Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 3: Night of the Quinkan

"third time's a charm"

I heard that this game was coming out, so I asked for it as a Christmas present. I did absolutely NO research on the game because I thought it was going to be just as good as the first two games. Boy, was I wrong... this game is FAR BETTER than the first two games. It took out all of the boring missions and replaced them with fun missions, it put a whole new spin on the combat, and most importantly... it turned up the difficulty. No longer is Ty an easy game that you can beat with your eyes closed. Now it offers a challenge!

PRESENTATION: 8/10
The structure of this game is the same as the structure of Ty 2. You must complete missions to advance further into the game and obtain opals to buy boomerangs and such. It even takes place in the same area as Ty 2... however, everything looks 100% different from how it looked in Ty 2. That's because this game takes place in the sad future of Southern Rivers.

This game takes on a darker mood with the storyline being that an evil race of creatures known as the Quinkan have taken over Southern Rivers and turned it into an even more desolate and lifeless place than it was before. Even though this game has a dark mood to it, it still maintains the same spirit as the Ty games have always had... but this game has almost entirely lost the "We're in Australia!" theme that was so apparent in the first game. Now the only Australian thing left in the Ty universe is the accents.

GRAPHICS: 10/10
I never thought a Ty game could look so good! Even though this game is dark, the environments are still beautiful... they're even more beautiful than they were in the first game! The main "highway" is divided into two parts: twilight and midnight. Twilight is as close to daytime as you'll get in this game, and midnight is dark and takes on a similar mood to the Bridge on the River Ty level in the original Ty the Tasmanian Tiger... but the nighttime in Ty 3 can more accurately be described as "hostile" than "peaceful".

You'll travel to dark snowy mountains, twilit beaches, wet rainforests, and ash-filled volcanoes. One thing I love about the graphics for the snowy levels and volcano levels is how the snowflakes and ash blow through the air and give you the feeling of the wind blowing around and the feeling of the cold snowflakes or the hot ash. One incredible thing about this is how the snowy mountain levels often mix with the volcano levels to give you a "hot and cold" feel. I know Banjo-Tooie did the "hot and cold" theme first, but not as well as this game has done it!

Other than the beautiful environments are the very well-done character models. The character models in this game are animated perfectly. Their mannerisms go along with what they're saying, and their facial expressions perfectly depict how they're feeling. The character models seem to have been completely redone, and it is a definite step up from the previous two games.

MUSIC: 5/10
Huh? What music? I can barely remember any tunes from the game... oh! Now I remember some tunes! The music in this game is a definite low point. The tunes in this game certainly aren't catchy or fun to listen to. They don't even fit the mood. They're just kinda... there. They do nothing but take up space. The music in this game is extremely unmemorable and unnecessary. I'd rather have complete silence in this game than the totally bland tunes that you'll hear everywhere.

SOUND: 10/10
Ah, the sound of the Ty games has never failed to please me. The voiceovers are still just as good as ever with other sound effects still remaining the same. However, the sound of the zappyrang is completely different from what it used to be. Now it sounds like a lightning strike rather than electricity crackling.

The new sound effects are good, too. The Quinkan make some very fitting screeching and roaring sounds, and whenever you hit one of them with your boomerang, it makes an odd sound that kind of gives you the idea that Quinkan are really more like ghosts than actual solid creatures.

GAMEPLAY: 10/10
Ty the Tasmanian Tiger has never been a more fun game to play! This game has completely revamped the combat. Instead of using the standard rangs such as the flamerang and megarang, you are given "rang chassis" which are, just as the name suggests, empty chassis of rangs. What you do with these rang chassis is put special stones in the slots. A rang chassis can have up to six slots for you to put all kinds of different stones in. These stones include but are not limited to the fire stone, water stone, mega stone, earth stone, zoom stone, and multi stone. You can mix the stones however you like, but you can't mix elements together, and there are some kinds of stones that don't work if other kinds of stones are in place. These specialized rangs make combat a breeze (especially later in the game when you have a massive amount of stones and chassis to put them in), but what really makes the combat special is the new "close rang combat" system.

In this game, if Ty gets close to an enemy, he can slash it with his boomerang. This might seem like something minor, but the Quinkan are unlike any enemy Ty has faced before! They don't die in one hit, so you have to perform some long combos on them. The combos are lots of fun to pull off, and there are some cool finishing moves that you can perform on the Quinkan. The finishing moves are especially useful in the beginning of the game when your rang isn't really very powerful, but finishing moves become unnecessary later when you can defeat a Quinkan in three easy hits.

Other than close rang combat, you also get to drive some more vehicles! No worries, though. The helicopter and submarine aren't here. Instead, you get to pilot a Gunyip which is exactly like the arwing from the Starfox games... and the Gunyip missions are also exactly like the arwing missions in Starfox games. Yeah, it's ripping off of the Starfox series, but it isn't doing a bad job of it. Other than the Gunyip missions are the Battle Bunyip missions. In this game, you drive a Shadow Bunyip which is armed with all sorts of cool weapons (most of them you have to buy, though.) You can also drive something that resembles the Thermo Extreme Bunyip from Ty 2 but is now just called the Extreme Bunyip. It's a lot like the Thermo Bunyip, but it has gotten rid of its squirt gun to acquire a set of weapons that is sure to please anyone who wants to blast some Quinkan. (The Satellite Strike is the best!)

Something that's back from Ty 2 in this game is the towns and shops. There are two main towns that you go to, and each town has plenty of shops that sell rang chassis, rang stones, and Bunyip weapons. However, the prices are so high that you most likely won't get around to buying all of the boomerangs and Bunyip weapons before you beat the game... and after you've beaten the game, there's really nothing left to do. Another thing you'll find in the towns is that people no longer walk up to you and say something like "Hello, Ty!" Instead, people stand around and wave as you walk by. They might greet you, but it's nowhere near as annoying as it was in Ty 2. You can also have civilized conversation with them if you want. They'll normally say something interesting or funny, and they have three different things that they'll say to you each time you talk to them.

Now, I've saved the best for last. In this game, you don't drive a truck on the road. Instead, you drive what is perhaps the coolest Ty vehicle ever invented. It is the Crabmersible! This awesome contraption is a tank that looks like a crab. It has six legs that can run and jump, and it has two claws that can snap enemies that are close or launch an endless supply of homing missiles at enemies that are far away. It can also perform flips and barrel rolls, and it can travel on water like a boat or go under the water and walk on the bottom.

While I'm on the subject of road travel, I'll also mention the cart racing. Cart racing was available as a multiplayer feature in Ty 2, but in this game, some of the missions require you to compete in a cart race. The cart racing is where the game really gets challenging. Most of the time, you'll have to do more than come in first place. You'll have to collect a certain number of thunder egg fragments on the track and come in first, or the race might be a demolition derby where you have to destroy the other racers. Either way, you'll find it quite a difficult task.

OVERALL: 10/10
Ty the Tasmanian Tiger has come a long way. This game is great and should be played by everyone. Whether you're a fan of the first two games or not, this game is a definite must-buy. It took everything good about the first two Ty games, fixed all of the problems, and added some new but fun gameplay elements to make this a brilliant game.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/05/09

Game Release: Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 3: Night of the Quinkan (US, 10/12/05)