As a kid, I was smitten with Whoopee Camp’s “Tomba!” on the PlayStation (PS1, but with no income to my name as a little 90’s baby, I never bought or played the sequel, ‘Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return’. Now in 2026, my chance has finally come with ‘Limited Run’s Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return Special Edition’.

This was my first ever experience with the sequel, and given the absolute charm of the first game with its great platforming, quirky story, and pretty strong visuals for a 1997 title, I was a smidge disappointed to feel put off by the sequel. Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return Special Edition brings back the second game to the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2, and I was surprised it wasn’t a retro treat quite the way the first game was, and still is, to this day.

Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return Special Edition plays to what feels like a straight port of the 1999 game with a few small extras, including a gallery and soundtrack in the menu. While in some instances going back to the classics in almost their original condition doesn’t feel terrible, in this case, it could feel much better.

Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return Special Edition follows on from the original game, with the sinister swine returning, but this time not in a land full of silly farting butt plants, fantastical characters, and critter-filled forests of the first game, but rather beginning in a seaside town, coal mines, and other less exciting locales.

Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return Special Edition was released as an “enhanced port remaster” using Limited Run Games’ own engine (Carbon Engine) and while I appreciate they did what they could with the base game, I feel the title would have been much more of a special edition if it was completely remade from the ground up using Whoopee Camp’s original game as a basis for a version with updated graphics, refined gameplay mechanics, rerecorded audio, and modern controls and camera movement.

Unfortunately, this release feels like a missed opportunity for a game that didn’t necessarily do overwhelmingly well back in its day, either.

Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return Special Edition from the start doesn’t set a good first impression. With the preservation of the horrifically irritating soundtrack of repetitive, grating music and cheesy, outdated and dialogue-heavy voice acting from the original title, there’s a disconnect from what could have been a great first few moments stepping into the Fishermen’s Village; instead, a shockingly audibly and visually uncomfortable opening cutscene plays.

There is an option to mute the character voices, and I strongly suggest using it. The soundtrack can be selected at the start to be either the original Japanese or the US version, though both were equally bad.

The visuals don’t hold up on the Switch 2, whether handheld or docked. I was expecting that the game would look relatively crisp and sleek, but it looked incredibly pixellated on both screens. It looks slightly better docked with the bigger screen.

The visual and performance capabilities of modern gaming systems, especially given the Nintendo Switch 2’s updated hardware compared to the original Switch, aren’t taken advantage of. It’s a shame the game wasn’t released as a remake or a remaster. While Limited Run used their own engine for the port, it doesn’t feel like there’s much change from an old title, apart from maybe some slightly better performance.

The platforming hasn’t held up anywhere near as well as its predecessor. The 2.5D platforming in Tomba! was so well implemented back in the day and still stands out among side scrollers over 20 years later.

The sequel tried to modernise with 3D gameplay, but has a strange, awkward control scheme that feels stuck between 2.5D and 3D, and at times even isometric. Platforming doesn’t feel smooth, especially when moving back and forth between different elevations in the map, like see-saws and climbing up ladders or cliff faces.

There are sections of the game that require precision jumping that don’t land the same when you…actually can’t land accurately. As a game that relies heavily on maneuverability, it became more frustrating than enjoyable to play through.

Technical bugs caused certain levers and event triggers to fail to activate, putting a massive spanner in the figurative works. Hopefully, issues with interactions will be quickly patched in future updates.

​Interestingly, I spent some time in the 2025 release version of the game on PC, and it looked significantly sharper than the Switch 2 version. The controls felt much better on PC with a controller; there was a very different feel compared to playing handheld or with Joycons on the Switch 2. It just felt better on the PC version.

If you’re looking to experience Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return Special Edition, the Nintendo Switch 2 version may be one to avoid in favour of the PC version. For fans of the original Tomba! or collectors of retro games looking to have a little digitally preserved slice of gaming history, there might be some joy to be found in Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return Special Edition.

For those like me who didn’t play the original 1999 PlayStation version, this may not spark quite as much joy. Gamers looking for a modern take on an old-school game, I would massively recommend checking out Limited Run’s port of the first game, Tomba! Special Edition. If you’re looking for an updated version of Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return, this release might be better off explored on PC.

Written by: Yasmin Noble