By Matthew Codd
Tearaway is a game I love dearly, but it's not a game I ever expected - or even wanted - to get caught up in the game industry's fascination with remakes and remasters.
Part of what made it so great was its clever use of Vita-specific controls, like the touchscreen and touchpad. It's the perfect game for showing off what the Vita is capable of - what it's uniquely capable of - without anything feeling like a gimmick.
How could you take something like that, and remaster it for a different platform?
That's why Tearaway Unfolded isn't a remaster as we've come to know them. It's more of a reimagining; it's got the same basic premise, the same characters, and mostly the same storyline, but with different mechanics and systems at its core.
Where Tearaway was a celebration of the Vita, Unfolded is a celebration of the PS4 and all it can do, and in the process, it comes impressively close to recreating the bottled-lightning magic of the original.
Like I said, the basic storyline is the same. You control atoi or iota, a personified envelope often referred to as 'The Messenger' on a quest to seal a hole that's been torn in the sky - a hole that now serves as a gateway between our world and that of the game.
In one of the more nifty, charming uses of fourth-wall breaking, Tearaway involves you in the game directly. You're not embodying your chosen messenger; in this story, you're you, and you're guiding them by way of every user input device you have at your fingertips.
When you move the messenger around with the analogue stick, or make them jump by hitting X, you're not controlling them directly - you're asking them to do something, and they're responding by doing it.
Mechanically, this is no different to any other 3D platformer or action-adventure game, but the context frames what is one of the most basic, long-standing tenets of games as a collaboration between you and your character. This is important, because that sense of collaboration and partnership is a central theme throughout the game.
Beyond that, you guide your messenger by interacting with the environment. Hitting the touchpad on the controller sets off drum-skins, bouncing anything standing on them up into the air - letting you reach higher areas, throw enemies into an abyss, or open new paths.
This is almost identical to a similar mechanic in the Vita version where you had to hit the drum-skins by tapping the rear touchpad, creating a sense that you're literally hitting the game world from below to bounce things around. Sadly, the PS4 controller touchpad replacement doesn't quite capture that sensation.
One of a couple of brand new abilities in Unfolded is Changing Wind, which lets you summon gusts of wind by swiping different directions on the touchpad. By doing so, you can unravel rolled-up bits of paper to open new paths (similar to how the Vita version had you unrolling paper with the touchscreen), blow enemies around, or - most excitingly - launch your new paper plane and help control it.
The plane is probably my favourite new mechanic in Unfolded. You can do with it what you'd expect - reach new areas that you can't get to on foot, and get around quicker - but it's not even that that makes it so great. There's just something about flying around the levels that have planes, using gusts of wind to do barrel rolls, that's blissfully satisfying.
Some sections of the game are dark, and it's up to you to light them - by shining the controller's lightbar into the TV. OK, not literally, but this particular mechanic is a good analogue of that idea.
When you hold down R2 or L2, a lightbar-shaped light appears onscreen, and you move it around by moving the controller. On a purely mechanical level, it's just motion controls coupled with some in-game lighting, but the effect is a very compelling feeling that you're using the light from the controller in your hand to illuminate the game world inside the TV.
Beyond lighting dark areas, you can use this light to do some neat things, like open up flowers, and even hypnotise enemies to make them attack each other.
Finally, there's the Throw-Forth ability. In Tearaway, the messenger could pick up and throw objects; in Unfolded, they can still do that, but they can also throw them to you, the player. Have them pick up an acorn or a rock, tilt the controller up (effectively putting your hands into a ready-to-catch pose), and press the throw button.
They'll throw the object into your controller, and then you can aim by moving a crosshair in the same manner as the lightbar and throw it back into the game by swiping the touchpad. You can even throw creatures into the controller, listen to their little squeaks or frustrated gibberish thanks to the gamepad's speaker, and use the touchpad to tickle them.
All these tools could be written off as simple gimmicks, if it weren't for how well they come together with everything else. The whole game is built around this story of a tear between reality and fiction, and all of these options help make you, the player, a significant part of that.
It's also for this reason I'd say Unfolded isn't just better with a PS4 Camera, but having one is basically a necessity for the full impact. Technically, there's nothing you can't do without the camera, but seeing your likeness projected into the game is just another piece of Unfolded's clever construction.
Of course, it wouldn't be a Tearaway game without the option to customise your messenger. Iota looks good to start with, and atoi even more so, but you also have an extensive range of stickers to customise their appearance, including some new ones for Unfolded.
And if that's not enough, you can create your own using the touchpad or mobile PlayStation App. On top of that, the app lets you create your own confetti and "throw" it into the game, and use photos to create unique textures for the world.
For those who've already played Tearaway, Unfolded offers a rather different experience - not just because of the new systems, but because the way everything unfolds is quite different. You'll play a lot of the same levels, but you'll also play some brand new ones.
Most of the ones that you return to are changed, often in substantial ways; sometimes to accommodate the new mechanics, other times just to do something different. This isn't just "Tearaway plus extras", it's a reimagining that makes the whole game feel fresh and new.
The only thing missing, really, is the tactile feeling the Vita's touchscreen gives you. In Tearaway, you would interact directly with individual bits of paper, dragging at them to unravel rolled-up fragments, pulling the bow on presents to open them, and peeling away loose paper to reveal drum-skins and the like.
In Unfolded, all these things are done with gusts of wind or by simply pressing the touchpad button - this works, but as with the drum-skins, it doesn't quite capture that sensation "reaching into" the game to assist your messenger.
I never wanted a sequel to Tearaway, nor did I want a remaster. What we've got with Unfolded is something that's somewhere in the middle, and somehow achieves more than a typical sequel or remaster ever could.
It's a fresh take on the same ideas that made Tearaway so good, and even if the different hardware means it doesn't capture that feeling of "holding a world in your hand" as well as the Vita game, Unfolded is still a must-play for anyone with a PS4, regardless of whether or not you've played the original.
Four-and-a-half stars.
NZGamer.com
Tearaway Unfolded :: Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment:: Developer: Media Molecule:: Format: PlayStation 4:: Rating: PG
