Tearaway!

Following up my games of 2014- Here's the first game that I played:

There were few games that I started last year that were as visually impressive as Tearaway. I don't know if it was the two dimensional art style or the interesting ways that the game forces you to use the PSVita. It was all of that combined into an interesting story of colors, paper, and imagination.

This game can be summarized as "PSVita: the game".

Tearaway is an 3D adventure game that brings the player into the game with clever use of the forward facing camera, touch-pad, and microphone. All throughout the adventure you're tasked with helping a variety of talking paper animals, people, and avoiding the deadly scraps. The writing and story in this game really shines, and coupled with the fantastic soundtrack by Kenneth Young makes for pretty interesting adventure game. 

I felt like I was playing an old 3D collection platformer- like Crash Bandicoot, or Banjo-Kazooie. It felt nostalgically incredible in every way, because this type of platformer hasn't typically been developed since the introduction of three dimensional gaming. I loved those games. The player can interact with much of the background in a dynamic way- with the main character or even while dragging your finger across the touch screen. Pretty awesome! 

Tearaway features an in-game camera feature allowed my character to take pictures of assets which then allowed me to gain access to the actual papercraft instructions on the Tearaway Community website! Hunting around for new recipes gave this a cool out of game experience that would connect the Vita with the out-of-game website to store your photos and keep track of the items you've collected. I think more games should consider doing that. 

Then I started to notice something. While I enjoyed the story, the music, and the atmosphere... I felt like the complete lack of difficulty was pushing me through the story. Check points and lack of real penalties for dying made it seem like there were no real consequences for making errors in the game. Falling off a platform could set you back a little bit, but the frequency of check points often made this point moot. Fights with enemies had no real strategy either- just the same waves of Scraps to fight over and over again. 

An infinite amount of character customization with paper scraps you create and collectible parts!  

I finished the game and enjoyed the ending but couldn't help feel like I'd been rushed through the game in some way. I enjoyed the ride but thought it should have lasted a little bit longer. There are still loads of things I can discover in Tearaway which give it some replay-ability, but not as much as I would have expected from a great first play through. 

I would hope that if they made a sequel to Tearaway that they would take difficulty into consideration- or options to make a second play through a little different. Otherwise this game was an incredible experience. If you own a PSVita you should own and play this. Seriously. 

Since playing this game (a long time ago) Sony has announced a PS4 version of the game called Tearaway: Unfolded. I'm not sure if it is a direct port or a enhanced version of the game that utilizes the PS4's hardware superiority (and controller), It will look incredible on a big TV.