Rynn's Adventure: Trouble in the Enchanted Forest Review

I’ve always been quite a fan of 2D platformers. It’s a genre that I grew up on and one that I feel has kind of lost its way in recent years. Mario has moved into the 3D world for the main part and the 2D games are more focused on couch co-op than traditional platforming. Dizzy is long gone (bar that awesome re-release last year), and nobody has heard from Miner Willy in years now. The less said about Sonic the Hedgehog the better. So with such a dearth of games in the genre, I got quite excited when I saw Rynn's Adventure: Trouble in the Enchanted Forest needed reviewing.

Rynn’s Adventure is the debut title from Arcane Four Studios, a small indie development team from Canada who have been incorporated since 2009. They haven’t released a previous title so either they've abandoned a few projects, or they've been working on this game since 2009. Given the level of polish that it has, I'm actually inclined to believe that the latter is the case.

This is a stunningly pretty game, with a huge amount of attention paid to presentation throughout. The animation is smooth and well done, and the stylish hand-drawn graphics fit the game style perfectly. Collectible gems - because there has to be a collectible in a platformer, it’s the law - sparkle and jingle as you pick them up, enemies make pleasing squeals as you jump on them and ice makes a satisfying crunching sound as it shatters. It’s these little things that can often be missed in a game, but they add so much to the experience.

Gems, gems everywhere but not a drop to drink.

You play as Rynn, a fox princess who is on a mission to save her pals in the Enchanted Forest from an invading reptilian army. Her parents, rulers of the Forest, have been kidnapped by the army because reasons. There’s an evil wizard behind all of it for some reason. Look, It’s a platformer, you’re not playing this for the story! The controls, as you’d expect are pretty simple; you can run, spin in a Sonic-like manner to kill enemies and do a strange move where you shoot straight down in a lightning bolt. I never found any real reason to use the move instead of the spinning jump but it’s there if you want it. In each level there is a set number of gems to collect, and an obligatory end-of-level boss to defeat on your way to rescue the denizens of your rural home.

The game is an unashamedly retro affair from the outset. There’s a very brief tutorial type section where you work out what everything does, and then after that you’re left on your own to work everything out through trial and error. If you told me that this was a high-def remake of an old Amiga game that I’d never played then I would absolutely have believed you, it plays just like one. That means it’s hard. Maybe not Dark Souls hard, but it’s certainly going to take you a long time to work your way through the entire game. I’d clocked up two hours of gameplay before I met my first end of level boss and six hours before I actually managed to defeat one of them! If you remember games like Donkey Kong Country or Aladdin and miss that level of difficulty, then this may well be right up your street.

You will see this screen a lot.

In a concession to the modern way of doing things though, your progress is saved once you complete a level and you can play any of the first eight levels in any order, only the final level is locked out, with three keys needing to be found on each of the levels in order to unlock it. It’s worth completing them in order though as Rynn gets additional skills by collecting fruit, obtained by defeating end of level bosses. These additional skills give you powers like projectile weapons or extended jumping which, whilst not required, will make some of the later levels a lot easier. Unfortunately, I haven’t defeated many of the bosses so I've yet to see many of these in person, but they look pretty cool in the trailer!

This is the size of most of the bosses!

Like some of those games of old, there are one or two areas where you need split-second reactions to avoid an untimely demise. Arcane Four have done a great job however of avoiding those cheap, “leap-of-faith” style deaths that were all too common in the days of the 16-bit consoles. You will die a lot, but you’ll rarely find yourself blaming the game. This means that you can learn from your mistakes and try again. I always felt that I could do better with another go, unlike some platformers where you feel the odds are intentionally stacked against you. One rather nifty feature that comes into play here is that if you die, the game comes pretty much right back. There’s no drawn out death animation and waiting for the chance to try that awkward jump again, you get a “Ready? Go!” screen and you’re right back in the action within a second or two. To go alongside this, if you die in the first few seconds after respawning, you don’t lose a life, meaning that you can jump straight back in and if you make the same silly mistake twice, then you may not be punished for it.

There’s a few cool mechanics along the way, with a mine cart section, geysers that bounce you into the air, a VVVVVV-esque gravity flipping section, and even a section that sees Rynn don skies and goggles before hurling herself down a mountain! This gives enough variety that there’s always something new, and the levels see different scenery such as the pretty much mandatory desert and snow levels.

Yes, this is a fox on skis!

All of this adds up to a really fun experience. I tend to feel that if I find myself saying “just one more try” more than once in a gaming session, then the game has done its job. I think I uttered that phrase somewhere in the region of about 12 times before finally stopping and going to bed on the first night after starting to play. Fortunately, I'm an adult and I can stay up as late as I want ( As long as that’s OK with my fiancée). It’s hard to find anything negative to say about Rynn's Adventure: Trouble in the Enchanted Forest. It’s a really fun game and one that I'm determined to go back to after this review with the aim of completing. If you enjoy platformers and you want a strong challenge to keep you occupied then this is a fantastic game to pick up. I thoroughly recommend it.