomba is unable to swim. The shell will come and rescue Tomba, then tell Tomba that he needs to learn how to swim. This triggers another objective, "I Can't Swim..." The man will also give you some Bananas before laughing you back to the AP Box. You won't be back here for a little while.
Here's a cheeky trick you can do with the save points in the game. Save your game, then re-load when you are low on health. Your health will be full again!
The Tomba doll is a 1-Up. While you can get 1-Ups by playing well and collecting AP, you can find some out in the open. There is one below the rope ladder past the pit full of thorns (which will knock you way up to safety while taking away a few hit points if you fall in).
Beyond the rope ladder are some rock walls you can climb. You'll find an AP ring that requires 50,000 AP to get stuff out of. At the top, you'll find the hut that the man in the straw hat was talking about, another wooden chest, and a wooden sign that acts as a save point.
By entering the hut, you will meet the 100-Year-Old Man. You'll automatically talk to him and complete the "The 100-Year-Old Wise Man" objective you got at the beginning of the game. The old man will then tell you to do him a favor and tell you about the red Kokka birds that are stealing eggs and raising them as their own, and asks you to rescue all the chicks inside the eggs. This triggers the "Inside the Kokka Eggs" objective. If you've been breaking all the eggs you've seen on the way here, however, you'll have all four Chicks and you'll complete this objective as soon as you get it...then spit them all out of Tomba's mouth.
For saving the chicks, you'll find out what the Koma Pigs are up to. In a cutscene, you'll find out that the Seven Evil Pigs are changing the land for the worse and that the Koma Pigs are collecting gold, hence why they took Tomba's bracelet. The Evil Pigs are scattered throughout the lands, and by defeating them, Tomba should be able to get his bracelet back.
The old man tells Tomba to make some friends, then notices that he has lost his 100-Year-Old Bell and asks Tomba to find it. In exchange, he gives Tomba the 100-Year-Old key, which opens the wooden chests that we've seen. He also mentions that you'll need Evil Pig Bags to find the Evil Pigs' hiding places, and that you'll have to ask the Dwarf Elder in the forest above the hut about the bags to learn more about them. This triggers the "Dwarf Elder" objective. From here, you'll get a rope to drop down, and you can climb up it to go to a new area.
If you leave the hut the same way you came in, you'll be able to start opening chests right away. The wooden chest near the hut has Charity Wings, which can be used to teleport from one area to another without having to travel all the way to it. They can only be used once, however, so save them for later in the game. The wooden chest before the fog contains the 100-Year-Old Bell, which takes you back to the 100-Year-Old Man's hut when used as an item.
If you press Select, you can not only see your inventory, you can see all the objectives you have, both ongoing and completed, and you can also look at the map to see where you are in the game's world.
The rope in the 100-Year-Old Man's hut will take you to a rope bridge that leads to the Forest of 100 Flowers.
