This review was originally written on March 3, 2019.

Technical Information

Developer: HumaNature Studios Inc
Publisher: HumaNature Studios Inc
Release date: March 1, 2019

Back in the Groove is a union of the best parts of the first and second ToeJam & Earl games!
ToeJam, Earl, and their friends (yes, the game features new characters!) were traveling through space when “accidentally” Earl pressed a button written “don’t press”… and then their ship exploded and all its pieces landed on the planet Earth.
Your goal is to find the pieces of the ship in an adventure-style roguelike, just like the first game!

Final Thoughts – Analyzing the Game as a Whole

Graphics and UI

I must confess that, at first, I thought the art was pretty mediocre. The animation looked like Flash games, which really bothered me! But after playing for a while, it didn’t turn out to be bad at all, quite the opposite. The style ends up fitting perfectly with the game’s colorful aesthetic.

The UI keeps a style similar to the first game. You can enable a thumbnail map on the left side of the screen. The menus are very clear and functional, and I had no difficulty understanding the options.

Soundtrack and Sound Effects

Excellent music! The compositions have the same vibe as the first and second games, super danceable and incredibly catchy.

The only thing that made me a little sad is that only two songs from the first game made it into this one. I honestly expected a jukebox with all of them, or something like that. :/

Gameplay

Some mechanics from the previous games were improved, and one of the best upgrades is the progression system. As you walk through the levels and search for objects in bushes and trees (just like in the second game), you accumulate experience points. Once you have enough, you simply talk to the Carrot Guy (remember him? The uncle dressed as a carrot from the first game), and he gives you the “blessing” to level up.

The skills are well localized, and when you level up, you can receive titles such as “Dufus”, “Poindexter”, “Peanut”, and “Funk Lord”. After evolving, you’re presented with a kind of leveling-up event that randomly selects a reward (such as extra experience or a gift) to help you during gameplay.

The Hyper Funk Zone returns, just like in the second game. There, you can accumulate even more experience to upgrade your character.

Speaking of characters, the game introduces some new faces! Latisha and Lewanda are two characters you can choose from the start. After completing the game, three additional characters can be unlocked: Geek Jam, Peaboo (a random alien), and Earl’s mom (!!!).

In the first game, the only character attributes were life bar size and speed. ToeJam was faster but had less health, while Earl was slower but had more life. In Back in the Groove!, several new attributes were added, and each character has a specific combination of stats (speed, life bar, present skill, search skill, luck, and inventory), along with a unique ability and a set of starting gifts. For example, the new Earl can recover health even when eating rotten food.

In addition to classic environments, there are also icy stages and dark areas where characters must use a flashlight to see. Midway through the game, you can encounter aliens that let you dance and create your own beats, similar to Guitar Hero. After dancing, you receive a score that directly affects the rewards you earn, such as money and gifts.

And it doesn’t stop there! Remember the elevators that took you to the next stage in the first game? To make things more interesting—and more difficult—they added fake elevators that can take you back down instead. The elevator dialogue and psychedelic backgrounds were kept as well. <3

Alongside classic enemies and familiar terrain, several new ones were added. I won’t spoil anything, but one group of terrains I found especially funny was the RPG players. What do they do? Play and find out!

With so many new features, a tutorial became essential to avoid leaving new players confused. The tutorial mode works as a kind of “super easy” mode. Each action unlocks a plaque explaining what just happened, and the stages are smaller and contain fewer enemies.

At first, only the Tutorial and Fixed World modes are available. To unlock Random World mode, you need to reach level 10 in Fixed World mode. Hard Random mode also remains locked and is only unlocked after completing the game in Fixed World mode.

I noticed that the difficulty increases significantly in co-op mode. Personally, I find it much more fun to play this way. The game supports online cooperative play, allowing you to play with friends (in my case, on Xbox Live) or with random players from around the world.

Unfortunately, the game brought me a major disappointment: after unlocking all the worlds and two characters, I returned to play another day and discovered that my save file had disappeared. 🙁 I don’t know what caused this bug, but it left me feeling very frustrated and sad.
Another annoying bug I found was related to the Xbox interface. Instead of displaying the game’s name, it showed “My app title in LANGUAGE” (yes, with the last word entirely in uppercase). I really hope they fix this soon.

Replayability and Game Retention

This is a super fun game, packed with things to unlock, and it works great both in single-player and co-op.

I really enjoyed the experience, it exceeded my expectations. I initially thought it would be pretty mediocre, but I was completely wrong. It will definitely appeal to those who played the Mega Drive games, the nostalgia is strong!