Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip Review – Review

Nowhere does “Good things come in small packages” fit better than in describing Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip, one of the best examples of alliteration on Switch. The premise sees titular Terry working to secure a vehicle, not to travel around or earn money by working, but so that he can get to space. Aside from a smattering of random objectives, you’re basically free to explore the town of Sprankelwater to your heart’s content, chatting with local residents or maybe even stealing their cars and selling them. Everything is in service of Terry’s ultimate goal, but how you get there and how many of the townsfolk you choose to interact with is up to you.

The game begins with Terry sitting beside his uncle at a recruitment office, where Terry is willing to take any job that will give him a car. Taxi driver seems a good fit, and the hiring manager is extra pleased to offer Terry the position given that Terry doesn’t want to be paid: he just wants a car. My first inclination after hopping into the taxi was to look for passengers to pick up so that I could make some dough and relive my Crazy Taxi days, but I had forgotten why Terry wanted a car in the first place, and so I had to start looking about the town and driving around to figure out what to do next. The first 30 minutes or so can be a little confusing given the lack of handholding, but once you start visiting the question mark icons on the map and talking to folks, you get a clearer sense of the tasks Terry can work on to make his dream come true.

Some of the activities will reward you with the junk pieces you need to upgrade your car or money to purchase new tools, like a bug catching net, baseball bat, or perhaps a stylish hat. Others are just for marking off your to-do list, but even these are played for worthwhile laughs, making all of Sprankelwater worth a visit. The brief dialogue exchanges between Terry and the townsfolk are all manner of funny, and outside of getting my bearings at the outset of the game, I never cared very much whether I was making significant progress. The sights and sounds of this Turbo Trip are very much worth experiencing at a leisurely pace.

At one end of town I found Terry’s school–the one he was supposed to be attending for summer school–and his pals there organized a soccer match after chatting about the awkward placement of the school playground, hanging over a cliff. Except it wasn’t with a soccer ball but something resembling an orange fruit, and the clumsy controls made for another comedic moment, before I realized I needed to score five goals to complete the “Impress your friends” objective. Near the beach, I encountered a restaurant owner selling only one item, Beach Fries, of which Terry had somehow won a lifetime supply. The owner tasked me with catching insects for a new menu item, Bug Buns. Other encounters are just as unique and funny, and it was difficult not to think of titles like A Short Hike and even The Simpsons: Hit and Run as Terry hopped and bopped his way around town.

The quest to see Terry into space takes a backseat to the charm of exploring his hometown and its every nook and cranny. There’s about 4-6 hours of content here, and you’re likely to spend most of that runtime with a dumb grin on your face. My kids couldn’t contain their own laughter as they burst out every time Terry took a ramp at high speed or got ran into while crossing traffic; a bumper car battle with rival Ricky was the loudest I’d heard them in months. From the characters’ squawking voices to their amusing dialogue, Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip is a joyful vacation to a nonsensical playground where its small world is your oyster. The Switch performance isn’t perfect, but for a game with a fair bit of jank built in, it didn’t detract from the experience. At a time when the desire for escapism is at its highest, I’ll gladly recommend a trip to Sprankelwater for the best medicine that money can buy.