Paper Titans just doesn’t have enough to it. It’s too small in scope and scale, for one, but it’s also utterly unremarkable. The mechanics are stale, the amount of repetition it has you do is absolutely numbing, and the 3D puzzles are dull at best. You might want to look over this one tonight as you pick and choose releases. There’s just no oomph here outside of the visuals.
To rewind, Paper Titans is a 3D puzzle platform game. In it, you “make" a bunch of odd-looking paper creatures and then search for stars and postcards across a host of same-y, or even recycled, levels. Each one has three stars that you can collect, but the card is the end goal for whatever reason. Monster movement is handled by a line-drawing mechanic similar to the one in, say, Spy Mouse. Just tap the monster and drag a line to where you want him.
Each monster has a special ability. The first one you build is a Collector. He collects things. The next one is a Thrower. He can throw Collectors to raised platforms. There’s also a guy that uses a rocket pack, as well as a shaman that can raise platforms.
Once you start diving deeper into the game, you unlock the ability to spawn more and more of these dudes into a level at the same time, which allows you to move around a handful of paper dudes at once. Slow movement mechanics and too simple tasks keep this from being interesting, though. From the minute you load into a level you know exactly what you need to do, so it’s just a matter of waiting for your monsters to waddle their way over to the obvious.
I wish I liked this one more. The art style is OK and the sound design is stellar, but the game part is ultimately just … competent, if not straight-up flat at times. Some folks are probably disagreeing with me, though, so give the game’s thread a look as you ponder a purchasing decision as the game hits tonight alongside the rest of the world’s new releases.
International App Store Link: Paper Titans, $2.99
