Toki: Going Ape Spit was a game I never owned as a youth but had played several times at a friend of my parents house. It was owned by the only adults I knew that owned a video game console but did not have any kids. As far as I had known to that point no adult had any reason to own video games for their own enjoyment (this is circa early 1990s). My parents never played games minus a few Christmas-related scenarios, and neither did the parents of any other kid I knew. These people were hip apparently and owned a Genesis with 2 games for it — one being Toki. The Sega Genesis was always a bit foreign to me so I would get excited by any chance I had to play it, but Toki: G.A.S. is not a super well honed platformer, nor does it really jump off the screen at you when comparing it to what else had been coming out (my experience with it was several years after it was released), but I was more than happy to consume any game presented in front of me.
Decades have passed since then and I’ve been revisiting the mish-mash of Toki titles that had been released in that era; spurred by my playing of the 2018 Golgoth Studios remake of the original TAD Corp. Toki arcade title. It was via this remake that I learned that there even was a Toki arcade title, and that the Genesis game is more of a semi-sequel / expanded port (and also the only one with the Going Ape Spit sub-title). The Genesis game is really the runt of the litter compared to other releases that are more faithful to the arcade game (like the NES port, and the arcade remake). Toki: G.A.S. just simply does not control as well, has a duller color palette, and the level design is far more frustrating.
I’ve always managed to keep old games as part of my current interests that I don’t necessarily have a lot of nostalgia or sentimentality for games of bygone eras, but Toki: Going Ape Spit does seem to have managed that to some small degree because any and all memories ive had with it are super specific. It was a real surprise to me that it jogged such a vivid memory of playing the game, at most two times, at the home of a co-worker of my fathers. These weren’t long lasting friends of my parents either but I can remember visiting them far better than several other people my parents knew who I had probably visited or met with more times. Thats a bit lame in a way, but thats the power of an orb-spitting Ape who wears a football helmet, I guess.