FOX n FORESTS

Is fun, nostalgic and with good music and sprites.

Fox 'n Forests is a pretty underrated SNES-style retro platformer that takes a little bit of time to figure out. It's a short game in terms of levels as it consists of only eight stages, but you have to re-enter each level two or three times to collect all of the items needed to finish it. SNES platform games ala Aero the Acrobat or Magical Adventure Starring Mickey Mouse were usually overly simplistic, so this is better than most of those games while still being pretty flawed in and of itself. You play as a fox who can manipulate the seasons and fire several magical arrows. You can slash at close range and only fire the arrows while standing. The controls seemed terrible at first, but after playing for a few hours I got pretty good at them. What I like about the game is all of the collectibles and upgrades. You can collect grindstones to upgrade your weapons and magic crystals to upgrade your magic. Enemies drop money that can be used to buy additional heart containers in the town. Later on you get a ground pound attack that's extremely useful. There are five bosses, and while they are not hard they do require a bit of effort to figure out. 100% completion took me a few hours after finishing the game. The most time consuming thing was collecting 9,999 gold and buying all of the upgrades. I had to grind through the first level about ten times to get enough money to do this. Beyond this the game's music is fantastic but doesn't entirely fit. Some of the songs sound like they'd be better in a PS1 RPG or a dungeon crawler-type game. The best level in the game has you changing the season from winter to summer to drain a lake and find collectibles hidden under the lake. There are also two flying stages that are pretty easy but break up the pace of the game, along with one stage where you are just climbing upward to reach the top of a mill. To complete the game you need to find seeds and this is where the game kind of starts to get bad because the seeds are sometimes well hidden but other times really terribly hidden. You have to beat some levels to get the arrow upgrades to hit the targets necessary to create platforms to find some of the seeds. The dumb thing is that sometimes you need to just stand on an empty platform for the seed to appear. This was a terrible design choice that forces you to just wander all over the place in the hopes that the seed will pop up. You need 24 seeds to finish the game and 40 to 100% complete it, so expect to spend a few hours hunting these down. The developer also released a guide on steam with a map so you can use that to speed up the process. I recommend it because otherwise there's no indication where the seeds are hidden. Fox 'n Forests isn't the best platform game I've played, but it is very polished and does a good job imitating an old SNES game while simultaneously being its own thing. I would have liked it if the puzzles require a little bit of thought and if the changing of the seasons aspect was a little bit deeper. It would've been better if you could change to all four seasons instead of just changing a single season to solve extremely basic puzzles. Sometimes it's utilized rather cleverly and other times it feels totally pointless. But when you factor in all of the content here and the fact that it's not very long it is a succinct and entertaining experience with just enough there to make it worth playing.

I recently finished playing FOX n FORESTS on my Asus ROG Ally (Ryzen Z1 Extreme model), and it performed well on the 15W power setting. FOX n FORESTS tells the quirky story of an adventurous fox named Rick, who is helping an old tree gather some key elements for... reasons. There's also a bird named Patty, who seems to be someone we kind of hate, but we also use her for flying levels? Hehe, I don't know! What I found cool about the game: - This is a really fun game. The overall package captures the spirit of a fun adventure that should give you around 7-9 hours of gameplay, or even more if you aim to complete everything the game offers! - The art is gorgeous. The sprite work is great, the scenery makes sense, and the backgrounds bring everything to life with a nostalgic 16-bit era feel. - The music and sound design are really cool. I think the main theme is woven into multiple tracks from different levels, and it gives off a nice, catchy vibe when you recognize it. - There’s a good variety in movement, traversal, melee and ranged combat, the enemies are diverse, and the boss battles vary, which was refreshing. For example, one boss battle was basically a race against time, not just a "bullet sponge" fight until death. I have some nitpicks, however: - It’s weird that you can only use melee attacks in some instances and shoot in others. For example, while jumping, you can’t shoot, and while standing still, you can only shoot (you have to press up or down to melee). If a controller has two buttons, it should be able to handle both! - A lot of collectables feel cryptic to find, and it was annoying getting some after a lot of searching, only to die and go back to a checkpoint, forgetting to pick them up again and having to replay the whole level just to get them. Also, the fourth boss was really cryptic, even after reading the tips at the end when you die! - The developer added a guide for collecting everything, but I like doing blind playthroughs, and it was frustrating gathering enough seeds to unlock the last season of the game. I started to dislike replaying the same level for the fifth time. Yes, there’s a lot of backtracking! - I’m not a huge fan of side-scrollers, but I know that strong ones like Celeste or Hollow Knight have tight controls, and FOX n FORESTS doesn’t quite feel that way. It works, but not perfectly. - While playing on a portable device, how do you quit the game? I read that you need to use Alt + F4, but how do you do that with a controller? Overall, this game has a lot of room for improvement, but I think it’s worth the price for what it offers. With its artistic design and charm, it’s definitely worth going through every level!

this game is really good the movement feels great, the attacks are nice(once you get the double jump spin), and the level design is good plus the music is peak(and on spotify) genuinely great game for anyone who likes 16-bit platformers and silly foxes :3

I booted up Fox n Forests mostly for the card drops after being kind of lukewarm closer to its original release. I'm glad I didn't feel like running IdleMaster, because on this subsequent run it clicked into place much better. There are only eight main levels, and the main loop involves beating a season's boss to unlock new arrows, using those arrows to find more seeds, and using those seeds to open up more stages. The two scrolling shooter stages are a little disappointing when the platforming you're here for only takes up 75% of the main map, but if you're the explorative type as am I there's plenty to reward your curiosity. It does become noticeable that secrets all appear to chiefly involve colored targets, but that doesn't make it less engaging to find them. Kind of a bummer the bonus levels are so underwhelming and can't be replayed in each file, though. Nor can the bosses. Controls can feel a little odd at first; you can only shoot arrows at a standstill - even ducking will swap to the bayonet, and attacking from a jump versus a double jump are treated as two separate moves to be obtained individually. The basics are solid though, so with a little familiarization early on you should be able to acclimate. Presentation-wise, the SNES aesthetic is completely and totally nailed. The pixel art and music stylings are both pitch-perfect, save only for the "mixels" problem at higher resolutions. Fairly minor when the color palettes are this gorgeous. There are some rough edges to be sure, but Fox n Forests is well worth your time almost for its audiovisual trappings alone. Naturally the fact there's a solid platformer in there makes it all the easier to recommend.

I think it's adorable! Inspired by Ghosts & Goblins stuff, a bit of Castlevania. I like it so far! Just got the second bark thingy and red arrows.

First off, let me lead off with the game contains a game breaking bug. in the third stage a required platform just does not work, preventing you from completing the game entirely. I found a post from 2018 where the devs acknowledged it and offered a all levels cheat code as a work around. They said that it depends on your hardware so beware buying this game. you are rolling the dice on whether you can even finish it. This brings me to my second gripe, the airplane levels are horrendous. for some reason movement sensitivity was dialed to 11 and the entire difficulty of the game is you struggling to move LITTLE enough to not kill yourself on the walls. also for some reason button presses to switch weapon tend to not register in the airplane levels. they are poorly designed enough for me to not recommend. Beyond that the game is ~ok~ and somewhat bland. music is enjoyable enough and will remind you of games past, plenty of little throwback lines as well. buy on deep sale or avoid.

While the graphical artwork and animation of this game is absolutely amazing, the gameplay itself is absolute trash. I won't bother saying anything else further, since there's other people throughout the internet who have written criticisms of the game in detail. The game needs overall improvement (except for the animation and graphical artwork obviously).

I need to play this with a real SNES controller next time.

¿Echas de menos esos juegos arcade antiguos donde la curva de aprendizaje requería de cierta destreza para adaptarse al juego? ¿Dónde las 'hitboxes' eran cuestionables pero las batallas satisfactorias? ¿Dónde revisitar zonas anteriores para conseguir esos secretos que te faltaban por falta de habilidades o herramientas? Entonces debes darle una oportunidad a este plataformas que te dará unas pocas horas de intensa diversión.