Flash review: Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip (2024, snekflat)
Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip is the exactly the kind of games that I would jump on in a heartbeat: a 3-4 hours in length; low-stake and personal story; and a heavy dose of quirkiness from the developer's creativity. Some of my favourite games ever belong to this category, such as A Short Hike and TOEM.
That being said, while it doesn't often happen, the execution doesn't quite stick the landing. Don't get me wrong: there a lot of things to like about this: the premise is very genre-worthy; the characters are out of this world and whimsical; the pets are cute (despite not very interactive); and exploration is good for the most part. It just happens to strike my nerve on two particular spots:
The 3000 collectible items. If there is anything I dislike about Assassin's Creed the last I played one (probably around 2015 or so), this is one of it. To be fair, Turbo Junks are sometimes grouped in large chunks together, but the number is nothing but off-putting.
The extreme grindiness of money. At some point, I expected the quests to also grant me extra money to make fulfilling the remaining quests less tedious. They did not. I never found out a sane way to make money, outside of digging spots for $5 per piece (and committing robberies, more on that later).
Mechanics and gameplay aside, TTTT is a visually cutesy game, undoubtedly. Maybe my expectation of a TOEM-like got the better of me, but TTTT does not align with my expectation in a way I'm not sure how to feel about. It touches on a lot of adult themes, from dysfunctional families, to nationalism-adjacent government, and youth crimes. As insane as it sounds, this is the closest game to a GTA-clone I've played in a long time, where the player is told to steal cars and rob innocent by-standing NPCs for money. I haven't decided whether this is genius subversive social commentary, or an amateurish fumble in handling tones.
I did complete it, saw the credits roll, and had my share of fun, despite not enjoying the last hour (I didn't get all the achievements, obviously). I have a hunch this game will haunt many of my nights.
Recommended for: cutesy game enjoyers; and .... goddamn I have no idea.