Tiny Archer Guest Review By Celt Brenny

The following review for Tiny Archer, is a guest review by Celt Brenny. At Complete Xbox, we always welcome your views, and we love to share and promote them within the wider gaming community.

Tiny Archer is a action platformer that aims to blend classic side-scrolling gameplay with fast bow and arrow combat. You take on the role of a miniature archer navigating a slime-infested dungeon, using wall jumps, timing, and marksmanship to survive through 20 levels.

The game’s premise is very simple but has a real indie feel to it as you guide your archer through simple platforming by jumping walls, avoiding spikes, and taking out slime that progressively get harder. While not an RPG or story-driven adventure, Tiny Archer is designed for players who enjoy short bursts of skill-based gameplay.

At its core, Tiny Archer is about timing and accuracy. Your bow is your only weapon, and timing your shots is important, as enemies attack quickly, and sometimes you have to navigate away from the enemy due to them charging at you to avoid damage, making some of the later sections tricker, but with only 3 bars of health you can easily get caught out and have to start over. Power-ups like triple-shot quivers add variety and aid the hero though it still feels very light in places and would prefer a few more powerups to keep things fresh.

Levels are short, usually taking between 2–5 minutes to complete, but there is plenty to shoot and environmental traps and slime to beat. There are 4 types of slime to beat with their own style of movement and health. Green Slimes are the simpler enemies that move back and forth. Blue Slimes, when hit their movement speed goes all the way up making it tricky sometimes to kill it quick enough and having to backtrack to avoid damage whilst avoiding spike traps can cause some easy deaths. Orange Slime when on the same ledge as them they lock onto you again making it important you time when to engage with them and have more health than others. Finally, there are red slimes that shoot small projectiles that cause you to think about your approach when given a couple of options to navigate a room.

Tiny Archer uses pixel-art visuals with bright, high-contrast colour palettes, making traps and enemies easy to spot and the soundtrack is very upbeat chiptune that adds to the retro feel but very much makes you get the Indie all for a feel good package of £4.19, perfect for those who want a short burst stress free experience.

I understand what the developer is trying to achieve and remember that this is only a bite sized Indie title but the level design leaves something to be desired and I just wish that the levels were a little trickier and had a change of aesthetic as the theme of the game is fantastic but it’s just the lack enemy and location variety that make this feel stale at times but is forgiven as it’s a short burst of platforming fun.