Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9 out of 10

The Last Tinker: City of Colors is a platform game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4. The game has an ambition to rekindle the classic and much loved 3D platforming genre that was synonymous, but can it fully realize what it sets out to achieve?

The game is set in Colortown, which is a city within Tinkerworld; a place normally full of magical colour as paint brings the world’s inhabitants to a state of happiness and joy in each of their lives, which really shines through in each of their personalities and approach to art and the inhabitants around them. However, bleakness invades the lands after Koru has been betrayed by someone who he believed could trust and with the bleakness spreading turns the colour of blue inhabitants from fortitude to sadness, green inhabitants from curiosity to fear and red inhabitants from anger to strength; therefore absolute chaos ensues with everyone arguing which colour is deemed the best in the land and it is up to the lead character Koru to calm everything down and in doing so to restore the peaceful nature and artistic creativity of Colortown.

If a player loses all of their character’s health by falling into the sea for instance, then they will respawn at the point of the last Tinker Seed, which is effectively the most recent checkpoint they have passed. Koru can collect crystals by destroying crates and barrels, but mostly from completing jobs for other characters, whilst the player will also be rewarded with gifts along the way too, such as a pair of gloves to prove that they have learned and mastered their fighting techniques from the best fighting trainer in the district and a backpack to help Koru carry his items around with him as a reward for helping a farmer harvest his mushrooms. As the crystals are effectively used as the local currency; Koru can invest the crystals in order to buy items, such as a pass to participate in the race and new combat abilities from Brik’s Dojo situated in the Market District. There are collectable brushes hidden throughout the lands that must be found in order to unlock various bonus content from the Market District in the form of Happy Colors, such as rather fun powers including a big head mode that massively increases the size of every character’s head to a giant size; a small head mode that reduces the size of every character’s head to the tiniest possible size; a black and white mode to turn all of the colours into shades of black and white; a switched color (sic) mode to radically change the colours of the surrounding environments; a mirrored world mode to flip the world back on itself, so left would become right and vice versa; alongside a God mode and combat arena; and concept art which covers a variety of gameplay elements.

The level design is quite diverse as the player will be happily exploring Colortown one minute and then find themselves participating in activities to earn crystals by helping local citizens in order to be able to purchase the items required. Player’s will come across confrontations with enemies that can only be resolved by fighting them, but will also find Koru having to sneak stealthily and cautiously through the gallery which houses the most important paintings of Colortown as it is being extensively patrolled by guards with bright torches that shine for a certain length, which you must evade at all costs, otherwise Koru will be immediately captured.

The character design is just as varied as the level design as there are an entire range of pleasant and fun characters to meet and befriend from everyday nearby civilians that wonder around the towns and cities, Color Spirits and many more besides that will be encountered. However, there are also just as many enemies, such as the despicable Reds that proclaim to be better than everyone else and go to extreme lengths in misguided attempts to prove they are, such as punching Koru’s best friend Tap in the face; just for telling it how it is regarding the Reds’ leader, whilst the player will also come across guards, prickly plants and much more besides.

The Last Tinker: City of Colors supports the share feature that allows players to upload a video clip or a screen shot to Facebook or Twitter; and broadcast live gameplay footage via Twitch or Ustream as it is being experienced with a simple tap of the share button and selecting the option of choice. The PS4’s hard-drive continuously stores the most recent fifteen minutes of gameplay footage, so players still have the chance to decide if they would like to share something amazing a few minutes after it has taken place. The share feature is a next-gen revolution that has only improved with the further customisation provided by the Share Factory app that allows commentary, music, themes, stickers, effects, text, picture-in-picture video between game footage and the reaction from the PlayStation Camera and much more besides, which will only continue to prosper and flourish as it matures with additional features and further experimentation in the future. The Share Play feature provides a platform for a gamer that does not own the game to take control of the game you have started and invited that person to play, although it only lasts for one hour; it is a great service as it effectively presents a one hour demo of the game to anyone who you invite who does not own it, while being an excellent sociable feature too.

The Last Tinker: City of Colors supports the remote play feature that allows play on almost any PS4 game on the PlayStation Vita via a Wi-Fi internet connection by pairing up the PS4 and Vita via configuring the settings on the PS4 to enable the Vita to connect to it, then entering the code provided from the settings menu on the Vita’s PS4 Link application with the initial setup taking around only two minutes. The Last Tinker: City of Colors’ performance during remote play is amazing as the graphics are just as colourful, while the audio and general performance is identical to that of its PS4 counterpart with the exception of two changes to the controls of aim mode and auto jumping as L2 and R2 are mapped to the left and right of the rear touch pad.

The control scheme is well mapped to the DualShock 4 controller and consists of pressing R2 to run and auto jump over obstacles; pressing R1 to dodge or jump while on a rail; pressing R1 while moving to the left or right to switch rails; pressing L1 to whistle to attract friendly creatures; pressing L2 to enter aim mode; pressing X to use to use an object or skip cut scenes; pressing square to perform a red punch or to mount or dismount from Biggs when standing next to Biggs or to grab or release an enemy when standing next to the enemy; pressing O to perform a blue punch; pressing left on the d-pad to use a red power; pressing up on the d-pad to use a green power; pressing right on the d-pad to use a blue power; pressing R3 to centre the camera angle; changing the direction of the left analogue stick to move; changing the direction of the right analogue stick to look around by moving the camera angle; pressing the share button takes the player to the share feature menu; and pressing the options button to display the pause menu. There is no touch pad implementation, which is surprising as it could have been used as an alternative to pressing R2 to perform the parkour style freerunning. However, there is light bar implementation which produces the colour of the district the player has ventured into, while the DualShock 4 controller vibrates when hit by a heavy attack or when you have stepped into bleakness.

The Last Tinker: City of Colors features a charming look with a very colourful and vibrant world that harks back to the days of the classic era of platformers on the original PlayStation, such as Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot and Gex. The colour blind mode is a really nice touch as it replaces the high variety of colours with a more neutral tone that enables people with colour blindness to be able to enjoy the game just as much as those who do not suffer with the affliction.

The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main menu, options and various gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons, although it does not include support for navigation via the right analogue stick and touch pad. The background of the menu screens is as vibrant as the in-game graphics with a variety of colours as the camera pans from side to side to showcase the landscape.

The audio consists of sound effects and music. The sound effects including collecting crystals, walking, running, climbing, jumping, punching and melee combat attacks, while there is speech during the introduction to the story and various octaves of mumbling from characters as the speech is mostly presented in speech bubbles, alongside music that provides an incredibly relaxing and imaginative soundtrack that ties in beautifully with the concept of a world full of colour. There is no DualShock 4 speaker implementation, which is surprising as it would have been perfect for the ambient sound effects, the mumbling of the characters or the harmonious soundtrack.

The trophy list includes 14 trophies with 11 bronze, 2 silver and 1 gold. The majority of the trophy list is easy with the Sneaky Like a Ninja bronze trophy for reaching the Tower Gallery being the easiest of all to achieve with most of the trophies earned naturally as progression is made through the game, although the Unity silver trophy for defeating the final boss and the Leondardo daWindci gold trophy for collecting every Floaty Brush in the game are the hardest ones to attain. It is estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take between 9 to 15 hours to 100% the trophy list.

There are four difficulty levels including: kid’s mode, normal, hard and instant death with each difficulty level providing more enemies that deal more damage to Koru, but also receive less damage from the player’s attacks; therefore making them harder to defeat and easier for them to conquer you in the process. The only thing that may not be appreciated by fans of platform games is the auto jump mechanic from R2 as the classic platform games would provide a genuine challenge from precisely timing every jump correctly whereas the auto jump removes that challenge almost entirely, although it would have been an appropriate feature in the kid’s mode for a much younger audience; it just does not seem to fit in for a more mature audience and therefore should have perhaps been removed from the normal difficulty and definitely removed from the hard and instant death difficulty levels.

There is no local or online multiplayer and no online leaderboards, which is surprising as Koru’s companion Tap would have perhaps enabled the ability of co-operative multiplayer along with the possibility of competitive multiplayer in the form of a player taking on the role of Koru as the other played as the Bleakness, alongside the possibility of online leaderboards for how many collectable brushes have been found by each player as well as how quickly the game has been completed.

The replayability stems from the four difficulty levels that certainly appeals to everyone from a younger age range with the kid’s mode to a more skilled audience with the instant death difficulty, while there are collectable brushes hidden throughout the game that players will have to stray from the normal path to find and are given appropriate reason for being there by unlocking a huge variety of bonus content from Happy Colors that will enable exploration in the world in different ways through earning additional powers, which in itself provides motivation for exploring the world more thoroughly in regards to not only finding the collectable brushes, but also experiencing whatever fun can be unleashed following the acquisition of the new powers.

Overall, The Last Tinker: City of Colors is the throwback to the classic era of 3D platform games that everyone has been hoping for of late, so it will certainly appeal to anyone who has fond memories of Crash Bandicoot, Gex and Spyro the Dragon, although it is still a great platformer for gamers who are new to the genre.

Jason Bonnar

Analysis

• Title: The Last Tinker: City of Colors
• Developer: Mimimi Productions
• Publisher: Loot Entertainment
• System: PS4
• Format: PSN Download
• Cross-Buy: No
• Cross-Play: No
• Players: 1
• Hard Drive Space Required: 1.4GB