A cute 2D side-scroller, Tiny Thor blends a nostalgic strategy to recreation building with influences taken from Norse mythology. You play because the titular younger Thor, aged eight. Your father Odin items you the enduring hammer Mjölnir in your birthday and you might be inspired to go play within the woods with it earlier than your get together.
Within the woods, you encounter a mysterious stranger who tells you that an evil bee queen is plotting to assault your village. The primary part of the sport sees you traverse her lair to hunt her down and defeat her as the primary of quite a few bosses. As soon as she is defeated, you be taught that the stranger was the trickster Loki and that your actions have shattered the bridge resulting in Asgard. The remainder of the sport sees you journey by way of numerous areas of the map on a MacGuffin hunt for the 4 runes that may restore the Bifröst.
The primary few ranges are pretty intuitive, with controls which are straightforward to be taught. The primary time a brand new motion is accessible, directions noting the button or combo seem within the nook of the display. When you’ve carried out a transfer as soon as, the sport doesn’t maintain your hand each time. However it’s straightforward sufficient to guess when a wall is likely to be collapsible or a creature is likely to be an enemy you must assault.
The extent design evokes an actual sense of nostalgia, with daring, vibrant colours in a 16-bit model. It’s important to be careful for enemies, leap over obstacles or destroy them by throwing Mjölnir, and gather gems alongside the way in which. Blue gems are pretty frequent and could be exchanged for power-ups. Crimson gems are uncommon, typically hidden in secret places, and unlock bonus ranges that problem your expertise.
As you get nearer to the boss of every part, there are pretty nicely laid clues about which expertise will probably be required to win. The bosses themselves have attention-grabbing designs and distinct preventing types, which match the formulaic nature of old style bosses. Every time you defeat a boss, you retrieve one of many lacking runes and unlock a brand new ability.
These expertise aren’t terribly unique. With Norse mythology as the sport’s premise, there may be a whole lot of scope right here for cool, uncommon mechanics. As a substitute, you be taught to double leap and climb partitions and different pretty frequent side-scrolling mechanics. These all simply might’ve been launched on the way in which to the primary boss, which might have left room to determine extra fantastical and sumptuous talents which are extra befitting the God of Thunder coming of age.
The Mjölnir mechanic is probably probably the most distinctive ingredient of the sport, however continues to be a reasonably customary projectile weapon. You management the angle at which you throw it, however in any other case the one management you have got over it’s to summon it again. Definitely Odin’s description of Mjolnir as “the hammer that by no means misses its goal” will solely apply to probably the most expert gamers. It’s positively an attention-grabbing selection that it bounces off the nook of the display, which makes for some cool methods of fixing specific issues.
Even then, it may be irritating as a result of awkward controls. There are many obstacles that require a degree of precision that the controls will not be notably suited to. It doesn’t assist that mechanics that make different platformers a bit extra fluid – similar to with the ability to seize onto ledges – aren’t current in Tiny Thor. The seize perform for swinging vines that does exist continues to be clunky. You may’t management when the seize occurs and there’s solely a small window the place Thor gained’t sail straight previous regardless of seemingly being shut sufficient to seize. There are additionally some minor glitches that trigger Thor to immediately seem previous an impediment and find yourself trapped on the sting of the display.
These aren’t game-breaking points, however they’re annoying. General, the sport is first rate. The design is beautiful and it embraces nostalgia actually successfully. With the suitable mindset, even the awkward controls can really feel like a tribute to early video games. Nevertheless, it does really feel like Tiny Thor suffers from missed potential on the subject of the motion that would have made it really feel extra such as you’re really on the core of the Norse pantheon.