Tobal No. 1 arrived on the PlayStation thanks to Dream Factory in 1996, being Squaresoft's first foray onto the console prior to the launch of their smash hit, Final Fantasy VII, for which Tobal actually started Square's practice of including demo CDs with their games. It was followed one year later by Tobal 2, which expanded upon the original in just about every way, be it roster, graphics, or sheer scope.
Both games feature the visual style and character design of Akira Toriyama and are known for including, in addition to the fighting game standard single-player and versus modes, a Quest mode which plays out like a fairly simplistic dungeon crawler RPG, reusing the fighting engine for enemy encounters. Said fighting engine was fairly unique among polygonal fighters, as it allowed for fairly free range of motion around the arena, and the characters reacted realistically to where and how they were hit (for instance sweeping one leg would cause a stumble; sweeping both would knock them down).
These games received a Spiritual Successor in the form of Ehrgeiz, also by Dream Factory.
These games provide examples of:
- Aerith and Bob: Mary Ivonskaya has the most normal name of anyone in the cast.
- Alien Sky: Tobal has at least six moons as well as planetary rings, all visible during the day.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Oliems is blue.
- Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Chuji Wu.
- Battle in the Rain: The boss fight with Mufu.
- Big Red Devil: Ill-Goga fits the look, but not the temperament.
- Boobs of Steel: Mary.
- Cool Old Guy: Fei Pusu.
- Creator Cameo: Tori-Bot, Akira's self-caricature, is a hidden character in both games named "Toriyama Robo".
- Dance Party Ending: Tobal 2 has hidden win poses that involve the characters doing elaborate dances set to music. Observe.
- Everything's Better with Dinosaurs: A huge number of playable characters in Tobal 2. Strangely enough, there's no Tyrannosaurus rex.
- Excuse Plot
- Human Hammer-Throw: Can be performed on Ill-Goga via their tail as a back-throw.
- Kamehame Hadoken: Characters get access to fireballs in Tobal 2.
- Loads and Loads of Characters: Tobal 2 has over 200 playables. That's not hyperbole.
- Nice Hat: Gren Kutz and Udan.
- Nintendo Hard: The main game's AI blatantly start reading your inputs only a few stages into the Tournament Mode, and even on Easy they gradually ascend into Perfect-Play A.I.. Quest Mode only amps it up where the Random Number Generator entirely decides your fate on which drops screw you over and which ones are worthwhile, as well as enemies scaling wildly to the point that by the second dungeon they'll start taking chip damage while dealing up to a third of your health in a single blow unless you level adequately.
- No Pronunciation Guide: There are quite a few ways to pronounce a name like "Chaco". Good luck figuring out which one is correct.
- Pig Man: Nork, the first boss; and Snork, his pint-sized playable incarantion.
- Pile Bunker: A number of the walker robots in Tobal 2 use one.
- Press X to Die: Hom had a move where he touches the button on his back and shuts himself off, thus losing the round. It had no purpose other than suicide, though sometimes if you're fighting him, he'll do it himself, letting you win.
- Punny Name: Not Oliems, the Chicken Man himself, but his home planet is named "Kientakki"... Say it out loud a few times if you don't get it...
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Hom.
- Roguelike: Tobal No. 1's Quest mode
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Udan is the final boss.
- RPG Elements: Quest mode, as can be expected.
- Scenery Porn: Tobal 2 really showed off some amazing effects while continuously running at 60fps.
- Signature Style: Like Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger before it, the characters in the Tobal universe were designed and illustrated by Akira Toriyama, so expect a few characters to look like they are Dragon Ball characters wearing different clothes (Epon looks like a cross between Android 18 and Bulma, Gren looks like a blond Trunks, etc...)
- Suicide Attack: Hom can push the button on his back, turning himself off to lose the round.
- Tail Slap: Ill-Goga.
- Time Skip: Tobal 2 jumps forward to 2045.
- Title 1: It doubles as the name of the fighting tournament taking place in the game.
- Tomboyish Ponytail: Epon.
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