Tiny Tank Review

Bad things come on small treads

Two caveats for this review, one is that there may have been emulator fuckups making some mechanics slightly harder to execute than intended, and two was some aggressive savestating in the 2nd half. But my Ghosts n Goblins rule applies, I beat everything at least once flatly.

This game is relatively unassuming at first, a little generic in it's humour and pretty dull gameplay. But a fast enough pace, catchy soundtrack, and enjoyable in-game radio discussions help make it a relatively breezy playthrough... Then you hit the dancing robots, and the game wants you do to some stuttered movement thing that, I'll be honest, straightup doesn't work properly. Then you find yourself in a mine and factory, jumping between magnetic platforms. The magnetism on the platforms doesn't work properly, so it's near impossible to beat the level as intended requiring basically jump spam and blind faith to get through. Then you hit the actual platforming level and the jump height, wait for it, doesn't work properly. Requiring bizarre positioning, hyperspeed double taps on the jump button to get enough upward boost with your thrusters, and then a final boss that is literally impossible if you didn't pick up an optional railgun in the first room. (The railgun also doesn't seem to work properly)

And you think, okay that had to be it. That was "the level" so now we can move on. You get a pretty generic mountain climb thing, and a slide that only kind of doesn't work properly but it's relatively fast so you give it a pass. Oh, wait, I forgot about the ICE LAKE THAT DOESN'T WORK PROPERLY. You're intended to jump between chunks of harder ice on the lake itself to get across. but because of the way the ice breaks, and that the chunks are actually below the surface meaning you have no reference point for if you're directly above it or not. Instead you have to do this bizarre hover land into drift because if you're drifting at max speed, you literally outrun the shattering ice. Oh by the way there's unmarked invisible walls in front of platforms that look literally identical to the platforms without invisible walls.

Then you get to the end, have a couple really weird on-rails sections, fight a final boss who shock of shocks, is actually functional. Requiring you to position behind him in a maze (or just circle and tank damage) in order to destroy his multiple forms- Nah I'm just fucking with ya phase 2 has a hitbox that doesn't work properly so you spam shots and pray.

There are only two positive things I can say about this game, now that it's done. One is that the humour is... okay. It goes for a mock christian talk radio thing where the evil robot is basically a call host for the enemy army. Talking about how unsafe the earth is for robot work when they have to deal with things like dirt and rust. It's cute and has enough laughs to be worth, what, maybe a half-hearted listen while you play something else?

The 2nd is that this is the only PSX game I have encountered that, instead of a mid-level loading screen. Which nobody would have questioned and literally would have made zero difference in the grand scheme of things, outright has the programmer tell you that they ran out of memory for the level and had to split it in two. But it's okay they put a cool lava ride in the 2nd half. I'm not joking here it is.