Reviews de Tearaway

Tearaway is endearingly original. Its big picture narrative is about story-telling, about how certain stories have been told to death, and how we can tell better ones. “Goblins?” the narrator asks when pondering the enemies to throw at you at the beginning. “No,” is the answer, and instead you get the Scraps, boxy, one-eyed creatures that appear to be composed of old newspaper clippings.

Everything just works so well in unison. The soundtrack is delightful and odd, at times reminiscent of Paprika’s parade fanfare with its lively horns. The world, put together in paper scraps, is unbelievable in its artistry and function. Tearaway’s paper water and ripples as you walk through it are more impressive than any realistic water graphics I’ve ever seen. The level of unique detail in the world is staggering. Every moment spent immersed in it is heartwarming. Fittingly, it feels positively handcrafted.

In a time outfitted with unnecessary amounts of punching and half-hearted shooting, Tearaway's a vivid reminder that sometimes the best things in life are also the simplest, that next-gen graphics aren't integral to video games. Tearaway's got a heart so big it barely fits into the Vita. How much you're going to enjoy this game is going to depend on how willing you are to share space in your heart with its. So, give it room. You'll be surprised by how delightful its company can be. I know I was.

The front and rear cameras are used to show you within the game and capture the real world around you, and even the humble microphone is used in a subtle, haunting way.

Understanding how you can use all of these elements to make progress, and simultaneously personalise the world around you, is an accessible challenge that any audience will appreciate. A regular playthrough will let you see about 50 percent of the game, so there's plenty to do for completists.

All of this is deserving of a Pocket Gamer Gold Award, but what puts it Tearaway on the Platinum Award level (a.k.a. the Platisphere) is the message Iota eventually delivers. Built up gently as the story unfolds, it's a remarkably human and surprisingly affecting message, delivered articulately.

Tearaway is a system seller in the genuine sense of that term: you cannot get this kind of game on any other device, and it's worth buying a Vita just to experience it.

There is much more to tell about Tearaway, but there is not much reason to write more about it here, for it is time for you to smash your piggy bank and set your GPS to the nearest game store (or go to the PSN store) . Do you have a Vita at home, so please do not do miss out on this masterpiece of a game. Do you not have a Vita, so think notifier here that finally has come a game that justifies the purchase of this machine.
Tearaway is the proof that games do not always need expensive voice actors, guns, wild action scenes and other things as we are used to in the game today, creativity and skilled programmers is enough to deliver a game that outshines most others. Tearaway is simply pure joy of playing compressed down to a size you can take with you anywhere.

Wrap Up:

Tearaway is fresh, inviting and intricate

Tearaway is a rare breed; the kind of game that was engineered to be supremely easy to fall in love with. It's not just the inherent charm of its paper world, its infinitely catchy folk-electronic soundtrack or its cast of quirky characters. It's the way the game involves you at every turn — the way the world moves when you touch it. I never felt like I was beating Tearaway as much as collaborating with it. From cover to cover, Tearway is an engrossing, spellbinding experience.

Tearaway follows in the footsteps of Gravity Rush as an example of why you should own a Vita. While it isn’t always perfect as a game, it’s an amazing experience, providing an exciting and emotional journey through a world of beauty and personality.
The Good An endearing cast of characters lead you through a wonderfully charming adventure.
The Bad Showing off your creative side via touchscreen-based crafting can be tough due to your fingers getting in the way.
The Ugly Every other game I’m playing now, in my eyes, thanks to Tearaway’s utterly gorgeous papercraft world.

Tearaway is a joy. Whether it was a riding a pig towards the sunset or playing basketball with a super-powered accordion, it never failed to make me smile. It sincerely believes that imagination really is the most important faculty, and in turn, succeeded in transporting me back to a time when I built strange worlds equipped with nothing but crayons and card. It does this by using every aspect of the Vita, crafting an experience that I can’t imagine being realised elsewhere. It might be short, but it’s very special. Please come back soon, Iota

Media Molecule has done it again with Tearaway. A paper world, genious level design, smooth gameplay and many memorable events make this a unforgettable game. If you want to get creative, the game allows you to do that, both in-game and offline. A must-have for PS Vita owners and a good reason to buy one if you don't have a PS Vita yet.

At six to seven hours, Tearaway isn’t the longest game in Vita’s library, but it packs in more joyfully realised ideas than many games manage in three or four times the runtime. It’s a beautiful, brilliant game, but it’s more than that: it’s the first great Vita game, using the console’s gimmicky featureset – its gyroscopes, cameras, touch panels and microphone – to make something that wouldn’t be possible on any other system. It’s a game that refixes Media Molecule as the misshapen jewel in Sony’s wonkily sketched crown, one that shows immersion isn’t about story or spectacle but the simple pleasure of play. And throughout it all there’s you, up in the sky, gazing benevolently down from the sun, the smile on your face forever unbroken.

Like with LittleBigPlanet, developer Media Molecule has placed player creativity at the forefront of the experience, but Tearaway is a genuine delight even without the game’s deep (if slightly imprecise) touchscreen customisation suite. With a lengthy 10-hour story, you’ll visit distinct lands, from deserts to jungles and sea-battered harbors. All of this to reach 'The You' – your own face, captured by Vita’s front facing camera and imposed in the game’s sun.

There are also a fair few hidden collectibles to find. They’re not vital, but make playing through again even more worthwhile.

Not that you’ll need an excuse to revisit: the adventure is magnificent, with Media Molecule's focus on using the various inputs ('pushing' your fingers through the world via the rear touch pad, for example) adding to what is already an excellent platformer. Its only real issue is a slight sag in the middle portion, but the quality is nonetheless high; the game simply settles into a gentle rhythm. Once it begins to build to a monumental crescendo in the final third, it will consistently amaze until the beautiful final scene, which is delivered with such delicacy that it makes for one of the most memorable story endings of the year.

Tearaway is a beautiful title. It represents the importance of stories, manages to create friendships, and is capable of exciting and entertaining regardless of its simplicity

It's also a celebration - of crafts and craftsmanship, of players and protagonists and the connections they share, of journeys and endings. You'll put the Vita down and reflect upon the time you spent shooting hoops with gophers, sucking up enemies with a squeezebox, reuniting a monster with its mother, and gambolling through pastel fields astride a pig you've just given a homebrew makeover: fond memories indeed.

Yet if there's one moment that perhaps sums up Tearaway best, it's a piece of narration from the inimitable Richard Ridings, a line that seems to double as a mission statement for Media Molecule. "Embracing new ideas!" he shouts. "You can't say we're not trying!" Even among those who find Tearaway too slight or too easy, there can surely be few arguments with that.
The verdict

A gorgeous, inventive adventure, Tearaway isn't just Vita's best new game, it's one of the most original things you'll play all year.

Vita's best game to date
Hugely imaginative
Astonishing aesthetic

Combat could be deeper
Not particularly challenging

Despite the open world, Tearaway remains a fairly linear experience. Every environment has a series of collectibles, which encourage the player to go back and explore areas again after all of Iota's abilities have been unlocked. The game is great at constantly giving you new abilities to experiment with, but all in all Tearaway, while very special, is a fairly short-lived handheld adventure.

Brevity is a small complaint when weighed against a journey that elegantly showcases the Vita's unique control options in new ways: such as the camera that films you, the fingers that are used to reach into Tearaway's world and the touchpad that allows for creation of your own paper decorations. They are all special and are natural fits with the universe that Media Molecule has created.

Tearaway is beautiful, well designed, fun to play and has managed to preserve the childish joy of creation in its design. For a PlayStation Vita owner, this is a must buy.

And the game’s quality is exemplified by the final moments, as the message is delivered. It’s such a simple idea, but I found it catching me by surprise after the various tangents the game had taken, and was just created so beautifully and perfectly.
What’s Good:

A fantastic art style and world created from paper.
A story that heads in several interesting an unexpected areas from the opening in Valleyfold.
Taking pictures of every beautiful little thing.
Precise controls and snappy combat keep the gameplay light and fun.

What’s Bad:

Some later sections could be quite hard for a younger audience and small hands.
The in game papercraft creating tools felt imprecise to create quality items.
Occasional side missions broken by dumb AI, requiring you to replay the area.

Tearaway is the kind of game that the PS Vita has demanded since launch, something crafted and tailored to its form and its capabilities, but rather than feeling forced, creating an easy sense of wonder fun and inventiveness. Continuing Media Molecule’s push to unleashing our creativity, it also features a story, a world and creations which delight at every turn, no matter how old you are.

Tearaway is a handheld masterpiece, and a shining example of how unique hardware features should be handled. Its short running time is mostly overshadowed by its compelling mix of platforming, combat, and personalisation – a brilliantly crafted gameplay combination that'll keep you glued to the wonderful world that Media Molecule has created. This papercraft adventure is easily one of the best that you'll unfold on Sony's portable system.

So often, games make you feel like you’re not participating in the action. Strange, really, when that’s the one element of this medium that it holds over other avenues of entertainment. Tearaway, on the other hand, goes one step further and allows you to be You. Helping Iota reach new heights, or assisting a friendly NPC, is even more wonderful when you catch a glimpse of your face, smiling down upon the papercraft world. Trust me, that’s exactly what you’ll be doing.

For the entire duration of my time with Tearaway, I was beaming from ear-to-ear at the magnificence taking place in the palm of my hands. It has taken quite a while, but at long last the Vita has an original IP that it can truly call a killer app. Apparently, we’re currently ushering in a new generation of home consoles, at the moment, but I was too busy revelling in the breathtaking world of Tearaway to take notice.

All of this is well and good but what it really boils down to is that Tearaway is just fun. Thoughtful, engaging, and charming in a way that many recent games haven't been, this beautiful world will appeal to lovers of platformers both old and new. And yes, it's a PlayStation Vita exclusive and sure, lots of people don't own a Vita, but the game itself has integrated the PlayStation Vita's functionality so well that housing it on any other platform seems wrong.

Tearaway is, hands down, the most inspired game I have ever played on the Vita, one that makes the player a massive part of the experience and, in the end, delivers a (literal) message that we’d all do well to take to heart. Don’t let its bright colors and tooth-achingly sweet characters fool you. Once Tearaway gets rolling, it offers a challenging platforming experience full of twists, turns, unexpected delights and even a few surprising set pieces.

Tearaway's most lasting feature is not within the game itself, but through the inclusion of printable blueprints. Through standard progression and by taking photographs of certain objects, you earn blueprints that allow you to create your own origami editions of your favourite elements from within the game. Be warned, though, that even when you follow the instructions, some of these are incredibly tricky propositions, but if you've got the patience, it's worth the effort to take the theme of connecting worlds to that next step. The fact that it's so tempting to spend time creating these paper models is a testament to how appealing and attractive Tearaway is. It's just a shame that one of the Vita's best experiences feels as long as a piece of paper is thick.

The Good
Wonderfully charming, immediately engaging visuals
Succeeds in creating a connection between the real and virtual worlds
Feels like the most natural use of the Vita's input options to date
Customisation is simple and fun, and enhances diversity
Ability to print blueprints of in-game objects is a cute and fun idea

The Bad
It's all over too soon, and there are too few reasons to return

Combat could stand to be stronger too, and while the game periodically locks you into an area while boxy Scraps swarm around until you dispatch them, it never feels like the developer's warm, fuzzy heart is truly invested in this aspect of the gameplay. The action isn't bad, it's just standard dodge-grab-and-throw fare that contrasts badly with the inventiveness elsewhere. You bash enemies because that's what games do. You get the feeling that if there was a way to generate the same excitement from cuddling enemies and making them a nice organic quinoa salad, Media Molecule would have done that instead.

There are also times when the game gets a little too enamoured with the Vita's multiple inputs and control options, leading to sections where you're using sticks and face buttons, as well as both touchscreens, and it becomes a frustrating fumble. The camera isn't great, and a reliance on some cheap instant kill obstacles makes this otherwise perfectly kid-friendly game just a little too annoying for youngsters to play alone.

These complaints are fleeting in nature and don't do much to dim Tearaway's enchanting glow, however. They certainly won't stop you reaching the end. It's not a long game, but for every section of simple platforming there's a moment of pure creative delight that leaves most other games looking stuffy and sterile, locked away behind their joypads and glass, away from your prodding, inquisitive fingers. Tearaway's tactile world may be no more real, but while you're under its spell it certainly doesn't feel that way.

Tearaway really is the game Vita has been crying out for. It feels like a bridge between indie and traditional, super-polished AAA game design, something reinforced by both the length of the story and the price. There’s genuine charm and ingenuity here, and my only real criticism is that I want more of it. So will you, when you put yourself in the centre of Tearaway’s magical world.

Tearaway’s is a charming world to inhabit, and it’s the perfect host for Media Molecule’s insuppressibly playful spirit. Like this year’s early highlight Ni No Kuni, it’s a great game to share with little ones in your life. Other than the occasional sensation of its design playing for novelty value, combat is the only aspect in which it puts a foot wrong. In a game bursting with invention, Tearaway’s head-jumping kills feel uninspired and unsatisfying, and a predictable array of foes does little to alleviate that. Good job combat’s something of a rare occurrence, then. All Vita’s unique control aspects are exploited brilliantly within another beguiling Media Molecule universe.

For all its marvelous attention to detail, Tearaway seems to forget about its nature as a game. Fighting the scraps never becomes fun, even once you've acquired the concertina that allows you to suck them in and shoot them at each other. You gain new papery abilities as you progress, like curling up into a ball and rolling around, but they don't substantially alter or augment the overall experience. The construction paper motif is always wonderful to witness, as levels play with notions of folding, furling, sticking and floating, but the gameplay part of Tearaway never really changes all that much. As a sort of interactive art exhibit, Tearaway is delightful. As a game, it's disappointingly one-note.

Tearaway is cheerful, clever, and colorful, but never quite attains the masterful blend of art and gameplay exhibited by developer Media Molecule's previous efforts, the LittleBigPlanet games. It's crammed full of wonderful ideas that can't quite compete with a control scheme that – apologies – looks good on paper but doesn't work well in practice. Tearaway has a big heart ... if only your fingers didn't keep getting in the way.