In the modern era of video games, developers use ideas that have worked in the past to their advantage, similar to a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. In similar fashion, developers have used similar ideas from other games as launching points for their own ideas and had great success with them. That brings me to Fox N Forests, from the development team at Bonus Level Games and published by Eurovideo and Wild River.
The game takes elements from classic Super Nintendo games and plays just like a retro Super Nintendo game and that’s what development wanted. The game has 2D graphics in the style of a SNES game and at the same time has some 3D graphics like a SNES game. There was a boss battle where you had to fight a giant wasp and the wasp was in slight 3D like an old-school SNES boss would be.
You play as Rick the Fox and your weapon of choice is a magic crossbow that can change forms. You will need to solve puzzles with the crossbow by having the right magic/element to use to open the right path. Fox N Forests has puzzle elements like this as well as figuring out boss battles. There is one more major puzzle element and that’s the main feature of the game and that’s seasonal change. You will have to change between winter and spring to proceed in the Mystic Forest. However, you can’t keep the season changed forever as you have a magic meter and when it runs out, you’re stunned and a sitting duck for enemies.
The game also pays homage to classic Super Nintendo games in ways like Super Ghouls and Ghosts by the difficulty and the upgrades as well as the Castlevania series by different weapons/upgrades as well. There is a slight difference comparing this game to the games of the past and that is there is a checkpoint that you can find and buy in each level. The games of the past wouldn’t let you be so lucky to find a checkpoint to save midway through the level. The seasonal change is an interesting mechanic for the game but it could get repetitive quickly. It will be interesting to see how the game doesn’t put the same puzzles in the game to solve with the environment change. Fox N Forests does have great music and that’s another way the game brings you back to the Super Nintendo era as most of, if not all the games had pretty good soundtracks. It also has RPG elements and the role-playing game was a huge staple on the Super Nintendo so what better way to show off a retro style game than with RPG elements?
It feels like gaming fans want to relive their youth and classic-styled games like this will make them feel their childhood again and then some! It looks good on the Nintendo Switch off-TV mode and it was tough but not too tough. It had a charming look and sounded fun and the writing was funny and those are all signs of a winner in my book.