WHAT A CHARMING “LITTLE” GAME
I have a lot of thoughts about Tinykin and they are all positive. It’s sometimes hard to write positive reviews because I want to try to remain somewhat objective in my criticism… but I loved Tinykin from beginning to end and I think it may be one of the best 3D platformers ever made. Is it going to dethrone whatever 3D Mario title is coming to your mind as you read this? Probably not, but when the art design, the level design, the music, and the gameplay come together perfectly it is hard not to sound like one is falling into hyperbole. I went in expecting an indie take on Pikmin, and what I got was one of the best 3D platformers I have ever played.
Tinykin is presented with 3D environments and 2D characters, not dissimilar to Paper Mario in a way. The art style looks like a modern cartoon and the character design is really great. The various other characters are all different types of bugs but the ingenious characterizations of them come out in their animations and writing. Shieldbugs for example have tiny heads on their wide bodies so their emotions are shown on their stomachs which feature a face like pattern, while ants are very emotive in the traditional sense. Dung beetles are timid and wide eyed and speak softly in comparison to their partying neighbors, the silverfish, who come off like they may have huffed a little Raid in their spare time. Each character gets their own personality down to the Tinykin that help you. The Tinykin are such a simple design but they are adorable and I want one of each. Even the main character Milo has a great design and throughout the game there are cutscenes that are just 2D animations of Milo meeting each type of Tinykin and they are so well done I would think this was a high budget cartoon tie-in game.
PLATFORMS: SWITCH, XB1, XSX, PS4, PS5, PC
MSRP: $24.99
PRICE I’D PAY: $24.99
The world of Tinykin takes place in a house where Milo is very small in a regular sized world. It’s unfortunately an easy way for me to like the game because I am a sucker for this concept, but thankfully Tinykin does it really well. 3D platforming in a game where the main character is smaller than a single stair step has each level starting off with basic explorations and explodes into grinding spider webs across the tops of levels to move around quickly. Because the resident bugs have had free reign of the house for some time basic items have been turned into ramps and buildings and farmland (I’m not kidding, the kitchen level features a farm). For example, the inside of an acoustic guitar has become a fancy jazz club. It’s unnecessary from a game design level as just a hidden collectible inside the guitar would suffice, but on a creative world building level it’s fantastic to see every corner of these rooms/levels have an in-world reason.
Throughout the levels the music constantly is switching to keep things lively and to fit the mood and all of it is great with my only note being that it isn’t the most memorable music likely because it isn’t composed as simplistic hooks and is far more complex and layered, but definitely worth listening to outside of just playing the game if video game soundtracks are something one listens to like myself. I recommend listening to Foliana Heights as it is one of my favorite tracks and shows what I’m sort of talking about with the music. Composer Alexis Laugier chose to give Tinykin this very large scale and epic soundtrack to a game about scaling the kitchen counter and I feel it necessary to call out how good it is.
(Slight deviation here and a personal gripe/hope about another game series that has nothing to do with Tinykin, but I have not loved the Ratchet & Clank OSTs since David Bergeaud stopped composing them. Alexis Laugier would be a perfect fit in my opinion because he blends symphonic and electronic elements together in very similar ways to Bergeaud. If I had to point at a game whose soundtrack was similar to Tinykin’s it would be Ratchet & Clank.)
Speaking of how good something is… the gameplay. It feels good to play. There are games that control well but still don’t feel good. Tinykin is not complex and very intuitive and responsive and all the other positive things I can say that I can’t find the words for as I write this. The platforming is pretty basic but some levels require the hovering technique to make it to certain areas which can be upgraded using nectar, the main collectible of the game. Falling from heights can lead to a quick death but the game doesn’t punish the player for it and using the hovering technique (a bubble) can help stop an untimely end. Grinding rails and moving around on the bar of soap speeds up navigating the levels which makes tracking down missing collectibles easy.
Outside of collecting nectar the primary goals of each stage are solving problems for the bug folk. Some need specific items brought places, others need certain tasks done, and Milo needs the help of the Tinykin to get the tasks done. I don’t want to spoil the variants of Tinykin so I’ll only talk about the first two types in detail. The primary Tinykin simply lift things and carries them. Some items can be carried by a single Tinykin while others require groups of Tinykin and those items will be carried to the destination before those Tinykin rejoin Milo. Exploding Tinykin are used to blow things up… not surprising outside of the fact that those Tinykin don’t come back but they seem to enjoy exploding so it’s not sad. A later Tinykin types change how platforming works and I found myself blown away with how awesome that concept was because the last two are mainly for puzzle solving. The Tinykin feel more like an extension of the player instead of a troop the the player dictates actions to like Pikmin, but there is no combat in Tinykin so the feeling of helplessness that is in Pikmin would have no place here. Like Pikmin though, Tinykin have to be found, which is a way the game controls movement through the levels which are open but also guide the player through by limiting options early on. Tinykin are also timid so they don’t leave the rooms they are found in apparently (I appreciate when games give lore reasons to simple gameplay aspects).
I would talk about the story but outside of simple details around the world when playing the levels, most of the story comes in right at the end of the game in what I felt was pretty sad for a game this happy. It has a happy ending though and I did like it. There’s a lot to be enjoyed by both kids and adults in Tinykin. It’s on Game Pass while I write this but I would absolutely buy this game again on Switch just to have it on the go so I could play it all again. I have not had this much fun with a 3D platformer since Super Mario Odyssey or Bowser’s Fury. I hope we see more of the Tinykin in the future because I think there’s a lot more we could see them do in a much longer, bigger experience.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
