Welcome to our review of Tinykin, a game that fills the gap left by the abscence of a new Pikmin or Chibi-Robo game!
Milo arrives on Earth to find that he’s way too small, everybody’s gone and a day hasn’t passed since 1991! Find a way home through a sprawling ant-sized metropolis, and unravel Earth’s biggest mystery! Grab a Tinykin to help out and collect millions of items throughout the game in this collect versus platforming game.
Tinykin is literally a blend of many things that have been done before and yet, it just works. Take the Tinykin or should we call them pikmin instead, they are unique to every room/location you venture off to. If you have played Pikmin, you know the mechanics, use one type to do one thing like pushing or heavy lifting, another Tinykin will then do the exploding and clearing obstacles, … It is all very familiar yet done so well.
There is also a gliding mechanic, the more powerful you make it, the longer you can fly and yes, you will need it and yes, it has been very well balanced though I do think the first upgrade might feel a little too much work, but it is very rewarding. Basically, you will need to collect a 1000 bits and sell those to a vendor, nothing hard in itself, there are plenty of bits to be found, but it just feels like you are entering a collect-a-thon rather than a game. I just explored every nook and cranny and eventually, thanks to the side missions, I was able to get my upgrade and fly to the part where I needed to be. Very reminiscing of Chibi Robo, this part of the game, again nothing wrong there.
Storywise, it is what it is, games like these tend to focus more on the gameplay and even though Tinykin really tries its best to break this trend, its life hangs on by a thread. Luckily the graphics, this feels like someone from the decent cartoon network animators got involved and just almost made it Disney’esque, but the good kind, not the behemoth company ignoring human rights haha…
As a whole, this is a wholesome game, see what I did there? Tinykin actually works very well but it is a game where you can’t just get some playtime, you really have to make sure you got the time needed to play. Personally I love the atmosphere and the drawing style combined with the collecting and overal atmosphere is really great. Would I change things to the game? Maybe a little less collecting as that got a little overwhelming at first.
When I found the guy to sell my bits to, I was at 140 bits, him telling me I had to get a 1000… It felt out of reach and if not for my review purposes, I may not have dedicated all the effort to collect everything. Yes, I was trying to grab everything, but would I really go that far if not for my review? I am not a typical 100% player and I usually drop out after the campaign or main storyline. Aside from Ghostwire, I havent gone 100% in a few years.
