“Cute” and “Thor” may not be words you think would go together when discussing the mighty Norse god. However, it will probably be the first thing you’ll think of when you see Tiny Thor. This 16-Bit platformer, which devs Asylum Square call a “love letter to the golden age of SNES and Sega Genesis platformers”, presents a tiny, pixelated, child version of Thor who has just received his divine hammer, Mjölnir, on his tenth birthday from his father Odin. On your way to play with your new birthday present, your path crosses with a mysterious elf-like stranger who tells you the Bee Queen is planning to attack the town that evening! Thor decides to take on the task of stopping the Bee Queen, which sets him on an adventure throughout Asgard, tackling different arrays of creatures that wish to squash his plans of saving the town.

Though the hammer and Thor himself may be tiny in stature, the former is not tiny in its use. The hammer is undoubtedly the star of the Tiny Thor show and Asylum Square’s influences of Pin Ball and Breakout can be seen in how the hammer can be used. When thrown, the hammer bounces off surfaces, and if angled in the right way, it can be used to move objects, kill enemies, and hit switches. When you hold down the throw command and pivot Thor’s body and arm into different positions, a dotted line appears that shows you the trajectory that the hammer will take if it is released at that particular moment from Thor’s grip.

It is obvious that Asylum Square has created and made design decisions for Asgard and its creatures to truly show off the power of the Mjölnir. For example, certain enemies can only be killed if the hammer hits them directly on the head, meaning that you need to find the perfect angle for the hammer to bounce off of to hit the fatal blow. These enemies are usually found in areas where you are boxed in, so you will need to position your hammer quickly to survive.

If you aren’t quick enough, hopefully you have some of the game’s hearts under your belt. Health comes in the form of red bouncy hearts which can be found by headbutting little grey boxes that contain the heart symbol. When you are injured, the heart pops out of Thor with the number of lives it contains etched in its middle. However, the heart contains the same physics as Thor’s hammer and will bounce away from you, with the number of lives slowly ticking away the longer it is out of your body. Unfortunately hearts aren’t found often in the game and there seems to be less and less of them as you progress, despite the gameplay becoming harder. It’s disappointing that the game doesn’t have difficulty settings as some players whose reflexes aren’t strong will struggle to keep up with the game’s flow. If you do die in Tiny Thor, you are resurrected at the last checkpoint you visited but all enemies will regenerate.

Each of the 30 levels introduces new enemies and ways to explore the possibilities of Thor’s hammer. In the Jelly Jaunt level, you’ll find bouncy pink jelly-looking squares left around the world that you need to play around with to reach higher areas. In Bee Battalions, you will be bombarded by tiny bees that continuously sprout from hives and that you can bounce on to kill. Your hammer also helps you solve puzzles such as using it to quickly hit certain switches within a time limit to advance forward, hitting air-filled containers to propel you into the air, and moving objects you are standing on in order to cross terrain that is deadly to the touch. Tiny Thor, therefore, is a game that isn’t scared to challenge the player’s skills and reflexes with its ever-changing world of puzzles, enemies, and deadly landscapes.