The best part of the entire game for me was taking photos with the camera as well as making my own paper designs. There are parts of the game where the characters will ask the player to design something for them. You can use the PS Vita’s touchscreen to draw just about any shape you can think of and the character will love anything you came up with. Even though the character requested for me to draw a crown, I ended up drawing a banana instead and he was still satisfied with it. You can also decorate characters with random stickers and objects you’ve created too. Taking photos of the creations you’ve made and sharing them with the online community made me laugh a few times…
Another great feature of this game is that you can find instructions on how to make your own paper creations in real life. All you have to do is take a photo of a white object in the game. Taking a photo of the white object turns it into color, but it also gives you instructions on how to make the paper design yourself. Obviously Origami takes skill and patience so I’ve yet to make anything myself at this stage. Still if you’re artistic enough, you can create lots of things such as a paper squirrel, scarecrow and lots of other things that appear in this game.
Tearaway is a fun game, but it isn’t without its flaws. Personally, I felt the game to be too easy compared to any of the LittleBigPlanet games. The puzzles and overall platform-game elements weren’t so hard and I rarely felt challenged in this game. As aforementioned, combat is way too easy because there are no consequences if you die. You will just restart at the exact place you left off. Another thing I didn’t like about the game was the weird soundtrack. There were a few pieces of music I liked, but the majority of the music sounded quite odd. It’s hard to describe what it sounded like because it was music I’d never really heard before…
Another thing that Tearaway falls short on is extra features and content. The longevity of the LittleBigPlanet series was wonderful because there were multiplayer modes and new content created from the active LBP community. Even the LittleBigPlanet game on PS Vita had multiplayer modes and user-created levels. Tearaway however offers nothing apart from the short single player campaign. Even though I liked the single player story, I felt a bit deflated when I finished it because there wasn’t anything else I could do other than play over the same levels again…
Tearaway is a unique and fun little game for the PS Vita. If you loved any of the LittleBigPlanet games, you’ll love the charm and humor that Tearaway brings to the table too. The controls are excellent as is the visual presentation too. The only things that bring the game down are the fact that the game offers nothing else outside of the short single player story. Tearaway would have been better if there were more things to do and if it was longer too.
[Editor’s Note: Tearaway was reviewed on the PS Vita platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]
