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Tearaway |OT| Super Iota 64
- Thread starter Gamerloid
- Start date
ThatStupidLion
Member
Can anyone shed some light on a part im stuck at - im in
the Tear level and i come to a platform relativerly soon in the level.. Theres like 2 rocks on it and a couple gophers...theres some small platforms to hop to that lead to a red box. But i dont know where else to go from that main platform. When i go near an edge a headless scarecrow flips up from the nether, but i cant do anything with him. Im sure im overlooking something obvious....any help? Thanks.
eighty(one)
Member
Finished Tearaway this evening.
As a poster above stated: "charming as fuck", couldn't have said it better myself.
I cried tears of happy at the end.
I love this little game.
I love it.
As a poster above stated: "charming as fuck", couldn't have said it better myself.
I cried tears of happy at the end.
I love this little game.
I love it.
TimeEffect
Member
Man... really want a VITA, but this game makes me want it even more so.
I'm just sad to see this title so under the radar. I wonder how Mm feel about its success? What does Sony think? I know a few people worked on this, but it's been quite a while under development.
Anyone have sales numbers?
I'm just sad to see this title so under the radar. I wonder how Mm feel about its success? What does Sony think? I know a few people worked on this, but it's been quite a while under development.
Anyone have sales numbers?
Grinchy
Banned
I think all we know so far is that it was the #1 Vita game on PSN last month and it was only on sale for like 8 or 9 days.
Nocturnowl
Member
Haha, those are the exact words I used to describe it to a friend as well.
Of course, the rest of your words do it great justice. Very nice review
Pulling inappropriate faces in the sun never gets old, and I loved the way the bounce pads responded to a light or hard tap, each producing a different sound. I often found myself drumming along to the music while playing, keeping the rhythm while platforming. Really fun.
Cheers.
Regarding two other points mentioned here...
- I forgot about also trying (and failing) to drum along with the music via the bounce pads, it's something everyone should try for the novelty.
- One of the problems with revisiting areas is that a number of small scenes have to be rewatched (bigger scenes cans be skipped though) and customization tasks redone or at least quickly sped through making it more like an outright replay at a few points since it's as if it's your first visit once again. Really I'd sooner start up the whole game again from scratch some time in the future then return to areas in a manner like this for the few remaining collectables but that's just me.
At this point "charming as fuck" should be the tagline for this game.
Not that I played the demo but I guess it's the same, I figure that the idea was that the game gives off somewhat of a stop motion animated impression due to its arts and crafts style as opposed to it being a dodgy framerate.
Cha
Member
Tearaway Konata Izumi, done!
Learned a few neat tricks to make larger or smaller than usual decorations while making this character.
My Tearaway.me page > http://tearaway.me/u/charmoyl
Running around shouldn't be gross. The character that you guide through the world moves normally compared to npc's and the environment (which is meant to have a stop motion kinda effect - perhaps that's what you're mistaking for a low framerate). Currently on my second play through and haven't noticed any frame rate drops in this game as yet. Runs smilky smooth
EDIT: Anyone know if it's possible to change your Tearaway.me profile pic? Can't seem to figure out how.
EDIT2: Soul Sacrifice Iota is born
Creating characters can be really challenging - I like it
Learned a few neat tricks to make larger or smaller than usual decorations while making this character.My Tearaway.me page > http://tearaway.me/u/charmoyl
Running around shouldn't be gross. The character that you guide through the world moves normally compared to npc's and the environment (which is meant to have a stop motion kinda effect - perhaps that's what you're mistaking for a low framerate). Currently on my second play through and haven't noticed any frame rate drops in this game as yet. Runs smilky smooth
EDIT: Anyone know if it's possible to change your Tearaway.me profile pic? Can't seem to figure out how.
EDIT2: Soul Sacrifice Iota is born
I'd like to think I am a guy who isn't bowled over by gimmicks and 'innvoation for innovations' sake, that my cynicism goes too deep, is too finely woven into my personality for parlor tricks to do me in. Recently, there have been a slate of games that have challenged my perception of what should and should not qualify as a "quality" videogame, proving the truth to the statement some have made about my stringent critiques - that I was too closed-minded, too willing to dismiss good ideas for small problems. Journey from thatgamecompany completely shattered what I had expected to enjoy - it flew in the face of every single thing I usually look for in games and stood for everything I usually hate, and yet at the end of the experience I was left nearly breathless, something inaudibly "clicking" in my head, like a nuclear reactor being fired up for the first time in a decade. I sensed the cobwebs falling away, and I resisted what it meant. Was it time for me to bella gerant alii? I've thought about it, and I don't think so. But I do believe that I understand now why the industry needs things like Tearaway, even if it never goes on to mainstream success.
Playing Tearaway is like having a chat with a supermodel who also happens to be the most intelligent and engaging conversationalist you've ever encountered. You want to point out that she is a little full of herself, that maybe she's gotta work on some things, but you're too charmed to really bother saying them. That's what playing Tearaway is like. From the second I started playing, I wanted to love it... but I had some things I look for in games, things that tend to be the difference between when I love something and when I don't. The problem with this game for me (or the success of this game, rather) is that the second I really tried to bother saying why I had this issue or that issue, something immediately reminded me why I literally never for one second was able to wipe the smile off my face. Yes, the checkpoint system is ridiculously forgiving - sometimes pushing you even beyond an obstacle you have yet to finish. That's a problem! I know it! There are a myriad of little issues throughout, tiny niggles that would perhaps eat at the core of lesser games. But so much works so often that it stops mattering. Why would it matter when the level design is so often impressive, the controls tight and responsive? The big picture is what this game demands you to pay attention to, and for once the little issues begin to become background noise. Why does it matter as I sit on the precipice of some wondrous paper dreamscape, snapping instagram-ready classics with one of the best in-game cameras ever? Does it matter that I was inventing the engagement by much of my incessant photo snapping? The game provided the tools, they are amazing tools. And I really enjoyed myself, because of the mindblowing artistic direction and the wonderful camera options. I was a confetti paparazzi, trying to find the best angle and best filter to convey my point. I probably was really bad at it, but it was fun. It allowed me to do something that I would never be able to do in real life, which is photograph a incredible fantasy papercraft world.
Anyway, the point of all this camera conversation is simple. Before, my idea was that games needed to be "fun", and to accomplish that the focus was always on the most efficient, tight and deep game design. I still believe many genres require that to work, I do. But I realized at some point very recently that to me "fun" was limiting what I could expect out of games, as were my requirements. I don't need games to be fun, although in this case Tearaway was amazing fun. What I need is a game to provide compelling escapism, an outlet to experience themes and people and ideas that I don't necessarily come across in my daily grind. Sometimes that may be at the behest of the sort of tight game design I've always endorsed. But other times, perhaps more rarely, that escapsim can succeed by just being about the sheer joy of playing, that nearly incommunicable spark that you get when you load up a truly memorable game title for which there are no peers and no way to properly ground the experience.
Tearaway is one such experience. When I was looking forward to it initially, I was hoping for a tight platmormer with a gradually increasing challenge that eventually would encourage me to utilize all what I learned in clever and eventful ways. Mix that in with a compelling artistic direction, and I felt if it could do that, it would be a sure fire hit with me. But what I got wasn't that. I mean, that's not to say it is not a tight platformer at times. It is! It's also relentlessly forgiving, and you rarely lose even more than ten seconds of progress. The core mechanics feel right, Iota/Atoi have a really pleasant feel of momentum and bouncy-ness once jump is obtained. More shockingly to me, but most of the gimmick controls also function with a high degree of ease. Even more special, the reason you are interacting is specifically because you are a YOU, an actual element in the storyline, giving the game one of the most unsettling yet fascinating elements of intense immersion I've encountered in a game. It feels corny, and it is, but it's the type of cheesy that gnaws at your heartstrings, makes you see flashing images of you as a child dirtied up from playing baseball behind the abandoned lot, moves the ground beneath your feet and makes you reevaluate some of your priorities.
You will be prompted to take images of yourself. You will be asked to design creative images to put into the Tearaway world itself. At first these activities seem at best droll, a distraction merely to utilize the various functionalities of the PlayStation Vita. This was my biggest disappointment at first since I went into the game believing that such creative interactions were required to solve puzzles. Instead, none of the "creative moments" really considered what I made... it just wanted me to make anything, really. So I was miffed by the lack of skill requirement, when something finally starting working for me. Maybe it was the consistently amusing ways in which they required my "assistance." Perhaps it was hearing my own echo in a near psychadelic papercraft universe. Or it was having a legit horror game moment that I caused to myself which the game certainly didn't intend but it happened because of me participating in the experience (and that's a must, guys! Don't be lazy.). Oh, if you're interested in that horror story, SPOILER TAG DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU BEAT GAME:
Anyway, the whole point is that once again my expectations were subverted, I was taught once more that maybe my clinical dismissals of everything that don't fit into neat categories needs occasional reevaluation. And I can't help but feel Tearaway is such a game. It embodies what I railed against for most of the Wii generation, many gimmicks for gimmicks sake. And yet despite all the odds, it works for me. To the point where I literally don't know if I'd want to play it any other way, which I guess is a me version of all those people who thought the atrocious Godfather was suddenly a good game with Wiimote controls.
The ways it works are just too numerous to really list in one overview. The radiant, phenomenal construction paper art style is one of the most see-it-to-believe-it achievements in gaming visuals in a long time. The only way to properly convey what its victories are is to actually play Tearaway. It is extremely smooth for a Vita game, has a mostly always 30fps feel and bursts out of the OLED crispness with its vibrant rainbow papercraft world, a cornucopia of vivid colors featuring locations so varied and so consistently genius to traverse that it very often feels like it is putting other games to shame. Construction paper unfurls in a captivating stop motion-esque bit of animation. Rain drops are made out of confetti. Landscape twists and twirls, flaps and folds, a phantasmagoric imagery treat that when viewed through your camera lens often seems like a surrealist painting in motion. With few exceptions and despite a supremely easy challenge, most levels are consistently enjoyable to play, featuring stunning amounts of gameplay variety and design ingenuity and more than a few hidden secrets. It feels like it's being helmed by masters who are in love with the medium, individuals whom so completely understand the core of what makes a game attractive that they might as soon well be called Nintendo. Tearaway is THAT sort of achievement.
And it reflects that claim similarly in the level of polish and care that went into every aspect of the game. It would be a fucking sin for me not to mention, for example, the fact that it has one of the greatest game soundtracks of the year, perhaps of the generation. I could tell you to listen to The Traveler, a melancholy prayer that comes out of left field within the game, sets a mood completely unexpected, and has a sound like a sort of dying chipmunk barber shop quartet. Before, inexplicably, it also becomes badass. And all of this is reflected appropriately within the narrative. I felt like fucking Rocky running up the steps in Philadelphia as my journey so perfectly harmonized with Gibbet Hill - Pilgrimage. How they STILL managed to up that a notch when this shit drops @ 1m52s. That incredibly the game has BARN INSPIRED dubstep. There is so much audial variety that there is fucking Renassaince hop. I can't even describe it better than that.
A marriage between visual (creatures and environments occasionally bob to the sounds as well), gameplay (
) and sound so impressive in unison that it feels as if none could exist without the other. Losing any part would immensely diminish the charm of the presentation and the enjoyment I derived. When you add it all up, it's one of the rare games where you are excited not only to see what gameplay opportunities come next, or to be a virtual sightseer in some beautiful world, but to listen to the musical genius provided by Kenneth Young and Brian D'Oliveira.
I wish I could articulate better why the summary of the gimmicks in this game finally worked for me where others did not. I wish I could explain better that the thematic underscoring of ones creativity and construction paper world made such gimmicks actually feel like a natural extension of the core game. I hope I can convey at least how any of the gimmicks - from the back touch finger to the rare use of the microphone - are never the least bit difficult or awkward to use, compounding why it slid through my proverbial donut hole. How when you get right to it, the intimacy of some of the interactions - from selfies to your finger breaking through the world to the You in the Sun - all contribute to immersing you in a narrative so specifically perfect to introducing these elements in a sensical way that you almost completely forget about it in about a half hour. It just works effectively together, or at least it does for me.
And, for the record, it also has a masterful ending to top off this sure-to-be gaming cult classic. From start to finish, there is hardly a single missed note, no matter how simple or challenging any individual moment was, it all seemed to fit perfectly into the space allotted to it, and nothing felt like it should be much of any different outside of some minor nuances. It is such a compact yet magnificently fulfilling package that I would have had no problem recommending it were it a 60 dollar game. A value is not derived purely from the hours you get, which Journey taught me. If that experience can convey something you cannot feel anywhere else and it is something you found profoundly pleasurable and moving, then it's a commodity as rare as Poudretteite. At six-to-eight hours, and probably up to ten if you really go wild with photos and secret finding as I did, there is not a single moment that overstays its welcome. It has excised any element that is unnecessary or that could be considered filling, and merely allowed simple curiosity to compel one to stay and spend more time. I could not and still cannot stop taking photos. Maybe you will take one photo and never participate in much of the creative opportunities, and in such a case I would geniunely suggest not to buy the game. But I think few people will be able to resist the disarming level of hand pulling and winking the game does at you, because it's just so effectively handled.
I am prone to hyperbole. People know that, but it's because I am passionate about games. This hobby is one element that has partially defined my life, and I think if many others on GAF are honest with themselves they would say it was true. It's extemely influential for most of us, in one way or another. I think it's a very positive force in this world, and can be art as well as just simple fun. But I will say this about Tearaway: There was a bit at the end, which articulated in a single moment (which I won't spoil) everything the game had made me feel up until that point but I couldn't put my finger on it. The only way to describe it is... it felt like there was not a single responsibility in the world. For the time I spent in this game, everything around me evaporated and I was at true peace. It's funny because the only other time I've ever felt that way was as a boy... likely when I was sitting in my underwear playing something like Super Mario Bros. 3 or Earthbound.
This is not a game that should be compared to Super Mario 64 or any other game in that way. It is a disservice to Tearaway to do so actually. It invents expectations, and it shouldn't because there should be none. There are zero other games quite like Tearaway. And that's just the way I like it.
Playing Tearaway is like having a chat with a supermodel who also happens to be the most intelligent and engaging conversationalist you've ever encountered. You want to point out that she is a little full of herself, that maybe she's gotta work on some things, but you're too charmed to really bother saying them. That's what playing Tearaway is like. From the second I started playing, I wanted to love it... but I had some things I look for in games, things that tend to be the difference between when I love something and when I don't. The problem with this game for me (or the success of this game, rather) is that the second I really tried to bother saying why I had this issue or that issue, something immediately reminded me why I literally never for one second was able to wipe the smile off my face. Yes, the checkpoint system is ridiculously forgiving - sometimes pushing you even beyond an obstacle you have yet to finish. That's a problem! I know it! There are a myriad of little issues throughout, tiny niggles that would perhaps eat at the core of lesser games. But so much works so often that it stops mattering. Why would it matter when the level design is so often impressive, the controls tight and responsive? The big picture is what this game demands you to pay attention to, and for once the little issues begin to become background noise. Why does it matter as I sit on the precipice of some wondrous paper dreamscape, snapping instagram-ready classics with one of the best in-game cameras ever? Does it matter that I was inventing the engagement by much of my incessant photo snapping? The game provided the tools, they are amazing tools. And I really enjoyed myself, because of the mindblowing artistic direction and the wonderful camera options. I was a confetti paparazzi, trying to find the best angle and best filter to convey my point. I probably was really bad at it, but it was fun. It allowed me to do something that I would never be able to do in real life, which is photograph a incredible fantasy papercraft world.
Anyway, the point of all this camera conversation is simple. Before, my idea was that games needed to be "fun", and to accomplish that the focus was always on the most efficient, tight and deep game design. I still believe many genres require that to work, I do. But I realized at some point very recently that to me "fun" was limiting what I could expect out of games, as were my requirements. I don't need games to be fun, although in this case Tearaway was amazing fun. What I need is a game to provide compelling escapism, an outlet to experience themes and people and ideas that I don't necessarily come across in my daily grind. Sometimes that may be at the behest of the sort of tight game design I've always endorsed. But other times, perhaps more rarely, that escapsim can succeed by just being about the sheer joy of playing, that nearly incommunicable spark that you get when you load up a truly memorable game title for which there are no peers and no way to properly ground the experience.
Tearaway is one such experience. When I was looking forward to it initially, I was hoping for a tight platmormer with a gradually increasing challenge that eventually would encourage me to utilize all what I learned in clever and eventful ways. Mix that in with a compelling artistic direction, and I felt if it could do that, it would be a sure fire hit with me. But what I got wasn't that. I mean, that's not to say it is not a tight platformer at times. It is! It's also relentlessly forgiving, and you rarely lose even more than ten seconds of progress. The core mechanics feel right, Iota/Atoi have a really pleasant feel of momentum and bouncy-ness once jump is obtained. More shockingly to me, but most of the gimmick controls also function with a high degree of ease. Even more special, the reason you are interacting is specifically because you are a YOU, an actual element in the storyline, giving the game one of the most unsettling yet fascinating elements of intense immersion I've encountered in a game. It feels corny, and it is, but it's the type of cheesy that gnaws at your heartstrings, makes you see flashing images of you as a child dirtied up from playing baseball behind the abandoned lot, moves the ground beneath your feet and makes you reevaluate some of your priorities.
You will be prompted to take images of yourself. You will be asked to design creative images to put into the Tearaway world itself. At first these activities seem at best droll, a distraction merely to utilize the various functionalities of the PlayStation Vita. This was my biggest disappointment at first since I went into the game believing that such creative interactions were required to solve puzzles. Instead, none of the "creative moments" really considered what I made... it just wanted me to make anything, really. So I was miffed by the lack of skill requirement, when something finally starting working for me. Maybe it was the consistently amusing ways in which they required my "assistance." Perhaps it was hearing my own echo in a near psychadelic papercraft universe. Or it was having a legit horror game moment that I caused to myself which the game certainly didn't intend but it happened because of me participating in the experience (and that's a must, guys! Don't be lazy.). Oh, if you're interested in that horror story, SPOILER TAG DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU BEAT GAME:
There was a moment when the game wanted me to take a picture of my face. Later it would animate my face mouth opening and closing. Anyway, when it prompted me to take that image, I was in my bed in the pitch dark, and the camera was hardly picking up anything. Anyway, I did the color negative filter, in order so a face could be made out. The result was like one of those cheap horror film faces, looked pained and everything. Well, anyway... flash forward to the end of the game. Very last page of that "you" storybook, and that same face appeared again out of nowhere and I was seriously in silence in the dark so I jumped a little. DON'T JUDGE ME.
Anyway, the whole point is that once again my expectations were subverted, I was taught once more that maybe my clinical dismissals of everything that don't fit into neat categories needs occasional reevaluation. And I can't help but feel Tearaway is such a game. It embodies what I railed against for most of the Wii generation, many gimmicks for gimmicks sake. And yet despite all the odds, it works for me. To the point where I literally don't know if I'd want to play it any other way, which I guess is a me version of all those people who thought the atrocious Godfather was suddenly a good game with Wiimote controls.
The ways it works are just too numerous to really list in one overview. The radiant, phenomenal construction paper art style is one of the most see-it-to-believe-it achievements in gaming visuals in a long time. The only way to properly convey what its victories are is to actually play Tearaway. It is extremely smooth for a Vita game, has a mostly always 30fps feel and bursts out of the OLED crispness with its vibrant rainbow papercraft world, a cornucopia of vivid colors featuring locations so varied and so consistently genius to traverse that it very often feels like it is putting other games to shame. Construction paper unfurls in a captivating stop motion-esque bit of animation. Rain drops are made out of confetti. Landscape twists and twirls, flaps and folds, a phantasmagoric imagery treat that when viewed through your camera lens often seems like a surrealist painting in motion. With few exceptions and despite a supremely easy challenge, most levels are consistently enjoyable to play, featuring stunning amounts of gameplay variety and design ingenuity and more than a few hidden secrets. It feels like it's being helmed by masters who are in love with the medium, individuals whom so completely understand the core of what makes a game attractive that they might as soon well be called Nintendo. Tearaway is THAT sort of achievement.
And it reflects that claim similarly in the level of polish and care that went into every aspect of the game. It would be a fucking sin for me not to mention, for example, the fact that it has one of the greatest game soundtracks of the year, perhaps of the generation. I could tell you to listen to The Traveler, a melancholy prayer that comes out of left field within the game, sets a mood completely unexpected, and has a sound like a sort of dying chipmunk barber shop quartet. Before, inexplicably, it also becomes badass. And all of this is reflected appropriately within the narrative. I felt like fucking Rocky running up the steps in Philadelphia as my journey so perfectly harmonized with Gibbet Hill - Pilgrimage. How they STILL managed to up that a notch when this shit drops @ 1m52s. That incredibly the game has BARN INSPIRED dubstep. There is so much audial variety that there is fucking Renassaince hop. I can't even describe it better than that.
A marriage between visual (creatures and environments occasionally bob to the sounds as well), gameplay (
leading a fellow messanger out, one who has been unable to deliver his message for god knows how long
I wish I could articulate better why the summary of the gimmicks in this game finally worked for me where others did not. I wish I could explain better that the thematic underscoring of ones creativity and construction paper world made such gimmicks actually feel like a natural extension of the core game. I hope I can convey at least how any of the gimmicks - from the back touch finger to the rare use of the microphone - are never the least bit difficult or awkward to use, compounding why it slid through my proverbial donut hole. How when you get right to it, the intimacy of some of the interactions - from selfies to your finger breaking through the world to the You in the Sun - all contribute to immersing you in a narrative so specifically perfect to introducing these elements in a sensical way that you almost completely forget about it in about a half hour. It just works effectively together, or at least it does for me.
And, for the record, it also has a masterful ending to top off this sure-to-be gaming cult classic. From start to finish, there is hardly a single missed note, no matter how simple or challenging any individual moment was, it all seemed to fit perfectly into the space allotted to it, and nothing felt like it should be much of any different outside of some minor nuances. It is such a compact yet magnificently fulfilling package that I would have had no problem recommending it were it a 60 dollar game. A value is not derived purely from the hours you get, which Journey taught me. If that experience can convey something you cannot feel anywhere else and it is something you found profoundly pleasurable and moving, then it's a commodity as rare as Poudretteite. At six-to-eight hours, and probably up to ten if you really go wild with photos and secret finding as I did, there is not a single moment that overstays its welcome. It has excised any element that is unnecessary or that could be considered filling, and merely allowed simple curiosity to compel one to stay and spend more time. I could not and still cannot stop taking photos. Maybe you will take one photo and never participate in much of the creative opportunities, and in such a case I would geniunely suggest not to buy the game. But I think few people will be able to resist the disarming level of hand pulling and winking the game does at you, because it's just so effectively handled.
I am prone to hyperbole. People know that, but it's because I am passionate about games. This hobby is one element that has partially defined my life, and I think if many others on GAF are honest with themselves they would say it was true. It's extemely influential for most of us, in one way or another. I think it's a very positive force in this world, and can be art as well as just simple fun. But I will say this about Tearaway: There was a bit at the end, which articulated in a single moment (which I won't spoil) everything the game had made me feel up until that point but I couldn't put my finger on it. The only way to describe it is... it felt like there was not a single responsibility in the world. For the time I spent in this game, everything around me evaporated and I was at true peace. It's funny because the only other time I've ever felt that way was as a boy... likely when I was sitting in my underwear playing something like Super Mario Bros. 3 or Earthbound.
This is not a game that should be compared to Super Mario 64 or any other game in that way. It is a disservice to Tearaway to do so actually. It invents expectations, and it shouldn't because there should be none. There are zero other games quite like Tearaway. And that's just the way I like it.
D
Deleted member 125677
Unconfirmed Member
Thank you Amir0x!!
I think the only way to do this may be from inside the game. When you take a selfie and upload it, a smiling face icon will pop up along with the social media stuff. Tap that thing to set it.
And hey, cool costumes! You should post them in the criminally unloved costume thread.
Jigolo
Member
Cot damn
You're welcome. The game really had an effect on me...
Ditto! I can't really articulate it, but this game is just something really, really special.
HueyFreeman
Banned
Lovely impressions, Amirox.
Are those your photos by the way? Cuz they're ridiculously awesome - I had no idea the game could take photos like that.
Are those your photos by the way? Cuz they're ridiculously awesome - I had no idea the game could take photos like that.
Nocturnowl
Member
Hmm, I seem to like the game a bit more than I already did upon reading Amir0x's post, what manner of sorcery is this?
Well done, Amir0x. This game had been sitting in my backlog since it came out, but your post made me start playing. I just got to the part where you unlock the ability to jump, and I can't stop smiling. I don't know why seeing my face plastered in the Sun and on the level itself amuses me so much, but it does.
Yeah, they're all mine (in the pumpkin in the last screenshot, I actually made everything that's on the pumpkin's face). Just like the intense personalization within the game itself, I don't think posting other people's screenshots would work for me. The game always drives that feeling that you need to share your stuff with others, no matter how talented you are. It's just one of the most beautiful expressions of what gaming can do I've encountered.
For me, it's that innocence - the game is "family friendly" in the way Nintendo games are, not "kiddy" but thematically pure-hearted, as if it the developers wanted nothing more than to spread peace and love throughout the world. It's infectious, frankly, the way someone laughing at a horrible joke may cause you to laugh, even if you didn't find the joke funny yourself.
And that's not to say Tearaway is a horrible joke. It's... resplendent in every aspect. It's just hard not to love it even when you have a issue with it!
Anyway, I'm glad you guys liked the impressions. I was banned and was writing it up as I was away from GAF, because it really allowed me to focus my thoughts on the experience.
Pinko Marx
Banned
Just gunna leave these here:
Loved this game. My daughter started watching me play it about halfway through, and immediately wanted to start playing it. So I let her create a file and she went through it before I could finish it. Then I finally got to finish it, and my son then picked it up and zipped through it. "I wish it were twice as long," he told me. I think it's the first game all three of us have played to completion.
Pinko Marx
Banned
which yeti picture inparticular?
the first one I took
In the lab, when you play ball with one
behind the gate after you get chased.
Tearaway Konata Izumi, done!
Creating characters can be really challenging - I like it
My Tearaway.me page > http://tearaway.me/u/charmoyl
Running around shouldn't be gross. The character that you guide through the world moves normally compared to npc's and the environment (which is meant to have a stop motion kinda effect - perhaps that's what you're mistaking for a low framerate). Currently on my second play through and haven't noticed any frame rate drops in this game as yet. Runs smilky smooth
EDIT: Anyone know if it's possible to change your Tearaway.me profile pic? Can't seem to figure out how.
EDIT2: Soul Sacrifice Iota is born
That Konata is really cute, well done! I just got the platinum trophy a bit ago and thoroughly enjoyed the game. There's really nothing else like it, it's such a creative game.
James Sawyer Ford
Gold Member
Great impressions Amir0x, that mirrors my own for the most part. This is a possible GOTY contender for me, which speaks volumes given how much I loved The Last of Us earlier in the year. Media Molecule really has the potential to be the Nintendo-arm of Sony's first party development studios. Each one of their games keeps getting better and better, and arguably Tearaway is the best product they've put out.
I do think the title could have been even better if it had more of the traditional elements you look for (platforming challenge, for one), but overall I didn't feel like the title was greatly lacking in their absence.
Getting to experience games like Tearaway is why I play videogames to begin with -- to be fully engrossed in a world that is beautifully realized in a way that only the videogame medium can fully establish.
I'm very interested in what Media Molecule works on next for their PS4 project. In many ways I don't think Tearaway needs, or even lends itself well to, a sequel, but at the same time I'd love for its art and musical style to live on in some form or fashion for their console project. It's even more charming than LittleBigPlanet. Their artists did a phenomenal job.
If the rumors of Sony developing a VR headset are true, I think Media Molecule would be one of the best fits to exploit the technology just like they have done with Tearaway and the Vita.
I keep imagining a truly 3D / VR Tearaway-esque world, with all of its simple, yet intricate design, and how mind-blowing it would be to experience as one of the first games developed ground up for VR tech.
I do think the title could have been even better if it had more of the traditional elements you look for (platforming challenge, for one), but overall I didn't feel like the title was greatly lacking in their absence.
Getting to experience games like Tearaway is why I play videogames to begin with -- to be fully engrossed in a world that is beautifully realized in a way that only the videogame medium can fully establish.
I'm very interested in what Media Molecule works on next for their PS4 project. In many ways I don't think Tearaway needs, or even lends itself well to, a sequel, but at the same time I'd love for its art and musical style to live on in some form or fashion for their console project. It's even more charming than LittleBigPlanet. Their artists did a phenomenal job.
If the rumors of Sony developing a VR headset are true, I think Media Molecule would be one of the best fits to exploit the technology just like they have done with Tearaway and the Vita.
I keep imagining a truly 3D / VR Tearaway-esque world, with all of its simple, yet intricate design, and how mind-blowing it would be to experience as one of the first games developed ground up for VR tech.
James Sawyer Ford
Gold Member
Also, the OST is truly amazing!
The record-scratching song blew my mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTo7YHhp1dQ
The record-scratching song blew my mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTo7YHhp1dQ
The second one, yeah. I must have tried like 30 times lol
Tearaway opened my eyes to what gaming can be all about for me. Or at least, re-awoke me to the possibilities. For the entire gen, outside of maybe Super Mario Galaxy and Demon/Dark Soul's, I've never had a more burning desire to move forward to see what it next from such brilliant minds.
As you say, you imagine a 3D / VR Tearaway-esque world. And that's amazing to ponder! But for now, I will just be glad I lived long enough to experience a game that can deliver such a joyful time and such a fascinating perspective, and when I stand on top of Gibbet Hill, I can almost feel the windy confetti in my face.
So much of the music in this game is just as original as the gameplay and visual design itself - it's a joy to listen to, from start to finish. I was always wondering "what the heck musical direction will they go in next", and I was never disappointed. Also the ending "The Message" song is fucking heartwarming as fuck.
Gibbet Hill Lament - Hornpipe is my favorite though. It scales so fucking well with your
journey up Gibbet Hill itself[/url] that I was fucking bobbing my head like a psychopath the entire time. Easily the soundtrack is on par with some of the best of all time.
Chronology
Member
Just finished this a couple of minutes ago; I'm basically crying at this point. Definitely one of the best games I've played this year.
ThatStupidLion
Member
ah! finished the game.
so charming and cute.
nice little ending message.
so charming and cute.
nice little ending message.
Chance Hale
Member
Just gunna leave these here:
Gorgeous, this game is really something else.
Amazing impressions, Amir0x. You did the game great justice with your words and this part in particular resonated with me. True innocence and escapism, but not in a "get away from it all" kind of way. At that moment (I believe we're thinking about the same one!) I wanted nothing more than to share this experience and what games are capable of with those close to me. As you say, it's a very influential and potentially powerful hobby. Every once in a while we get something like this. That's not to say that I'm overly cynical of games in general; I play for enjoyment based on personal taste. But Tearaway really is something special that in most cases overcomes taste, "numbers of hours", review scores and categorisation.
My favourite track in the game. It sums up everything so perfectly!
I wrote my best friend a birthday rap along to it... That might come across as a crime against humanity for some, but I feel I did it justice. Will post the link if anyone's interested.
Tearaway makes a bro do some corny shit.
ionicbluebird
Member
I'm so jealous of you Vita owners.. I'm contemplating how to get my hands on one so I can play this game... I can't wait to see what MM has in store for PS4.
Btw, great write-up Amir0x, and thank you for introducing me to some of the music of Tearaway.. Brilliant stuff.
Btw, great write-up Amir0x, and thank you for introducing me to some of the music of Tearaway.. Brilliant stuff.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
Great read, Amir0x. I too went in expecting something like, say, Puppeteer, which was another great surprise this year, and was left mostly floored by something so different but better than my expectations.
What struck me more than anything I think was how the game managed to be a competent PS1/N64 character platformer, an oldschool Nintendo-level hardware showpiece that barely ever felt gimmicky, but also such a successfully realized execution of concept that we get totally unique kinds of agency paired with the kind of worldbuilding you expect from an open-world game. This is the rare game that delivers on its promise by shunning expectations. I think you enjoyed Tearaway more than I did, but there's no denying that for me this stands with TLoU in reopening doors that I thought closed forever thanks to being subjected to so many dreadful all-show no-substance escapades in 7th gen.
I'd add that I'm mostly immune to cloying charm, yet this game sold me in so many other ways that I warmed to its presentation within a few levels and it never lost me. It reinforced for me how the best delivery of a unique vision in this medium is through the most sincere invitation, not a cynical handout.
What struck me more than anything I think was how the game managed to be a competent PS1/N64 character platformer, an oldschool Nintendo-level hardware showpiece that barely ever felt gimmicky, but also such a successfully realized execution of concept that we get totally unique kinds of agency paired with the kind of worldbuilding you expect from an open-world game. This is the rare game that delivers on its promise by shunning expectations. I think you enjoyed Tearaway more than I did, but there's no denying that for me this stands with TLoU in reopening doors that I thought closed forever thanks to being subjected to so many dreadful all-show no-substance escapades in 7th gen.
I'd add that I'm mostly immune to cloying charm, yet this game sold me in so many other ways that I warmed to its presentation within a few levels and it never lost me. It reinforced for me how the best delivery of a unique vision in this medium is through the most sincere invitation, not a cynical handout.
Read polygon article and they said it was once a concept.
I will come at you... for a HUG.
Anyone? Please?
There is no hope of this, sadly
Tearaway would not work well on any other platform, and yet it is doomed to relative obscurity due to it
Cha
Member
All of the pictures that you posted are gorgeous!! Good summary of your experience too. I felt much the same. Really regret not buying this digitally for the Jukebox pre-order bonus, because the soundtrack is magnificent. Loved the way it progresses as you climb Giblet hill. The record scratching song(in the orchard, not the remix) was painful for me to listen to though D:
Thanks. Will post there once I've completed the next costume. This is kinda addictive.
Like this one a lot. It's difficult to get good pics of wendigos.Just gunna leave these here:
At the end of the Wendigo Fissure
I tried to take a picture of a wendigo through the fence, but one of them jumped over and wouldn't stop attacking me and this poor dude http://tearaway.me/p/1eyrx
RibbedHero
Member
I feel kinda bad now for not taking as many photos as most of you seem to have. Time for a replay with a greater focus on photography!
Snkfanatic
Banned
This game really makes me want a Vita. There were already great reasons to have one...then this dropped.