Tearaway Unfolded is a remake of the fantastic Tearaway from the Vita. The thing that should be emphasized is that Unfolded is not a lazy remaster or port of the handheld game, it is a fully fledged remake with expanded features, new environments and revamped gameplay to adapt to the PS4's hardware. Tearaway Unfolded is a great game to showcase the Dualshock 4 controller, as it seeks to use all the features of the controller in innovative ways, similar to how it utilized all of the control inputs of the Vita in the original. Once you start up the game, you can either pick Iota or Atoi as the main character.
Right off the bat, you are introduced to, and allowed, a huge amount of freedom in customization of your character. You can change the color, facial features, stamps and even draw your own shapes to place on your character. The unique feature of Tearaway Unfolded is the papercraft world that this game takes place in. Everything from the environments to the characters and animals are designed such that theoretically, you can recreate everything with papercraft models in the real world. However, the design is not as impressive just because we have already seen it on the Vita, and it's now familiar.
The environments look stunning, with tiny touches here and there to really make it believable that it's all made of paper. From the rolling paper waves to the flat-looking flames and crinkled character models, Tearaway Unfolded does not disappointing in this area. If you have played the Vita version, you'd notice a fair few of the environments are carried over. Several sidequests are also repeated here, which means the game may not be as fun and feels more repetitive if you have already played the Vita version. That said, areas are expanded to be much larger, and some of the open areas are absolutely huge. The game is still linear, although this is not a bad thing. The redesigned sections and even completely new levels are more prevalent towards the end of the game.
The very core of the platforming gameplay remains the same, as Iota or Atoi is able to run and jump around places. The jump abilities is unlocked two levels into the game, so at least it does not feel as long as a wait as the original. The rest of the controls utilizes all of the Dualshock 4's unique features, and not surprisingly, the developers have done a fantastic job of making them not feel that intrusive or overly gimmicky. One of the cool things is that you can "shine" the controller's lightbar into the screen by pressing the shoulder trigger button. You can move the light using the sixaxis motion and the motion sensitivity is just perfect, it feels as if you are aiming your light into the screen.
Obviously, the controller light feature can brighten up dark areas but it also allows you to blind enemies and change the environment at selected areas. The side effect of this is that a lot more environments take place in darker areas, so the game doesn't have the opportunity to show off its bright and colorful design as often as it could. Pressing the touchpad button will make drums vibrate within the world. This is required for various platforming challenges, and can come in handy during battles. You still have to take your right hand off the face buttons though, which can make some platforming awkward if you have to use various features at the same time.
Swiping the touchpad will create gusts of winds. These winds can unfold or fold up paper bridges and platforms, as well as assisting in battle by blowing away enemies. Iota or Atoi have the ability to pick up animals, enemies, rocks and the like, then throw them. Later on, a feature is unlocked where you can "throw" the objects into your controller. It's really cool the first time this happens because you can shake the controller to rattle the object inside (thanks to the speaker and vibration motors in the controller, it completes the illusion that something is actually in it).
Once an animal is "inside" your controller, you can also swipe the touchpad to stroke the animal and finally, you can fire it back into the screen against enemies or targets, which you can aim by using the motion controls. Once again, this feels natural and intuitive. The last gameplay element is motion control. Motion controls are usually the worst in games as it gets in the way of the game and can usually be done better with traditional controls. Motion controls are introduced in the last few levels of the game, and are used to move platforms. While it is passable, it can be annoying sometimes when you have to twist your controller to an awkward angle, jump and move at the same time.
Pig riding levels return but they're tame and predictable compared to all the other things you get to do. You'll eventually get a weapon which can suck up items and fire it right back but in a weird design choice, you lose the weapon soon after you gain it. Perhaps the best inclusion is the paper plane. In a few levels, you get to craft yourself a paper plane and fly around the area. The controls takes some getting used to but it's a great feeling and emphasizes the larger scale of this world. All of these features combine to make an enjoyable platforming game, however, one of the only blemishes is that sometimes, it's hard to tell what you have to do in order to proceed to the next section of the game.
At many points in the game, you get to draw something and it'll appear in the world, from snowflakes to fish to storm clouds, it will influence the world making every player's game slightly different. This sense of ownership is welcomed. In order to draw, you use the touchpad to drawn an outline. It controls better than expected but the touchpad is too small for any accuracy and oftentimes, you'll find you accidentally stray just outside the touchpad's area and the game automatically cuts out your outline and materialize it. You use the motion control to move various parts around to combine them into your object, which like all the other motion controls in the game, worlds surprisingly well.
Throughout your adventure, you'll often be forced into battles against Scraps, which are the villains. New types are introduced gradually, including ones that can shoot projectiles and others that bounce you off. You can use various ways to defeat them such as picking them up and throwing them against each other, getting things to crush them or blowing them away. The combat is not Tearaway Unfolded's best element, especially when it throws huge numbers at you and it's too clunky, which causes multiple deaths. Thankfully, at least there are no penalties for dying.
All the new stuff and redesign means that the game is now twice as long as the original, but this is not a good thing as there are times where it feels padded out and overly long. The story is about Iota or Atoi as they travel through the papercraft world to deliver a message to the player. They help many characters during their travels. It is less charming than the original because there is too much filler in between story cutscenes. They increased the amount of levels but did not proportionally increase the amount of story content. You will end up forgetting what you were doing just because you spend a few levels without story cutscenes.
The extra content results in a less personal story and the ending does not touch your heart as much as the original did. However, it'll be interesting to see whether players who have not played the original will feel the same way when there are no comparisons. One of the most disappointing aspects of Tearaway Unfolded are the glitches. They are not game-breaking but are annoying nevertheless. You will have your character or enemies get stuck behind an object and cannot get out. This is especially annoying when this blocks progression and thus need to restart from the last checkpoint. The camera is quite horrid at times, which is disappointing in this day and age.
The camera often clips against objects and obscures the screen. At other times, it is simply at a horrible fixed camera angle which makes jumping onto those small platforms much harder than it should. After you finish the game, you can then replay any chapter through the menu selection. There are massive loading times between selecting a chapter and actually being able to play it. Further making this worse are the unskippable cutscenes, even after finishing the game! This is inexcusable especially with the huge amount of collectibles this game has.
There are way too many collectibles ranging from Hidden Presents, Extra-things-to-do (mini-sidequests), Misplaced Gopher (horrible escort missions where if you die, you fail), confetti, Scraps to defeat and papercraft models to find. In each chapter, you will have to scour every nook and cranny, the worst offender is the confetti as there are a few hundred in each chapter and find the last one or two can be a big pain. Overall, Tearaway Unfolded remains to be a fantastically fun game. It utilizes and introduces you to each of the Dualshock 4's features in unique and innovative ways. It is a great platformer and while it doesn't reach the heights of the Vita original, it is a fantastically fun game. It's just such a shame that Tearaway Unfolded turned out to be such a commercial failure.
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For other game reviews, have a look at this page.
For the review of the Tearaway Unfolded Special Edition, which included the plushie, check out this page.