Tak, the scrawny little witch doctor, returns with his buddy Lok (he’s not bright, but he’s available) to represent their tribe in The Great Juju Challenge in order to receive the blessing of the Moon Juju for the next sixty years. The competition spans a variety of courses, which the duo needs to race through to outscore three other tribes.

At its core, Tak deals in platform adventure standards such as jumping, climbing, pressing switches, whacking enemies, and casting spells. The levels have a timer constantly counting down, and time is the primary scoring factor. You do get plenty of time bonuses as you go, but it pays to keep moving forward. Advancing through the levels often involves finding and lighting torches, some of which can’t be lit until you’ve eliminated the area of “bad juju” associated with nearby enemies.

One of the biggest new features of the game is the tag-team / co-op system. Tak’s companion Lok is constantly following along. As a single player, you’ll need to switch between Tak and Lok regularly. Or, you can invite a friend to join at any point in the game by pressing start, which instantly puts the game into split-screen mode. The second player can quit just as easily, preventing player one’s game from being disturbed if player two suddenly has to leave.

The two characters have slightly different characteristics. Lok is the stronger one, so he can climb up cliffs or pick up and toss Tak. However, Lok can’t swim –not because he’s afraid of water, but because fish hate him. As you might guess, you’ll often need to switch between the two to press switches that activate temporary bridges or open doors. At least one area has a split-screen setup even in single player, with each character advancing step-by-step on different sides of the screen.

While basic tile switches are abundant, there are a variety of other ways to move forward. You may need to ride a rhino through thorny undergrowth or fire a cannon to knock out obstructions. Lok even dons a lobster suit to cut ropes holding barrels underwater so Tak can jump across them. Plus, some levels contain special chanting stones, which the player interacts with by pressing a random sequence of buttons as they appear on the screen.

The Tak series is developed in partnership with Nickelodeon, so the character designs and jokes are all what you’d expect of a Nick cartoon. There’s quite a lot of voice acting, and in fact, the game is often genuinely funny.