Video Game Review - Tin Hearts

Rob reviews Tin Hearts on PlayStation 5…

It’s been a busy few weeks for myself, and sadly as a result my coverage of video games has been a little behind schedule. For this I apologise, and going forward - for now - I’m probably going to have to be selective about what titles I review. Realising as a one-person-band I can’t do everything all at once. 

Anyway, with that out of the way, what better way to mark my return to consistent video game reviews with Tin Hearts. 

Coming from publisher Wired Productions and developers Rogue Sun Games (which features some of the team behind Fable), Tin Hearts is a charming and heartwarming game about toy soldiers. 

Set against the backdrop of Victorian England, Tin Hearts follows the narrative of inventor Albert J. Butterworth. Told via clues within the environment, notes left behind by the inventor, and a wealth of cut scenes, you’ll discover the life and times of Albert as you navigate your toy soldiers across various obstacles. It’s quite a tale to be told as you’ll see Albert explore his relationship with his wife and daughter, all through the eyes of a group of adorable toys. It’s also a narrative that pulls heavy on the heartstrings, and for the vast majority you’ll want Albert to do right for his family. 

At its heart and Tin Hearts is a narrative-driven puzzle-platformer. Set across numerous levels you’ll have to lead the troop of soldiers through a maze of obstacles, platforms, and tunnels, to then reach their end goal. Much like the highly successful Lemmings, Tin Hearts will have you moving blocks, and manipulating other parts of the play space to create a safe path for the soldiers. As you progress through you’ll start to unlock tools that can be used to then solve the more complex tasks. While completing a stage successfully doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll use every tool in your arsenal, most stages do feature a good variety. Tool design is also themed around toys, and it was great fun to deploy tiny canons to knock down walls, or utilise balloons to reach otherwise unreachable areas. It’s certainly full of charm, and everything works together to create the Toy Story/ Pinocchio atmosphere. 

The main thing that sets Tin Hearts aside from its competitors is the ability to manipulate time. Straight from the get-go you’ll have access to the abilities to pause, rewind, and fast-forward time. These are a real godsend as they allow you to simply  rewind any mistakes rather than restarting the stage. Pause does exactly what it’s name implies and pauses the action. Again this is a bread and butter ability that every puzzle game should incorporate. It allows you to analyse the level, to then plan on how best to proceed. While it’s certainly not infallible, it does take some of the pressure off. Rounding off the ability tree is yet another self explanatory ability - fast forward. Much like skipping through the trailers of a rental VHS, fast forward allows you to simple speed up time. This is useful if your route has worked, and you want to quickly get to the next stage. 

As touched upon earlier, Tin Hearts is a game full of charm. From its opening moments, right to its finale, it’s a game that’ll captivate you to experience it all. Level design is of a very high calibre, and the use of lighting is simply stunning. Character animation is also captured well, and even though their simple soldiers, each one moves with mechanical precision that’s full of emotion and whit. 

With quite a range of emotions at play through its narrative, the musical score needs to go big to sell these emotions to the player. Thankfully this is something that Rogue Sun Games has perfected as the score is nothing short than phenomenal. The tones really capture the thoughts and feelings of the characters involved, and even when the narrative hits it’s poignant moments, the score reflects this with note perfect harmony. 

Overall, as a game that gets you to master time as a mechanic - it’s also something you’ll quickly loose track of when playing this game. Wether you’re a fan of puzzle games or not, Tin Hearts aims to catapult you into its world, and it achieves this with relative ease. From its original narrative, to its stunning world design, Tin Hearts is a game that’ll stay long with you after you put the controller down.

Rating: 8/10

A code was kindly provided for this review 

Tin Hearts is available now and can be purchased via the PlayStation 5 store. 

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Rob Lake - For more comic book and video game chat why not follow us on Twitter/Facebook @GeekCultureRev, and TikTok/YouTube @Geekculturereviews.