One of my fondest early gaming memories is renting the original Toejam & Earl for the Sega Genesis and playing all night with my best friend. I had high hopes for the duo’s return and was excited to jump into a new instalment. Back in the Groove definitely feels like playing an updated version of Toejam & Earl, which for some people might be exactly what they’re looking for. I was hoping for something more, but this game feels too cemented in 1991.

Developer: HumaNature Studios

Publisher: HumaNature Studios

10 Hours Played // Review Copy Provided // $19.99

The gameplay, level design, and charm of the original are all present in Back in the Groove. You travel through procedurally generated levels, looking for parts of your spaceship so you can escape. Once you have collected all 10, you win. Along your way, you need to avoid bad humans, interact with good humans, and collect and use presents to help you with your task. The bad humans typically cause damage, but can also force you to use a present or even send you back down a level. The good humans will allow you to level up, play minigames, buy presents or health, or help fend off the bad humans. The presents are essentially one-use items that have a variety of funtions, and I’ll get into that more later on. There are also different difficulties and different modes, like a fixed layout of levels or randomized.

In this way, Back in the Groove operates much like a roguelike. As you work your way through the levels, you can gain experience points and level up which will give a boost to randomly selected stats, such as life bar size, speed, inventory size, luck, and more. You can also gain money along the way, which can be used for buying presents, food (ie health), or enlisting help from good humans. Once you die, you have start over from the beginning.

There are different types of levels: snowy, sandy, even dark.

I love roguelikes; definitely one of my favorite genres in games recently. What draws me in is the skill vs chance balance; trying to eke out a win on run with bad rolls or decimating a run with good ones. The difficulty and a need for understanding the mechanics are key. The main issue that I have with Back in the Groove is that it has none of the excitement of a roguelike. Even on the difficult modes, it still has its training wheels on. It is technically harder to achieve the win state because there are more obsticals to overcome, but I never felt like I had the power to master the game.



I’m not sure exactly who the audience was for this game. I feel like 8 year old me would still love it just as much as I did the original at that age. And I’m sure that there are people will like the slower pace of this game. However, I just couldn’t get into it. I kept going back, wanting to be hooked, but the game never grabbed me. Instead, I was mostly bored.

You can “search” an area to see which parts of the environment are hiding something. It could be a present, food, or a bad human!

One of the biggest reasons for this is the slow movement. There is no natural attack option (there are ways to be offensive, but we’ll talk about that later), so the main way to stay alive is avoidance. If there is a bad human coming your way, you need to walk away from it. There is no inherent run option in the game (again, like the attack there is a present that can allow this). So, you walk away until you find a place to hide or the bad human gives up. I didn’t find this fun at all and it felt sluggish.

You do have presents at your disposal, which have a variety of abilities. Some are movement-based, some are attack-based, some give health or reveal parts of the map, etc. There are also bad and broken presents that can be harmful. This ties into the random nature of the game, since the presents’ ability is hidden until you’ve used that exact one. For example, you won’t know which presents give you a run ability until you open a present that contains the hightops. Then, for the remainder of your game, all hightop presents will be labled as such.

Here I am using some sunflowers to hide in since I’m out of any good presents

The player is meant to use the presents in situations of danger. Using a decoy to walk away without intrusion or a rain of tomatoes to pummel your foes. There are ways to deal with the bad humans that aren’t just walking away. However, these don’t feel great either. The abilities like a tomato slingshot or the spring shoes are difficult to aim properly. Even if you do kill a bad human, you gain no experience points. The only reason to do this is to make the level safer to walk around in. Also, these active abilities utilize the same button as interacting with things. As such, when you use some of these presents, you cannot talk to the good Earthlings or interact with the environment until they run out. I can’t tell if this was an intentional choice or not. It could be a strategic choice – should I use the slingshot now to get out of this situation or wait because I need to buy food from that vendor? However, it never felt like a strategy. It was just annoying.

Apart from having your life depleted and dying, another main obstacle is that you can get knocked down to the previous level. You then have to find the exit again and get back up to the level you were on. There is no penalty here except for annoying the player. I guess you have another chance to be hurt on the previous level, but this was unlikely. So, the only real hindrance was time. You have to saunter back to the elevator and watch the loading screen again. Again, not that fun.

Zoomin’ through the HyperFunk Zone as Earl

There are good things about Back in the Groove. There are minigames that are fun to play. My favorites are the endless-runner through the “HyperFunk Zone” and a rhythm game with funky beats. There is a good amount of humor; the ToeJam & Earl style is fully present and just as great as ever. This includes great funk-filled background tracks throughout the game (though the sound effects were off-putting and annoying at times). The game also looks especially nice.

Have you ever remembered a game looking way better than it actually did? Your memories filled in blanks, and Hyrule field on the N64 seemed like a sprawling, beautiful land instead of just the green-yellow nothingness it actually is. Well, Back in the Groove looks like how I remember the original ToeJam & Earl looking. The colors are abundant and bright. The cartoony 90s aesthetic works great. They even have included new playable characters, and allow up to 4 people to play at a time. The game runs great in co-op, but all of the previous complaints are still present.

Each character has different starting stats, presents, and abilities

The bottom line is that it just wasn’t that fun to play. I was happy to have a blast from the past and to see these characters again. The iconic ToeJam & Earl feel is definitely here. However, it didn’t do much for me beyond the nostalgia. The gameplay just doesn’t hold up in the current gaming climate.

As always, thanks for reading and let me know what you think in the comments! For a different type of Roguelike game, check out our review of City of Brass. If you want to keep seeing ad-free content like this, please consider donating via Ko-Fi and Patreon. As volunteers, we appreciate all the support! Also, find us on Discord, Twitter, and our subreddit!