Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 3: Night of the Quinkan GameBoy Advance Review

Ty The Tasmanian Tiger 3 was released for the GBA quite a while ago but damnit, we here at Modojo intend to review every single game that's dropped onto our desk no matter how old, good, stupid, or Australian! Ty, who was created by Australia based Krome Studios, is the best character to come out of the outback since some dorky guy who said to this other dorky guy, "that's not a knife"! But anyway, the sequel to the best selling series has arrived on the GBA, and while it's really nothing special, it's at the very least a well programmed platform adventure that's worth checking out providing you've already played the really great games that Nintendo's released.

Just like the console version, the portable Ty 3 revolves around the same narrative, the tale of Ty, his friends, and these weird creatures known as the Quinkan. Our furry hero thought he disposed of them in The Dreaming, but upon returning to his world he comes to the horrific (not really) realization that the pesky critters have somehow popped into his reality and have pretty much decimated Australia. The crap's hit the fan big time and only Ty can put things back the way they were, so with trusty boomerang in hand, he sets out to dispose of the Quinkan menace.

Night of the Quinkan is a 2D side scrolling game and a pretty standard one at that. Krome certainly tried to keep things interesting by enabling the player to upgrade and purchase new "rangs", pick up a host of goodies and pilot several different types of vehicles such as the flying Gunyip and the cute scuttle bug Crabmersible, but all of this stuff doesn't hide the fact that Ty 3 is just a regular old platform hopping/enemy smashing game and one that I've played numerous times. But that certainly doesn't mean that the game is boring. I mean, it's extremely boring when compared to the Super Mario Advance games or Konami's Castlevania titles, but if you've played all of those (and really, most games can't compare to them), you're not going to turn into a cold can of Fosters and be consumed by some sweaty man because you popped this koala bear into your GBA or Nintendo DS (I can't believe I just wrote that). It's not overwhelmingly original but it's definitely enjoyable to a point, and quite frankly, no matter how many games I play that include item collecting I just can't get enough.

Unfortunately, what I can get enough of are the annoying sound effects such as when Ty throws his boomerang. It just grates on the nerves and the same goes for a few choice effects in the game, but aside from those minor issues the rest of it's all right. It loses some of its Australian charm because the characters don't actually talk, but the music somewhat makes up for that.

I recommend Ty 3, but only if you've ran through all of the other good to great platform games on the Game Boy Advance, because in good conscience I won't tell you to buy this over Super Mario Bros. 3. But considering the selection of GBA titles these days and the way that the section's becoming smaller, this is one of the best new games you can buy for the system. But don't pick this over Donkey Kong Country 3.