When I reviewed Tearaway on PlayStation Vita back in 2013, I loved it, giving it a score of 9.3 (‘Amazing’). Here’s what I wrote:
“Tearaway is a joy. Whether it was 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... 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.”
Tearaway Unfolded is a different experience, though. While the skeleton of the original can still be detected, Unfolded is best thought of as part-remake, part-adaptation. And it does a great job of realising the potential of its new hardware: familiar environments are generously expanded, made more bustling and beautiful; instead of the Vita’s assorted cameras and touch screens, the peculiarities of the DualShock 4 are celebrated in novel and enjoyable ways. The adaptations are smart, and go someway to realising the core experience on another, very different platform. Yet not all of the changes work as well. So much new content is added, the overall experience is altered, and the intimate charm of the original is lost in translation.
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“Tearaway is a joy. Whether it was 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... 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.”
Tearaway Unfolded is a different experience, though. While the skeleton of the original can still be detected, Unfolded is best thought of as part-remake, part-adaptation. And it does a great job of realising the potential of its new hardware: familiar environments are generously expanded, made more bustling and beautiful; instead of the Vita’s assorted cameras and touch screens, the peculiarities of the DualShock 4 are celebrated in novel and enjoyable ways. The adaptations are smart, and go someway to realising the core experience on another, very different platform. Yet not all of the changes work as well. So much new content is added, the overall experience is altered, and the intimate charm of the original is lost in translation.
Continue reading…
Continue reading...