Tomba! 3 Pig Kingdom

Back in the 90's there was a video game company by the name of WhoopeeCamp owned by Sony. They made two games, Tomba! (Tombi! if you're from a PAL region.) and Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return. Shortly after, WhoopeeCamp disbanded and the Tomba! series was never heard from again.

In the early 2000's, rumor quickly spread of a third game being created before the company disbanded. Many forms of this legend were created, such as a PS2 game, a PS3 game, a demo, an early alpha version and even a complete PS1 version. After an interview with the head of the Tomba! games, Tokuro Fujiwara, it was confirmed that no final version was ever released but there were an alpha and a demo that were long gone by the time WhoopeeCamp disbanded.

After hearing this, I was saddened. I even looked around to make sure it was true. After days of searching, I found a strange website that didn't have an index page or any page for that matter. Instead, it had a page listing files, and at the top said "Index of /". There were ISO's listed in a weird way. Unlike normal files, there was no title ID or region code.

Things like demoresidentevil1.iso and silenthillalpha.iso were found, but finally I found it. tombai3techdemo.iso, tombai3alpha.iso and an strange file, tombai3.iso. There was no demo, but it seemed to strangely go from alpha directly to finished version. The AI at the end of the name probably meant that the I and A are interchangeable.

I quickly downloaded all 3. I opened ePSXe and started up the Tech Demo. What I saw wasn't what I expected. It was a strange 2D video of Tomba, just doing all his powerups and weapons. It wasn't like it was Tomba! 3, Tomba was literally in his first form. I brushed it off as a mistake and booted up the Alpha. It was also unexpected. It was a 3D over the shoulder game, but it wasn't 3D fully. There were no models, only sprites. You could walk and run around, but only went through a field. Boring.

It was finally time for Tomba! 3. This was the most unexpected one yet. It started up and I saw the familiar Tomba! opening, only the strange thing was that the river was blood red, and the sky was pitch black. It didn't zoom in or play the music, it just stood at a still screen. I could hear the blood river rushing. I thought it looked ridiculous, and that it did. I didn't think of it more than a stupid prank pulled by the host of the website. I tried to move on, pressing all the buttons.

After pressing select, I was taken to the title. It was similar to Tomba! 2, a still image and a menu screen. The still image was Tomba smiling under "TOMBA 3". It looked very unprofessional and I thought it must not be the finished version. I pressed onward, and only found more and more strange things. Tomba was back in 2.5D again, like Tomba! 2. His model was missing its head at points and as I moved onward the screen would blacken and his eyes would turn red.

The area was not specifically set -- I was just walking through mountains with a dead black sky. The music was just reversed music from the past games in order, making me think even more that it was just a stupid hacked game. The dialogue said: "神は現在ありません". Most characters said the same thing, which loosely translated to, "there is no god now". Suddenly, an Evil Pig Door opened and Tomba was sucked in.

The music was just random notes on different instruments, while screams were heard. Realistic bodies lay on nails and other bodies, bleeding. The Evil Pig was white and had no face. He didn't move and I couldn't jump on him. Every attempt I made, my health went down. When Tomba died, the game cut to black. The menu's background image faded in slowly, except it was only Tomba smiling, His eyes were red, and blood leaked out from them like tears. "They all died painfully" appeared on the screen and it cut to static.

There were five seconds of static and that was the end of the ISO. ePSXe crashed.

I figured enough was enough and I decided to open the ISO and see the contents.

What I saw was unbelievable. Pictures of mutilated children and animals were scattered in the ISO, along with pictures of women being raped, pictures of crime scenes and pictures of terrorist attacks. I vomited, deleted tombai3.iso and turned off my computer. I haven't played this Tomba! game since.