Super Little Acorns 3D Turbo is a fantastic freshman effort from Pixel Toys that shows the right way to do a eShop title. The game is a standard platformer but is very polished with great production value.
GAME PLAY:
The game starts off with a simple but effective set up. A family of squirrels come home to find that their entire supply of nuts have been stolen by an array of animals. It’s is now up to Mr. Nibbles to scamper through the levels to collect them and restock the supply in your tree.
You have two basic controls for your character; jump and swing. As you go through the levels you can jump over enemies and attach yourself to swinging points to reach new heights.
The game has a percentage of total completion meter that is shown every time you complete a level. When you finish a level the nuts that you have collected are added to the stash in your tree, which keeps a running total. But simply completing each level isn’t enough if you want to get that elusive 100% because the game has a surprising amount of depth.
In addition to the basic task of collecting the nuts you can also collect five pieces of fruit, which only appear once all of the nuts have been collected. Collecting these as well and then reaching the finish will net you another ten nuts. For the player that likes customization you, getting the “fruity finish” also unlocks a costume piece that you can use to dress up your squirel.
There is a speed run of the level dubbed “speedy squirrel” which will pocket you another ten nuts if you complete the level within a certain time limit and defeating all of the enemies in a level before reaching the finish will also give you another ten nuts.
You’ll need to do all of these in order to reach a perfect game.
Some of the levels have another added collection that needs to be gathered in order to open the goal. In addition to the nuts some levels have little squirrel “babies” running around the level who need to be gathered.
There are enemies walking, falling, jumping and shooting through the levels, which aren’t too difficult to defeat although. Beat all the enemies in a level and you’ll get another bonus ten nuts towards a complete game.
The game also features a challenge mode with even more levels, each of which has a bronze, silver and gold challenge with more nuts as a reward.
CONTROLS:
Controls are very simple with just jump as the only control, though while you are in mid air you can press the jump button once again to swing from a point. The game controls very fluidly and is easy to control.
VIDEO & AUDIO:
The animal characters are boxy and the game has a very cartoony art style. The backgrounds and the music is classy and well suited to the game.
REPLAY VALUE:
Beating each level isn’t incredibly difficult but the real replay value of the game is replaying the levels over and over again to get the extra nuts. Collecting the fruit, doing the speed runs and knocking off all the enemies encourage you to play them again. Coupled with the turbo mode there is lots of lasting appeal to the game.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Super Little Acorns 3D Turbo is a cute little platformer that, which nothing new, has a lot of character and is a delight to play. It has good challenge but is not too tough.
