I've been asked to review Fox n' Forests which first showed up on my radar when it was put onto Kickstarter in 2016 and I have been excited since I saw the screenshots and artwork. It's the day before it officially comes out to download on Steam, PS4, XboxOne and Switch and I'm lucky enough to have been able to try it out on Steam.
You start the game off meeting Rick the Fox and Patty the Partridge. Rick was about to have a little snack, which obviously made Patty quick angry as she was supposed to be the snack...
So instead she talks Rick into helping her defeat the green horde and promises him many treasures. Though I'm sure Rick is thinking he can get some money and some easy food at the same time, but he promises to be nice so we will see. Patty takes him to see the almighty Season Tree telling him that Rick is the selfless hero that will save them all. The trees powers are withering and some strange force is taking over the forests and is trying for force a fifth season, so it is up to Rick to prevent this from happening and thus saving the Mighty Tree and forest. He gives you the Magic Melee Crossbow which allows you to command the 4 seasons and save the forest.
As soon as you start the first level you see the beautiful graphics. This looks like a gorgeous Super Nintendo game that would have come out near the end of the consoles run, at the point where the game developers knew how to push the console to it's max. The animations are smooth especially when you change the seasons.
I played on Steam using the Xbox 360 controller, which is a little different compared to my usual SNES controller but it worked really well! There was never a time where I felt the controls were clunky or hard to use. There were buttons assigned for using your crossbow weapon, jumping, magic, changing the seasons and doing melee attacks. There's a handy double jump that helps you reach higher areas and health and mana replenishing items. The nice thing is by collecting coins you can go to the market/store area and buy new attacks, extended health and mana bars and magic potions. Your mana bar is used up when you change seasons, so if you switch from summer to winter to free the ice to get across a hole you have to make sure you switch back to summer as soon as you cross so you don't use up all of your mana. The nice thing is your mana recovers after time as long as you are patient, which is hard sometimes :) But it is so cool being able to switch the seasons to create leaves to jump across open gaps, freeze enemies or water by switching it to winter. It's the first time I've ever seen a game use changing seasons like this as a game mechanic and it works very well. If you get stuck in a level, chances are you can just change the season and something will grow or change so you can get past the obstacles. The first main boss fight has you using the season change option to free the enemies eggs and hit them at him. It's really a cool idea and works quite well.
The music in the game is really good and almost hears like something you would hear in an RPG on the Super Nintendo. Each level that you play though will require you to come back once you have other items like different colored arrows to unlock hidden areas. Each level has 5 magic seeds hidden that you have to find so you can grow more trees to unlock new areas, so a few playthroughs may be needed. The game has 3 difficulty settings so if you find it to hard you can make it easier, or if you really like a challenge you can always make it harder. They have even put a badger named Retro into the level as checkpoints. If you want him to save your spot you will have to pay some money but if you happen to die you get to start off where he is. It's totally up to you if you use the checkpoints. I did just because I hit a few glitches and I wanted to be able to go back to try again.
It's definitely one of those games where you will just have to try it for yourself. If you love retro platformers,especially on the SNES I highly recommend checking it out. Though I suggest getting it on one of the consoles where you are comfortable with the controller, as I found it a bit tricky to use the Xbox 360 controller on my computer since I'm used to my retro controllers like the NES and SNES. Luckily it was just a little bit frustrating at first, but didn't take long to get used to at all since everything was laid out nice on the controller. I hit a couple glitches, one that prevented me from completing the one level but luckily since I paid Retro to save my spot I was able to reset it and just try it again and it worked fine. I played mostly on Easy mode just to make sure I would be able to experience as many levels as I could. But even on Easy I found a few of the jumps they wanted me to make a bit harder than I thought. Though it doesn't help that I'm not super familiar with the 360 controller so that may have been a bit of a handicap for me. I am happy to tell you this game is definitely worth picking it! When I saw footage of this back when it was first announced it almost seemed too good to be true, but it's obvious they took their time with the gameplay which is so important. It feels and looks like something that you would have played on the SNES which makes it so rewarding!
I give it 9.5 out of 10 just mainly because of some of the frustrating glitches/bugs I hit. Definitely worth playing! I can't wait to play more and unlock more areas and items so I can find all the secrets!
Check out my first game play video of Fox 'n Forests on YouTube and be sure to like and subscribe so you don't miss out on another other awesome game play videos!
