A great game for the Vita!

I just finished Thomas Was Alone on my Vita and I must say it is well worth the ~$10 on the platform. It's free with PS+ in the EU, (reduced price elsewhere) and has cross-buy.

Popped it in at 10:30pm and didn't put it down until 3am - somehow this game made me totally adore characters which are essentially just coloured rectangles.

Anyway - for those considering having another great game to play on their Vitas, here are some notes;

• Its level design really leans into short-form gaming sessions (even though I didn't play it that way), with 100 levels making up the 3-5 hour experience so it actually makes a tonne of sense to get the Vita version. In terms of difficulty, it ranges from pretty easy to moderatly challenging though I'd say it never gets hard. Also, most levels have nice short little insights into the characters with narration, so you get drip fed the cute story along the way.
• Controls are responsive, the game is beautiful on that screen, etc. It's a solid port with only 2 issues that I could find.
• In 2-3 short sequences, the camera zooms all the way out so it can be hard to track everything that is going on the comparatively small screen.
• With my Vita, I had fits and starts of a bug, not sure if it's hardware or software related (I'm running the latest firmware for what it's worth) where the game would take input as if I were rapidly swtiching characters (as if hammering the shoulder buttons). They are also quite sensitive during normal gameplay. (ED: Also, it appears others have not experienced this)

However, those gripes certainly didn't get in the way of the overall experience, so I highly recommend this version of Thomas Was Alone.

I don't think it is free on PS+, but a reduced price, unless they've changed it since I bought it. I think it was $7.99. It is cross-buy.

EU PS+ it is free, for a few more weeks so best to get it now while you can (EU duders). Yea it took me two bus trips to finish that game and actually made me stop playing persona 3 which is all I have been playing on my vita . The narration and storytelling really makes the game as without it I would most likely feel very different about the game.

@selfconfessedcynic: Regarding those bugs I didnt find any problems about the larger scale maps, sometimes it helped to find where the cubes needed to get to (but the right analog moves the camera around) and I did not have a problem with the character selections (touchscreen or shoulder buttons)

I just finished it today and I thought it was delightful. I'd definitely recommend it.

Yeah, it was excellent. A perfect pick for PlayStation Plus.

@sergio: Yup, sorry, Free for EU PS+ members, discounted in the US - edited, cheers.

@optix12: Great/annoying to hear that it was just a problem with my Vita. I hope it doesn't surface in other games...

Also, man those must be some long bus rides. My commiserations : )

@selfconfessedcynic: Yea ~1 hour trips to work, 2 trips as in 2 days worth of playing. I havent checked yet (because im nowhere near a save point in persona 3 at the minute) but was there an ability to zoom in/out on the map (I was aiming to test the usual touchscreen pinch mechanic when i could).

The way games can get switched around on playstation plus (think of the cave) I have a feeling within the next month or two it will appear for US users.

@optix12: The manual says the Start button is "automap" whilst within Tartarus, whereas Select does nothing, so I'm guessing that's it - but there's no manual zoom of the minimap from memory. Man, P3P was a pretty great game, though I have a physical copy so I can't play it on my Vita : / Same goes for Valkyria Chronicles 2.

Anyway - now I'm considering buying Hotline Miami for my Vita coming off Thomas Was Alone for continued indie game awesomeness...

@selfconfessedcynic: oopsie I meant in thomas was alone. Took me an age to spot start did something though, they mapped triangle to the main menu which is weird to me (maybe makes sense in japan though). I got it on a psn sale for 11 pounds and figured it would be better to play through this first than persona 4 (which thanks to GB i know most of the plot).

Hotline Miami on PC was great, I played it mostly with controller so I feel like it could translate super well. If Sony force a touchscreen gimmick on them then maybe the autolock option you can do on a single enemy would be the best.

Back on topicdid anyone get stuck with a puzzle? I did once where you could choose what the blocks could do and two blocks had to go to the left and two had to go to the right. Other than that little bit I did kind of find it pretty easy (and im not great at puzzle games, so it helped I could get that next bit of plot quite easy)

@optix12: That puzzle was TOTALLY the only one which I had to restart a level for. Even more devious is that the narrator actually gives you a hint in the intro - something along the lines of "the couple can wait until later".

I had to futz around in the last level for a while to figure out which path worked for me to get to the exit, but otherwise yeah - the levels I found most challenging were ones with forced scrolling and ones where you had to balance gravity. Definitely not a hard game though.

Man, you EU Playstation Plus people. You guys a lot of great stuff.

I didn't likte it at all. It's probably the most superficial game I've played in quite a while. The levels are not as much puzzles as a matter of simple platforming navigation. The solutions are almost always trivial; the only thing standing between you and finishing the game is simply the time it takes to execute them. So many levels repeated the same type of puzzles, too much backtracking simply to prolong completion time... In terms of pacing, it reminds me of a grindy JRPG. I complete the levels only to get more store. And it's a charming story certainly. Or rather, it's told in a charming way. But it doesn't carry the experience for me.

it is great.