Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD (Switch)

Back in 2002, Ty the Tasmanian Tiger entered the world of action platformers with a bold advertising campaign depicting other legends of the genre like Sonic the Hedgehog and Crash Bandicoot in the hospital thanks to this game’s boomerang wielding hero. Naturally it would need some standout feature to put itself on the same level as the competition it just claimed to be above, and while it’s likely the game was hoping its boomerangs would be the biggest part of its identity, it might actually be the game’s aggressive commitment to its Australian identity that stands out most. Not only are its characters Australian wildlife in locations based on settings appropriate to the island continent, but the dialogue is filled with Australian slang and phrases. At first what sounds like a corny bit of local color comes around and reveals itself to be an authentic embrace of what makes Australia and its culture unique, developer Krome Studios sharing fun features of their homeland alongside this fantasy cartoon adventure.

 

Ty the Tasmanian Tiger’s adventure begins when a mythical creature known as a Bunyip reveals his past to him. Years ago Ty’s family fought against Boss Cass, the scientist cassowary hoping to wipe out all mammals by utilizing special talismans. To keep them out of his hands Ty’s family scattered them across the land even though doing so left them trapped in another dimension, but if Ty can gather all five he’ll be able to reunite with the family he never knew and prevent Boss Cass’s plans from coming to fruition. In a bit of an interesting touch, Ty doesn’t really collect the talismans himself, instead collecting geodes known as Thunder Eggs to power his koala friend Julius’s machine that summons talismans via portal. That talisman still ends up always tumbling into another portal which leads to a boss fight after, but Ty still needs to explore a set of worlds to gather the Thunder Eggs needed to stop the avian antagonist and his mostly reptilian minions. While a good deal of dialogue featured will be on important matters like introducing gameplay concepts and setting up a Thunder Egg mission or minigame, as mentioned earlier it is written to show off plenty of Australian slang and mannerisms, Ty for example celebrating good things by exclaiming “You ripper!” or “You beauty!”. It’s hardly the low effort outside perspective that might lean on terms like “crikey” instead, and at times it can even be a little difficult to parse what a character means if you’re unfamiliar with the terms and phrases, but you likely won’t be missing important details and it does add to an interesting overall identity for the game as something uniquely and unabashedly Australian.

That identity even extends out to the small set of worlds you’ll be exploring on your adventure. The 3D platforming will take you to locations that take clear inspiration from Australia’s natural areas and even a few urbanized spots like the snowy mountains focusing on lumber mills and ski lifts. Rather than having levels simply based on grassy areas, Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD has you exploring billabongs with their small pond ecosystem. The large ocean themed levels take inspiration from the Great Barrier Reef, a few levels are rainforest themed, and naturally an outback level exists but the unique deserts of Australia are explored by riding on the back of an enormous hog boss you fought previously for an interesting little touch. That outback level is a cooler idea than it is to play, the objectives there being things like lassoing emus and racing a friend in a jeep that don’t really have as much energy to them as you’d hope, and similarly the openness of the wide ocean levels and their underwater sections leads to them being hard to properly explore with similar looking areas but plenty of small things to collect throughout them. The better levels tend to have more linear progression to them since then an area can have a clearer focus and associated goals. Some like figuring out the clever quirk behind the lyrebird leading you through a level are nifty touches to an already solid platforming stage, others have water slides to go down for some swift and breezy action, and a few just manage some dangerous jumping challenges to keep you interested, but a fair few tepid trials await you as well.

 

One reason some challenges aren’t too engaging is the simplicity of Ty’s abilities. His basic boomerangs can be thrown in front of you to easily hit enemies even when underwater, the homing good so that fighting isn’t frustrating but also many foes crumple to a single hit. Those that do resist an attack are most likely weak to your bite instead, and you can just alternate between both attack types to quickly wipe out nearby opposition to focus on whatever else you’re meant to be doing. The game perhaps wisely doesn’t use battle as a focus too much and its boss battles are more about figuring out the little trick to overcoming a fight that becomes pretty basic once you know that weakness, but it can leave the open areas feeling rather barren. Collectibles are scattered all around levels to help fill spaces in the more freeform stages while linear levels tend to do a better job laying consistent obstacles to progress or branches you can briefly explore for a Thunder Egg before moving back to the decently-designed main path. Opals are the simplest collectible, these floating gems hidden in great numbers in most every level and providing a Thunder Egg in that stage if you find them all. Again, stages with less freedom to explore handle these better since more confined spaces can make single opals easier to spot while underwater swims might not even load in the opal until you’re close enough.

 

You do not need every Thunder Egg to beat the game so opal collection can be set aside save for those wanting to get 100% and unlock the secret area, but picture frames end up making that goal already made difficult by opals a bit more exhausting. Picture frames are found in floating invisible boxes with faint blue translucent edges, these often high up in the air and placed in ways where you aren’t likely to notice them. Their number is surprisingly high as well so going for that final stage ends up less about doing fun collection tasks and more about scouring every inch of familiar stages, but thankfully opals and invisible boxes are not Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD’s main focus. Thunder Egg missions are usually more straightforward tasks like clearing an area with unique dangers and terrain or interacting with special characters or adversaries. Five bilbies are hidden in cages in most levels and their positions are usually somewhat clever and not obtuse like the invisible boxes, a much cleaner way of rewarding you for searching since finding all five grant a Thunder Egg. Golden Gears exist in stages as well and are used to develop new boomerang types to assist in your adventures, these often having a little off the road challenge to attempt to add quick activities in between the more important stage goals. You will also have to find quite a few level specific collectibles though like missing koala children, but these can often just be a way of getting you to explore a slightly more open space while having a goal to connect your work there rather than being too hands-off in where you should go.

Over the course of the story you will get new boomerangs and abilities, Ty not even able to swim at first until a platypus friend gives him instructions. He can glide early on by holding his boomerangs out like wings, although it feels like his jump and glide can often just barely fall short of destinations. He can hook onto the edge of a platform sometimes if he’s close enough when you release the glide, but their geometry can sometimes make this a little fiddly as well. Danger isn’t too great and lives and healing common enough that you only really get the irritation of missing a jump to punish you for those harder gaps to cross. Boomerangs can be used to activate switches and you can aim them in first person if you do need to hit something specific, but even once you get things like fire boomerangs, the new element just helps you kill certain enemies better or overcome pretty simple hazards you hit and forget. The boomerangs Julius develops for you with the golden gears all have special effects though, some like the Multirang really letting you hurl out a stream of boomerangs if you find yourself in an area lousy with Cass’s minions and the Infrarang meant to be used to find those invisible boxes easier. Unfortunately you’ll still need to be in the right general area for the Infrarang to detect the box and it’s a bit annoying to have it out with its beeping. The optional boomerang upgrades are usually just there for you to try as a reward for collecting, but the Zappyrang is the odd weapon out in the required ones since it mostly just opens a gate and is practically interchangeable in usefulness with other ‘rangs otherwise.

 

Notably, this rerelease as Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD does not rebuild the game graphically so much as it smooths it out for modern televisions. This does allow it to preserve its original look for those nostalgic for it and prevents the occasional awkwardness some glow-ups have where adding detail to certain objects can obscure major goals, but it also looks pretty much like how the game did back in 2002. This doesn’t hurt it at all, it is a touch odd though to see a character’s nose has a bit of a blurry texture despite the enhancements, but some little bonuses like extra costumes for Ty show a some extra love went into the rejuvenation of this old title. There’s nothing new to really help with little things like being down a single opal in a huge level with no real idea on where to search, but a map on the pause screen does help you find areas where Thunder Eggs objectives are to be found. Each level having an opal Thunder Egg, a Bilby Thunder Egg, and one for a short race through a section of the stage does lead to less mission variety per stage and overall though, but there’s still enough to do between the familiar ideas to make it a fine enough adventure to see to its end.

THE VERDICT: Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD takes some fairly standard platforming and action and makes it a bit more interesting with its commitment to its Australian identity, the language, creatures, and location choice all building up a strong setting that helps stave of some forgettable gameplay portions. Some levels are a bit more inspired with better Thunder Egg objectives but scouring huge open water levels for opals or facing easy bosses does mean its excitement levels aren’t often as high as a player might like. Exploring a new space and finding goodies is often interesting thanks to the moments it gets a bit more adventurous with objective design, but Ty’s abilities aren’t tested by this adventure enough to make it consistently compelling.

 

And so, I give Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD for Nintendo Switch…

An OKAY rating. Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD has its moments, primarily when you’re interacting with something unique about the current level or you’re working on specifically overcoming a single laid out challenge, but its experiments with open stage design and collection objectives often end up more time-consuming and simple than an interesting break from the norm. Ty’s boomerangs really do feel like they could have found more purchase in how you play, a moment where you use them to knock down coconuts to serve as temporary platforms to cross quick sand an example of them actually putting in some solid use compared to usually just being hurled around without much thought since they can take down most trouble in the way with ease. Collectible placement or the process of hunting them down could go with a few refinements as well, the act of finding things hidden in a level entertaining but poking around for a single small thing crammed in a corner is a poor use of level spaces that often have some decent design for their major objectives. Adding the extra personality to the game of being purely unabashedly Australian through and through does make it a more interesting world to explore, the species of the next character you meet, the way they speak, and where they’re even hanging out all far less predictable than if it was trying to be a standard adventuring world.

 

Ty the Tasmanian Tiger wasn’t quite the new contender on the block back in 2002 and the few touch-ups in the HD rerelease didn’t really give it a leg up either, but it didn’t undermine the decent core either. For the most part if you keep focused on major activities you’ll have a pretty breezy action platformer with a nifty personality but its ideas aren’t as fleshed out as they’d need to be to really provide a classic collect-a-thon experience. A solid first outing for the character to be sure and one retouched with a hand that preserves the past but makes it accessible in the modern day, Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD provides some interesting play with the ideas it does lay down but needed some focus on drawing more out of the action side of things on top of its wonderfully Australian identity.