Tiny Thor Review

When one thinks of Thor and his hammer Mjolnir, a certain image is conjured: strong, dangerous, epic, and larger-than-life. That Tiny Thor shrinks down the mighty Asgardian isn't itself a problem – rather, the issue is that it makes Thor feel small, and that just won’t do. Gameplay consists of running around caves, throwing the legendary hammer at snakes, and looking for green gems. The controls are fast and responsive, and the music is a driving chiptune buzz that grinds away inoffensively on an endless loop. The pixel graphics are similarly adequate despite their lack of variety.

And that lack of variety is quite acute. According to the developer's blog, Tiny Thor was produced in 72 hours, which is impressive but also sadly obvious. To deride a game named Tiny Thor for being too short might seem like a cheap shot, but at 9 stages (3 of which are tutorials), there simply isn't enough here. It’s true that the game promises more “Coming Soon”, but when a full third of the stages are spent teaching players how the game works, one is justified in feeling unsatisfied.

This dissatisfaction is ironically reinforced by the way Tiny Thor artificially forces one to explore every inch of each stage. Imagine playing a stage of Sonic: The Hedgehog, only without being able to leave until finding literally every last ring. Instead of making gems desirable, to drive up scores or purchase upgrades, Tiny Thor treats them as keys, without which one cannot advance. And since many levels feature 1-way falls, I spent more time running laps around these short stages than anyone reasonably could want to.

Combat is as simple as tossing Thor’s hammer, which can be charged for stronger throws. However, I couldn't find any correlation between the strength of my throw and how many hits it took to kill an enemy – some snakes took 3 hits at maximum, some evaporated from a single half-power shot. Mjolnir ricochets off every surface like a rubber ball, so every throw left me scrambling to recover it. And since, without Mjolnir, ‘mighty’ Thor dies in 1 hit, I was reticent to throw it in the first place.

The upgrade system allows players to bypass many of the frustrating elements of the design, with features like a double-jump and a hammer-recall button, but these upgrades are only temporary and wear off after a certain number of uses. And that same currency is used to continue after dying, leaving one unlikely to have enough coins for both – unless some are bought from the in-app store. Also available at the store is the option to turn off the advertisements that aggressively invade the game between nearly every stage.

I wanted to like Tiny Thor, and the fact that the developer produced anything remotely playable in 72 hours is impressive, but the game feels overwhelmingly unfinished and its theme is only tacked-on. There isn't enough ‘Thor’ in Tiny Thor. What is there feels like it could be built into something worthwhile, but at the moment there just isn't enough to recommend.