Tiny and Big Review

I hesitate to call Tiny & Big a ‘puzzle’ platformer simply because of how freeform the puzzling turns out to be. You need to use your rocket, rope, and laser in order to advance, but since the rocks will fall strictly according to the laws of physics, there’s never any one solution to a problem. If you meet a gap you need to cross, there’ll probably be two or three ways to cross it. If you accidentally knock a vital boulder off the edge of a cliff, more likely than not you’ve got an extra one nearby that you can rope in. One pleasant side effect of physics-based puzzling is that it gives the game decent replay potential: it might be the rare case where you use the same method to solve a repeat puzzle. This is nicely proved throughout the game itself: if you want to over-simplify, you can only meet two real obstacles to stop you from going forward, either a pit that’s too low or a wall that’s too high. You’d think that these options would get boring quickly, but the level designers were spot on in providing a wide variety of approaches.

Just when the puzzling starts to get boring, the game wisely switches to more action-oriented gameplay, where our most appropriately-named hero Tiny must use his tools to deflect giant blocks being thrown at him by the Thief, as they both battle through obstacle course terrain. It’s a welcome relief, but the sad truth is that even this gets a little tiresome as the game goes on. It doesn’t help that the controls, while adequate, do not feel particularly finely tuned. In a game filled with sheer cliffs and tricky jumps, the wonky camera and touchy directional controls can get in the way every now and then.

Aside from basic level progression, the game throws some minor goals at you to keep things interesting, one of which is delightful, and one of which is pitiful. The delightful extra is the hidden cassette tapes: each one you get unlocks access to another music track for you to listen to as you play. It rewards your exploration or extra cliff-jumping with the chance of novelty and entertainment, and the music in Tiny & Big is excellent enough that the tapes warrant the extra effort. The tracks cover a wide range of genres focusing around country, folk, and Hispanic sounds. The disappointing extra comes in the form of ‘boring rocks’. That’s what the game calls them. They glow, you collect them, and at the end of the level, the game tells you whether you found them all. This feels like one step below gold rings or coins, which are themselves already the absolute lowest form of motivation in a game. The designers try to poke fun at themselves by deliberately calling these stones ‘boring rocks’, and I understand that they’re trying to be ironic, but it turns out that the rocks ARE boring after all, and that’s.... eh... ironic. I think. Sadly, hunting down rocks and chopping up rocks and climbing up rocks does eventually get a little boring, despite the effort the game makes. So Tiny & Big is best played in small spurts, and probably won’t have enough meat to keep you glued for more than an hour at a time.

Tiny & Big is spunky and funny, but in the end a little lacking in juicy gameplay, and even though the visuals and music are above average, they’re not quite enough to make up for the other parts of the game’s defects. That said, if you’re in the mood for a little desert scramble and want something to pass the time, this little title will keep a smile on your lips.