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The fox in the forest hearts5/17/2023 ![]() There are only two of these levels, but the game is aggressively short overall, and when the rest of the levels are, overall, fairly cleverly designed, it just made these abominations stand out all the more. ![]() These stages are bad enough on their own - boring, long, and repetitive - but the addition of the out-of-nowhere one-hit-death mechanic that isn't present anywhere else in the game, was just so baffling that it felt like I was playing a much worse game. If he so much as grazes a single pixel of the scenery, he dies in a unnecessarily dramatic animation. If an enemy so much as sneezes at Rick, he dies in an unnecessarily dramatic animation. What could have been a nice break and some variety in playstyle quickly became tedious.and then infuriating. In these stages, our protagonist flies through the stage like a side-scrolling shoot 'em up of yore. Unfortunately, the game has two particularly galling "autoscroller" levels that take the game’s otherwise immaculate approach to level design and hurl it screaming out the window. And if it weren’t for a couple exceptions, I’d be willing to say the game pulled off this intentional difficulty fairly well. You’re meant to feel weak and vulnerable, one fox against the world. Obviously, difficulty is subjective - what one person considers too difficult could be considered just right (or even too easy) for someone a little more "hardcore." However, in general, this is a game that is designed with difficulty at the forefront. It's slow and methodical and attempting to rush through it with anything less than an intimate familiarity with each stage will result in a broken heart (and possibly a broken controller).įOX n FORESTS is a difficult game to review because I can't tell if it's too hard or if I'm just bad at it. While you can eventually expand his repertoire a little - and in doing so open up small hidden areas of each stage, which you will visit multiple times in order to proceed with the story - Rick rarely feels overly powerful, and even the earliest stages will give you pause no matter how far you get into the game. ![]() His attack selection, particularly at first, is aggressively limited, and I constantly took unnecessary damage early on forgetting that I couldn't shoot in the air. The controls feel very 1990s, with Rick, the titular fox and our main character, committing to every jump like he has lead weights tied to his feet and has to sign a contract and file paperwork in triplicate. But playing FOX n FORESTS gave me PTSD-style flashbacks to bashing my head against the wall playing games like Castlevania and Ghosts and Goblins as a kid - for good and for ill. ![]() Too often the word retro (the adjective, not the badger) is thrown onto games that can only claim the label due to their aesthetic. He is a badger that likes retro games and makes constant video game references.Īnd that's pretty much all you need to know going into FOX n FORESTS. In FOX n FORESTS, there is a character called Retro the Badger. Reviews // 13th Jul 2018 - 5 years ago // By Brienne Rose FOX n FORESTS Review ![]()
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