Tearaway is one of those games where the developers took a perfectly charming narrative-driven 3D platformer that they just made and decided "hmm the run time is a little low, we should add more collectables to pad out the gameplay" so now it's a collectathon against its will.

This game works in direct conflict with itself. The art style is gorgeous and I love this papercraft world, its paper foldout inhabitants, and its deliberate use of stop motion-esque animation frame delays to give it that tactile feel. I'm even finding myself invested in the whimsical "fix the hole in the sky to stop the newspaper scraps" plot. The problem is, while I'm in this world, the game wants me to pick up every piece of tiny floating confetti or else the giant numbers on my multiple pause menus are not going to read 100% and I'm not going to get the shiny papercraft medal next to the level's name.

I'm not a person that hates 3D Collectathons. My favorite games are colorful, bouncy 3D platformers where I collect all the things so that the save file reads 100%. I gave Donkey Kong 64 a 4/5 on this very website. You know things are dire when I've been forged in the fires of the most asinine N64 and Gamecube-era collectathons and even I'M looking at these confetti requirements and going "Really..? We're doing this?"

The main reason is the bugs. Similar to Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet, this game has a rich, wonderful art style full of paper scraps, wind physics, and billowing pathways that sadly also means that level geometry isn't as solid as you would like. I've gotten myself stuck on at least ten separate occasions during my playthrough for doing things like "Jump in the wrong place and land where I'm not supposed to", "Accidentally push an enemy into the wall with a gust of wind and the door will not open since the enemy didn't die so I have to reset a checkpoint", or even "accidentally holding onto the control stick during a cutscene only for my character to instantly die from a bottomless pit because they somehow phased through reality during a camera cut". I like it when collectathons are, you know, not buggy.

When I'm just bouncing around in a level and not paying attention to weird little collectables, I'm also not going to pay attention to things like a slightly unforgiving camera or my little guy regularly getting stuck on level geometry because the game is charming enough that I forgive a few minor glitches. But this game makes me pay attention to these things because I have to do escort missions that tell me "you have to physically go into the start menu and restart the level if you die at all during this escort mission", only for me to get trapped in the walls and then plummet through the ground because the game wants me to hold a gopher with separate physics in my hands.

This game puts a fun emphasis on crafting the world around you, but then revisiting certain things in case you want to change the designs means sitting through a lot of unskippable events and talking. If I want to re-customize the Escort Mission Gopher, I have to replay half of a 30 minute level and then hope I don't screw up the Escort Mission I get one shot at. I just wanted to give the gopher dragon wings. Why is this so weirdly tedious.

It sounds like I'm complaining a lot for a game that I'm giving 3 stars, but that's because I really like the game that's buried underneath the garbage. It's just buried under a lot of garbage and makes me look at things within this game and going "Man, Donkey Kong 64 did this better".

Ending still made me cry tho.

Tearaway is visually spectacular but ultimately rather joyless to play.

The game begins with a lame skit making fun of cable, the game's enemies are scraps of newspaper. There are "no stories" left in the "story box" of television. A "real" story can begin with the introduction of the capital "Y" You, the player. You pull the trigger on the controller and shine your light on the world. "The message must become a messenger"; the player input needs representation.

Tearaway nakedly admits virtually every problem I have with video games today. Games are for "stories" now, yet mere interactivity of any kind is supposedly enough to heighten vapid, pulpy, or outright hollow material. The player has nothing interesting to do in this world, nothing interesting for their character to do, but you can do something, and the game will never let your forget it.

You spend the first half hour or so not even being able to jump. Your character does not in any way interact with the enemies; you (the You) interact with the enemies directly, hypnotizing them with your motion controlled light. The most tactile thing in the game is using the touch pad to open a box from time to time. You pick up collectables and the sound effect for it is a nigh imperceptible rustling of paper.

It is appropriate that the main collectable and currency of the game is confetti. That represents very well what this game is: something shiny and colorful that you can periodically throw around for literal seconds of shallow entertainment.

Tearaway Unfolded improves in some aspects over the original Vita release, namely graphics and performance and a bit of expanded scope. The Vita game made better use of the hardware features to create a meaningful and personal experience that the PS4 game doesn't quite reach despite trying a few things with the PS4 controller.

At any rate, this is a good 3D platformer that takes place in a unique setting and oozes charm, so if you are a fan of the genre is definitely worth checking out. Oh, and photo mode is excellent and a time sink with all the features and filters, it's almost its own game mode.

One of the most aesthetically pleasing and mechanically creative games I've played. This game should've come bundled with every PS4 the same way Wii Sports was with the Wii and Nintendo Land was with the Wii U, as it's the only game I can think of that successfully showcases every unique feature of the system. Taking a fully papercraft world and using that setting to allow the player to craft elements of it from the shape of the snowflakes, to their outfit design, to the look of their paper airplane, is just a brilliant creative design choice. It's perfect for people like me who look at something like the level creator in LittleBigPlanet and get overwhelmed by the possibilities of a completely blank slate. This game offers you just enough creative freedom within its well crafted linear story that it's super easy and fun for anyone to get into. A very light hearted and charming experience from beginning to end, I very much recommend this underrated gem to anyone with a PS4.