FOX’n’FORESTS Review

Among indie developers, Retro inspired games can be treated in two different ways, either a cheap cash grab that is set to pray on suckers looking for a nostalgic trip to the past, or as a love note to the things that made the by-gone of gaming so great.

Luckily, Fox’n’Forests from Bonus Level Entertainment and Publisher EuroVideo falls into the later of that as a classic 2D platformer which shares a lot of similarities to classics such as Super Ghost’n’Ghouls, Castlevania and Actraiser, while doing more than enough to make it stand out for a modern audience.

Fox’n’Forests focuses on a Fox named Rick who enters a mysterious Forest after chasing his prey. After failing to catch his food, he meets a Partridge name Patty who guides him to the great old Season Tree who tasks him with finding the bark that was stolen from him and has thrown the seasons of the forests out of whack.

Rick is then given the power to control the seasons, as well as a bad ass crossbow/bayonet weapon, and he sets off through the forest to find the missing bark.  While like most 16-bit games, the plot itself isn’t anything amazing, it does enough to get you out the door and on to a season changing adventure.

Like most 16-bit era games, the real joy of Fox’n’Forests comes from its gameplay. Rick has all the basics – Double Jumps, bayonet attacks, cross-bow bolts and various other moves you’d expect from a 2D platformer, however one annoyance is that Rick can only shoot while standing still. That being said, it is something that you can get over as the game give some tight controls and the ability to upgrade Rick to have new moves and upgrades that make it a minor inconvenience.

The level design to Fox’n’Forests is easily one of the bests done for a retro inspired title as each level has multiple branching paths in a similar fashion to classic Sonic the Hedgehog. Each path gives a different experience to a level, offering hidden rewards that can be used to help Rick by trading with Patty. There is one drawback to this however we’ll touch on this in a bit.

Rick’s powers to change the seasons is one of the more interesting mechanics in this game. While the season change is set per level, it offers new ways to solve puzzles and deal with threats, for example, the first level allows you to change the season to Winter to turn the water to ice, allowing you to stand on it and make new paths to your objectives.

The end of level bosses are also a real treat, however a bit easy. Each of the bosses use a season change gimmick to help defeat them, like the first world features a giant frog who fires blobs into the sky, changing the season to Winter freezes the blobs and hitting them with your bayonet launches it back at him. They’re fun little challenges that gives a payoff to most of the trouble you go through in the game.

While most of the game is linear, Fox’n’Forests does have a problem with padding thanks to force back-tracking which makes that great level design I mentioned a bit of a chore. Players need a specific amount of saplings before moving on to each area in the game, most of the time, these can only be acquired after upgrades have been purchased or new powers were found.

Fox’n’Forests is very impressive for a 16-bit indie title, as its artwork is so well done that I could have mistaken it for a classic that I sworn I played on my Super Nintendo re-released for PC and modern consoles. Throughout the game I got the nostalgic feeling of enjoying “The Magical Quest – Staring Micky Mouse” thanks to the game’s backgrounds, animations and music.

While there is little replay-value, Fox’n’Forests is a fun 16-bit adventure game that is worth a playthrough.