I always rented the original Ty on GameCube back in the day, but due to my limited patience, never really got past the first level. Flash forward 22 years , and I found a fun game despite obvious budgetary issues the game had back in the day. Very short for a 3D platformer, coming in at only 9 levels plus a final boss trial. Each level is big enough to house multiple collectibles, but not too big as to be too intimidating with how much you need to collect. Things are pretty expertly packed and you'll more often than not constantly be finding things you need to progress, making the collecting itself feel less tedious. There's only one world where the level design and collectible placement just don't work well at all and that's the first Snow world Snow Problem. Other than that, each world has an enjoyable enough gimmick whether your escorting a high society, but prissy Gecko back to his swamp home because he's scared of the dark, or your in a forest maze trying to escape all the while a Lyrebird is constantly feeding you bad advice. The level worlds do unfortunately start to repeat about halfway through, so you do get the same Plains/Jungle/Beach themes repeated twice (3 times for the jungle) but there is juuuust enough tweaking to them to make them feel different. Like a 2nd Snow level, but it's been ravaged by a forest fire next to a ski hill. Characters overall are designed well, but aren't too memorable, but are far from boring or out of place. The problem is you just don't spend that much time with them, so they're a bit undercooked, but have potential to be better in the sequel. The biggest problem with the game is its pacing. At first it's fine. 3 levels and a boss. Beat the boss and get one of 5 Talismen. The problem comes from there only being 9 levels and a final boss, so after that 3rd boss battle, the game shifts into overdrive and sets its story and pacing to X2 speed as it races to the finish. While the final boss encounter isn't bad, it's still missing maybe an extra phase where you take on the main Antagonist head on. As it is, the ending good enough, but a bit underwhelming and rushed. Overall though, I still had a fun time with this game. Definitely give it a try if you have foggy memories of it, but haven't played it since the 2000's. There's some charm in there still. I would wait for the HD version to go on sale though. $30 is just a bit steep for what's offered.

Why did I remember this game being so mediocre? It's actually good!

Tight controls which compliment a distinct gameplay loop; A charming Outback aesthetic and lovely soundtrack bolstered by strong enemy, character, and level design; and a good variety in terms of weapons and gameplay styles. It feels great to re-visit an old game and realize it's way better than you remember it.

However, not all of my initial criticisms were unfounded. Ty is an early, low-budget PS2 game, and the first game in a series, and it shows: Character interactions and dialogue are very awkward(and not in a self-aware kind of way), the cutscenes don't look great, and the storytelling is so poor the basic narrative can be confusing. The game also suffers from tedious item collection and an abysmal boss roster. These are definitely issues, they just aren't as bad as I remembered them.

Given how much Ty had going against it, I think Chrome turned out a strong product. I'm very glad I gave this game a second chance, and I'll happily recommend it to any fan of classic platformers.

This game is RIPPER! (there I said it.)

Over the years I've sort of developed an interest in mascot platformers of various types that came between the 4th and 6th gen of gaming, so after hearing about Ty the Tasmanian Tiger with it's 2016 remaster, it was definitely a game I was interested in giving a shot. And I gotta say, I was actually a little surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

The game is a 3D platformer that sort of feels like a mix of Crash Bandicoot and Banjo-Kazooie structurally. The main collectible you're looking out for in each level is Thunder Eggs - 7 of which are in each of the game's levels, however there'll usually be at least one that will have you follow along a set path that takes you to the 'end' of the stage (sort of like Super Mario Odyssey in a sense now that I think about it). Even once you've completed the main path, you are given the option to do a sort of time trial or race usually having you run through the main path or a different path a second time for a chance to win another Thunder Egg. Others are scattered throughout the levels, or can be obtained by completing missions for NPCs, locating all 5 Billbies in each stage, or collecting all 300 opals in each stage. In addition to these there's also collectibles like Golden Cogs (which can be used to unlock additional boomerangs - which is your main weapon in the game btw) and Picture Frames (which unlock concept art you can view) among other things.

While each stage does have a 'main' path of sorts though, they still tend to be rather open-ended in a way that allows room for exploration for the collectibles, and on that note, I would definitely say that the game does hit a balance in 'scope' akin to Spyro 1 or Banjo-Kazooie without being too big like Banjo-Tooie or Donkey Kong 64. Some of the levels can be pretty expansive, in some cases even surprising me with how big in size they really were, yet combined with the pretty good movement and control of Ty plus the collectibles generally being close enough in proximity in a way that makes exploring each level not draining and actually fun to explore.

The only area I didn't really like was part of "Beyond the Black Stump" where you're supposed to ride a cable car up a mountain and it goes pretty slowly (especially in some cases where you have to jump off at certain points and wait for another one to come by), but even then it didn't really annoy me that much.

There's two major criticisms I have though. One of which is that the bosses... aren't very good. None of them really give the player much of an idea of what they're supposed to do and that does become kind of an issue since some of them get pretty cryptic - particularly the 'Crikey' boss which you defeat by going underwater, hitting an oxygen tank on the ocean floor, wait for Crikey to come chew it on the surface and then throw your Flamerang in his mouth. It's very weirdly obtuse and frankly I do gotta wonder if I would've even been able to figure some of these bosses out without a guide.

Second of all this game does have a lot of that late 90's to early 2000's 3D platformer jank to it. It's not terribly glitchy or anything but it is a bit unpolished in some areas. The camera especially can be all over the place and while I'm not sure if this is only a thing in the remaster there were times I noticed models sort of clipping and whatnot, especially in the in-game cutscenes.

The story... it's about what you can expect for a kids game. The main gist is that Ty comes across a Bunyip elder in a cave who tells them a story of Boss Cass sending a group of Tasmanian Tigers, including Ty's family, into another dimension, and now has to obtain all the five talismans to bring them back. At one point Boss Cass sends out a rival named Sly which outside of one minor boss fight kind of just goes nowhere. Plus there's a character named Shadow the bat that appears in the last level in the game and then kind of just stops existing entirely. It's a pretty basic plot overall without much interesting to talk about.

Though I gotta say the animation for the cutscenes isn't very good, mostly in the case of the in-game ones but even the FMV cutscenes to an extent. In general it just feels pretty stilted with a real lack of body movement and expression, ultimately ending up looking clunky and awkward. I could excuse this for something like Sonic Adventure 1... but come on, this was 2002, there were definitely decent examples of video game animation at this point.

Also I really gotta say I love the Australian setting. Technically this wasn't something completely new since Crash Bandicoot had a similar vibe going on, but especially with the developers being based in Australia you can definitely tell they went all in with it. The game's levels are all based on different parts of Australia and from what I've researched, the characters, including Ty himself, are all based on species native to Australia. In general there's a lot of elements of Australian culture in this game (the checkpoints are literally outhouses which is funny as hell) and it makes the game stand out just on theming alone. The art style reflects on this and I definitely think Ty the Tasmanian Tiger (aside for the not so good cutscene animations) is a decent looking game for it's time, plus the soundtrack using a lot of instrumentation. I'm probably not the best person to talk about this compared to someone who's, well, from or at least lived in Australia, but I've never seen a game ooze more Australian energy (and that's coming from a fan of the Crash Bandicoot games).

Admittedly Ty the Tasmanian Tiger isn't anything too spectacular as far as early 2000's platforming games go, but I did generally have a good time with it, and if you enjoy collectathons or just 3D platformers in general from around this time period, you'll probably get a kick out of Ty.

Every time I would start Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, I’d get bored around the third level. But THIS time, I stuck with it! I made it to the end, finished the game, got 100%, collected EVERYTHING.

…it wasn’t very good!

I mean it wasn’t AWFUL either. It had some cool parts (the outback level), some shitty parts (the first snow world), most of it was just kinda fine.

I do like how you get so many different boomerangs to use! Felt good unlocking a new one every time.

Oh, and WONDERFUL soundtrack. For the most part. There’s some forgettable ones near the end, but overall the music was the highlight of the game, really good stuff!

So, I didn’t love it, but I guess I didn’t hate it either. Maybe I’ll play the sequel??

Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, he's one of the characters I can remember from the earliest parts of my childhood and everyone's favorite Australian hero. In my eyes he's one of the keystone entities from the PS2 era, standing alongside others like Sly Cooper and Jax and Dexter.

This is the first game in the Ty series, and it already starts it pretty strong by having a lot of personal touches that make it stand out from other games, and yes the Australian theme is one of those big touches. From the characters to the voice acting to the locations within the game, there's an emphasis on nature and aesthetics that goes really nicely with eachother. At some points it can feel repetitive of course, the character roster isn't large enough to cover every world so many are reused multiple times, and the worlds themselves can often feel a bit bland sometimes, but for the first entry, it's certainly interesting enough.

Gameplay in Ty is pretty simple, you have numerous different boomerangs that can be thrown with different effects, and you also have a bite attack. This marks a game anyone can pick up and play, with the only real difficulty coming from the actual collectathon aspect since some items can be hidden well. On that note, I didn't really care for the translucent boxes with the picture frames in them, it became a measure that forced the use of one boomerang most of the time. My other complaints about the game involve the second boss, which felt like it could have used an explanation for how to deal damage, as well as the music which felt a bit too quiet at times and didn't really vary enough either.

Overall though, Ty 1 was a great reminder of my childhood and still holds up very well to this day. I never played the other games in the series, so this certainly has me excited to finally try them out next. This is a game I can definitely recommend playing.

An unbelievably charming platformer that I haven't stopped thinking about since I finished it. There's something to be said about the singular sense of personality these types of games have, simple yet fiendishly affective. Full of fun characters, authentic Australian texture, music that fuckin' rips for just being a series of short loops, and not a single dud in its murders' row of levels (Snow Worries, Bridge on the River Ty, Outback Safari, Lyre Lyre Pants on Fire, and Ship Rex are some of the best levels I've ever played in a 3D platformer collectathon). I also appreciate that - rather than rebuilding the original from the ground up and possibly losing out on a lot of its intrinsic charm (still hurt by the hackjob that was Battle for Bikini Bottom: Rehydrated) - it feels more like a souped-up re-release as opposed to a full-on remaster. Glad to see this series is seeing a resurgence, it absolutely deserves it. Only big complaint is (like most of these) that it's too short.

It does get a bit repetitive in the later areas, but due to the variety in boomerangs that you can unlock, the gameplay still manages to remain fresh throughout.

There are also some remarkably beautiful levels here. Bridge over the River Ty in particular was a real highlight for me. The music is pure australian vibes as well

That RC boomerang part at the end can go fuck itself though.