Tales of the Tiny Planet Review

Tales of the Tiny Planet Switch Review by SwitchWatch

Developer: Joindots

Publisher: Pixel/Split

Release Date: January 18th 2018

Price as of Article: $19.99 USD, £17.99 GBP

Tales of the Tiny Planet is a story about a little planet that has lost their friends. Because of this, the little planet sets out to find their friends scattered throughout the universe. It is up to you to guide them on their journey safely. This is another game where the story doesn’t matter. It’s there just to get you started and give you a basic goal.

The music in Tales of the Tiny Planet is rather repetitive. Each tune is a short, basic synth driven track that barely changes, and the same song lasts through an entire world. There wasn’t a stand out track throughout, except for the awesome, heart pounding, anxiety driving symphonic number they bust out in the bonus world. Overall the music left me wanting barring one track.

As for the sounds, the planets talk in an adorable gibberish. Hearing them make cute noises as they get launched through a level is very charming. Even their deaths is somehow cute, making an adorable balloon popping noise as they burst into pieces.

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Great art design is something Tales of the Tiny Planet has in spades. It uses a bright colour palette that’s pleasing to the eye, and makes distinguishing between movable and non movable objects an easy venture. The planets themselves are simplistic, being one colour with a basic face drawn on them, but they just look so adorable. Anything bad is a solid black, allowing you to recognise threats in an instant. Everything on the visual front serves the game beautifully.

And how does this beautiful game run? Flawlessly. During my time with the game it never crashed, suffered from slowdowns, nor did it show any bugs at all. The game is buttery smooth in both docked and handheld mode.

Tales of the Tiny Planet is a simple physics based puzzle game. Your planet serves as a ball you have no control over that is dropped into a labyrinth. There are some movable objects in each level that you need to use to navigate each maze. This is done by pressing or holding the A button, but there’s a catch. You can only move all the objects in a level at the same time. The eventual goal is to get the planet into the finish portal hole thing before the time runs out.

There are 6 worlds in total, each consisting of 12 levels, as well as a bonus world at the very end. The game took me just under 2 hours to complete as it is very easy, at least for the first 5 worlds. World 6 gets trickier as it adds enemy balls you must avoid your planet touching, lest you suffer instant death. There are also portals which adds a lot of depth to the puzzles.

The bonus world is where the game truly picks up, with intense music, extremely difficult puzzles and it moves at a frantic pace. Unfortunately it is over in a flash, which is a shame as it is the only world that I found fun to play. It is also a little confusing to get into, as the planet appears in the top right corner. Pressing up makes the planet slightly throb and selecting it with A brings you to the level select, but the world you were on when you pressed up is still throbbing indicating that you haven’t selected the secret world.

There is a marathon mode, which has you race through all 12 levels in a world in one go. This is a fine addition for those who want an extra challenge, but the first few world’s being as easy as they are makes the marathon mode a cakewalk until world 6.

The physics seem to be a little off sometimes, which is an important thing to get right in a physics based puzzler. When I tried the same thing multiple times, I found that it would yield different results each time. This meant that I would attempt a puzzle how I assumed it was meant to be done, fail, then move on to a different strategy. That initial strategy though could wind up being the right one, it’s just the ball did something it obviously wasn’t supposed to. This can add some frustration to an otherwise simple and straightforward game.

*This review was written by Lachlan Bruce for SwitchWatch.co.uk

Now the most important question, is Tales of the Tiny Planet worth your hard earned cash? At £17.99 GBP or $19.99 USD, this game is on the pricier end of eShop releases. What do you get for that hefty price tag? A less than 2 hour experience with little replay value. One who’s fun is locked behind a bonus world that lasts maybe half an hour. As such, this game feels well overpriced for what you get.

Pros

Beautiful Art

Secret World is great

Cons

Mostly boring

Dull Music

No replay value

Too short for the price tag