I recently found out that someone got a hold of the beta for Toejam and Earl 3 for Dreamcast. As you all know the game released for the original Xbox but before that it was going to come out for the Dreamcast. The person who got this rare find goes by ZakhooiTM. If you’re interested in playing this here is a link to the forum he posted it too. He can’t accept money for it but hes asking if you wanted to donate to a charity for disabled children.
I have tried this game now on the Dreamcast itself and for what it is, it seems pretty good. I never played the third game for the original Xbox but I hope to do so soon.
The goal seems to collect presents like the other 2 games in the series and to “funkify” earthlings you come across. You have a several options to defend yourself and travel the lands such as the funkify action that has your character, either Toejam, Earl or a female character who I believe was properly introduced in the Xbox version pull out a boombox and launch a note that gives and earthling a wig and fills up a heart above there head. Once you do this the Earthling will be friendly to you and you can press the Y button and wave to them which seemingly does not have any further effect. Pressing the B button brings up a map that overlays the screen double tapping makes the map no longer see through and you can press B again to turn it off. The A button does a swipe or kick attack that may be unfinished as it didn’t seem to do anything during my time with it. R centers your view and L gives you a freeview.
The levels are laid out similar to the first game in the series being floating island that you can fall off of. Falling off an island does not kill your character but drops you down to a previous island. The levels seems mostly empty with a few present lying around and some earthlings roaming about. Getting near an earthling will have them hunt you down forcing you to funkify them to get them to stop. Presents like the first game give you special skills and items like rocket skates and spring shoes. The skate make you press forward uncontrollably limiting movement to steering and speeding up. The spring shoes make your character hop up and down and give you a super jump. You can pick up the power ups on the ground which activate them immediately or you can get presents of them to save for later.
Some of the earthlings I encountered were: A cheerleader who chased me down but didn’t seem to attack. There was a little girl who kept calling for her mommy when I approached and just ran away from me. The boogyman who would turn invisible and sneak up on me shouting “boogy boogy”. and a Hula girl who let out a shockwave that if hit will force you to Hula. There were a few more like a man with a jackhammer and a chorus group but when trying to approach them the game crashed.
Thats pretty much all I have about the game. If you want to check it out for yourself you can download it from Assembler forum from ZakhooiTM.
And if you love the series there is currently a kickstarter going on for a new game Toejam and Earl Back in the Groove which you can access there. This new game is being developed by the original group that made all the games in the series and its looking pretty good with fan feedback.