ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron

ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron is a Sega Mega Drive platform video game developed by Johnson Voorsanger Productions and released in 1993. The game is a sequel to the 1991 cult video game ToeJam & Earl. The game follows two alien protagonists, ToeJam and Earl, who have escaped from Earth after crashing landing. When the duo returns to Funkotron, they discover that several antagonistic Earthlings have stowed away on the spacecraft and are wreaking havoc on the planet. The player must track these Earthlings down and imprison them in jars before returning them to Earth. The platform format of the game differed from the original ToeJam & Earl, a treasure hunt game with randomly generated levels inspired by the game Rogue. Creators Greg Johnson and Mark Voorsanger began designing a game based on the original’s concepts but changed to a more generic type of game due to Sega’s lack of support for their vision. The game received positive reviews from critics, who praised the graphics, soundtrack, fluid action, and two-player mode. It was also a commercial success, but ToeJam & Earl fans were disappointed and perplexed by the abrupt change in direction. ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron has been criticized for being too different from the first game, and some later reviewers felt that the developers were more concerned with the publisher’s wishes than the fans. Johnson and Voorsanger have stated that they regret abandoning their prototype sequel in the style of ToeJam & Earl. According to research, a sizable minority of fans consider ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron the best in the series. The game and its predecessor constitute one of Mega Drive’s “key exclusive franchises,” which eventually spawned a third installment in 2002, albeit a commercial failure with mixed reviews. ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron received mixed reviews when it was re-released in 2007 for the Wii’s Virtual Console. In November 2012, the game and its prequel were released on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. ToeJam Earl 2 was ranked #10 on GamesRadar’s list of the “Best Sega Genesis/Mega Drive games of all time” in August 2014.