Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops XL

I went into Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops XL hoping to find a scrappy, charming arcade holdover worth recommending to anyone craving something low-stakes and uncomplicated. What I found was a collection that tells you almost everything you need to know about itself within the first twenty minutes - and the honest truth is that signal cuts both ways. At its core this is a top-down twin-stick shooter where you guide a squad of one to three cartoon soldiers through bite-sized maps, completing objectives like eliminating enemy units, destroying buildings, rescuing hostages, and occasionally riding as a vehicle gunner for a brief change of pace. Missions typically clock in at three to five minutes each, which is the game's single greatest asset. The Soldier Campaign carries content from the original Tiny Troopers, the Spec Ops Campaign pulls from Tiny Troopers 2, and a Zombie Campaign adds eight undead missions alongside four wave-based maps with names like "Operation: Zombie Storm" and "Z-End". An Ultra-Hardcore difficulty setting rounds things out for players who want a reason to actually invest in the persistent upgrade system. Between missions you can spend earned currency on permanent stat boosts - damage, range, armour - or hire single-use specialist mercenaries like Medics, Machine Gunners, and Elite Delta Force troops. Losing a named trooper in the field means starting fresh with a rookie, which injects a small but real sense of stakes into otherwise light combat. Where things get complicated is the game's mobile heritage, and it is not subtle about it. The original Tiny Troopers series launched in 2012 and was designed around touchscreen tapping, and that DNA persists here in ways that a PC port cannot fully paper over. Objective variety is thin - the mission pool cycles through the same handful of task types across sixty-plus maps, and the second campaign largely repeats the patterns of the first rather than building on them. The aiming, while functional with twin-stick controls, carries a faint auto-targeting quality that feels imprecise rather than forgiving. The sound design is functional at best: clean gunshots and small explosions, but no memorable soundtrack to anchor the experience or give it atmosphere. For someone like me who cares deeply about whether a game has a sonic identity, that absence is felt. The Zombie Horde mode is the exception worth noting - wave survival focuses the experience, removes the tedious map-scouring of standard missions, and produces the most consistently enjoyable sessions the package has to offer. The PC and Xbox release in 2023 arrived with a thin Steam review sample that skews moderately positive, and critic aggregators have not been kind historically. The honest framing is this: Joint Ops XL is a quantity-over-quality proposition. Over sixty missions sounds generous until you realize the moment-to-moment loop has exhausted its vocabulary by mission fifteen. Play it in short bursts and it delivers a low-friction, occasionally satisfying arcade loop. Commit to extended sessions and the seams show fast. There is no multiplayer to soften the repetition, which remains a genuine missed opportunity given how naturally the squad concept lends itself to co-op.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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