Thomas Was Alone Review

Brought to Life

Thomas Was Alone is one of the best experiences I’ve had with video games this year. It’s a true testament to the fact that once in a great while, a video game can show you something about yourself that you didn’t know was there, lying dormant and deep within. It’s a game that everyone should walk away from feeling like they have learned something. It’s also a game that I feel finds its perfect home on the PlayStation Vita.

The game centers around a rogue AI named Thomas who has become self-aware. Although Thomas is the lucky one who the game is named after, the friends he meets along the way are all equally, if not more important to the overall package in their own special way. Driven at first by the urge to move “up and to the right,” Thomas soon finds that he was meant to serve a greater purpose, and while I won’t spoil anything, it is an astoundingly emotional ride. 

Thomas Was Alone is a platformer through and through. Each level requires the player to solve simple puzzles to get from Point A, to Point B. Every one of Thomas’ allies has their own unique ability ranging from being able to swim, to having the skill to double- jump. The puzzles themselves never proved to be too challenging, and the controls were as close to perfect as any platformer could hope to be. The latency between button presses and actions is non-existent, and it’s easy to judge the jumping length, and ability of each playable character.

My favorite part about the game’s puzzles was that even though there is, as far as I know, one true solution to each one, the way that you go about finding that solution makes you feel as though you’ve broken the system to find the answer. What I mean by that is you’ll be arranging the various different rectangular characters in different stacks and positions so unorganized that you’ll constantly question whether or not the creator, Mike Bithell, intended things to be completed that way. It’s an incredibly smart system that lends itself to the game’s thesis of breaking free of monotony and using your abilities to their true potential.

Speaking in place of the different characters (what? They’re rectangles. Did you expect them to have mouths?) is narration by British comedian Danny Wallace. If you’ve played LittleBigPlanet before, you’ll recognize the tone of the narration right away. It’s lighthearted and silly at times, but at others it carries a certain weight and feeling of directness that keeps you moving through the game’s introspective plot.

Lending itself expertly to the narration is the game’s soundtrack, and of course its wonderful visuals. The music that goes along with the game was created by David Housden, and it provokes the mood that the story is trying to convey extremely well, and it never feels like it’s fighting for attention with the rest of the game. The visuals are crisp and colorful, and the implementation of lighting effects is strangely unique. To put it bluntly, the game is as much of a joy to look at as it is to play.

The game took me about three hours to complete, and I haven’t gone back to get every trophy yet. Despite its short length to completion, it never feels too rushed. There is also an additional feature that allows you to hear commentary from Bithell as you play along, and that definitely warrants a second play-through. The game is playable on both PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita, but as I said before, the game feels like it was meant to be played on the PlayStation Vita.

For a cross-buy title that only costs $9.99, this is a game that everyone should play at least once. The emotionally driven soundtrack, minimalistically beautiful visuals and the all-around adorable story and characterization add up to what is truly an incredibly special experience. Even though it comes up a bit short in terms of length and difficulty, the lessons that it can teach you about who you are as an individual, and ironically, what it means to be alive are well worth the price of admission.

9.0/10