Rynn's Adventure: Trouble in the Enchanted Forest

I’m a sucker for a good platformer.  This is probably because I grew up on them with the NES and Super NES.  While I prefer the old-school 8-bit and 16-bit style of game, it doesn’t have to look retro to suck me into it.  A lot of times we see developers make games that draw inspiration from the classics and the results can be hit or miss, but if the game takes inspiration from my favorite franchise, Mega Man, I tend to be a bit more critical of it.  With that said, today I’m taking a look at Rynn’s Adventure: Trouble in the Enchanted Forest.

The game takes place in an enchanted land of animals where a narrator tells the tale of a kingdom ruled by two foxes, the king and queen.  One day while their daughter Rynn was out playing, an evil alligator named Bigadee invaded the kingdom, put a spell on the Queen, and took her away.  When Rynn returned, the King was preparing to go rescue the Queen and took Rynn with him.  Moments later however, Bigadee returned and captured the King as well.  Now it’s up to Rynn to save her parents.  If this sounds like something out of a story book, it kind of makes sense as the art looks like it came from one and the person narrating the story sounds like she’s reading from a book.  Not that it’s a bad thing mind you, just noticeable.

After the intro stage you’re introduced to a stage select screen very similar to Mega Man.  You can tackle the initial eight stages in any order and the goal of each is to make it to the end and defeat the boss, doing so will give you a special ability you can use in future stages.  In each stage you can find many gems to collect as well as three keys.  Aside from getting achievements, I’m not sure what collecting every gem and key does as they’re not required to complete a stage.  I figured at least that the keys would be needed to unlock a door to the boss, but I’ve reached a few bosses with only one of the three keys on that stage.

Something you might noticed right out the gate is that the controls will take some time to get used to with the first noticable issue being that you can’t attack unless you’re in the air, special abilities notwithstanding.  Your default attacks are a rolling attack similar to the Screw Attack from Metroid, as well as a diving attack, but neither can’t be used on the ground.  This took some time to get used to and after all of the time I’ve spent with the game, I still try to attack while on the ground just out of habit.  The diving attack is basically used to bounce up higher to reach platforms that you normally can’t reach just by jumping, so most of the time you’re performing the “Screw Attack”.

Rynn can also jump off of walls, but if you’re familiar with other games with this feature such as Super Metroid or Super Meat Boy, the way wall jumping works in Rynn’s Adventure is kind of backwards.  Normally you would jump towards a wall, your character would cling to it, then you’d press the opposite direction and the jump button to jump off of the wall.  Repeat ad naseum to jump up a vertical shaft.  In Rynn’s Adventure, you jump at the wall, but then press the jump button to cling on to it, then hold the opposite direction and release the jump button to jump off of the wall.  Much like with attacking, this also took some time to master.  It’s almost like trying to unlearn everything about standard platformers and adapting to this one game.

As this game is a platformer, precision controls and jumping is a necessity and Rynn’s Adventure does a pretty good job for the most part.  There have been times where I’m trying to jump to a platform and I hit the corner, but the game doesn’t quite register that I made it on the platform.  That’s fine, but I’ve also had that cause me to not be able to move Rynn until I fall and hit the ground.  Normally while in the air you can freely move Rynn side to side, similar to other classic games, but to collide with something in the air and lose that control can be frustrating, especially in a platformer.  I’ve also had instances where you have to shoot yourself out of a cannon, but after doing so at one point I’d either collide with an enemy or I’d collide with a rock, each one dropping me back down a bit to try the segment again.  Sometimes the platforming is easy, and other times it’s so precise that you might end up replaying a segment a dozen times trying to clear it.

When it comes to difficulty, the game can be challenging at times, but I wouldn’t say the blame rests solely on the player.  Aside from the controls, the platforming can also provide some challenge, but sometimes not in a good way.  A few times I’ve been dropping down the screen in a vertical area and after taking out a couple of enemies in the way I’ve had to kind of free fall down a ways and hope I land on a platform instead of in a pit.  I will admit that most of the time this is all on me as I tended to take out the enemies right away instead of staying with the platform I was on.  However, I did have a couple of instances where I had to take out a couple of enemies in my way, but then had to guess where the platform was to drop on.

Thankfully the game is somewhat forgiving when dropping into a pit.  While you do have a set number of lives to clear the stage, dropping into a pit doesn’t instantly cost you a life if you’re near full health.  Instead you lose about fifty percent of your maximum health, so if you were a little short of half health when you hit a pit, you will lose a life. Otherwise you’ll just have your life drained by quite a large margin.  Beyond that, you can collide with enemies quite a few times before your health meter drains and you can recharge your health by collecting some red dots you’ll come across in the stages.

The final thing to talk about are the bosses.  This is where the majority of my issues lie, or rather some of my other issues also crop up here which certainly doesn’t help matters much.  The bosses I’ve encounterd normally can’t be attacked just by jumping on them or attacking them normally; there’s usually some method to attacking them.  For instance, one boss is a giant turtle that will move around on the bottom of the screen and occasionally squirt water from its mouth.  That water can hit any of four specific spots to form crystals.  If you use a dive attack on a fully formed crystal when the boss is directly underneath it, the crystal will damage the boss.  Once you learn how to attack the boss they’re usually not that difficult to beat, but I’ve still had frustrating moments with them.  Going back to the aforementioned turtle boss, I’ve had him down to one hit remaining before he deicded to attack by blowing me around…which caused me to fly off the screen and into a pit.  For the record, I was almost in the middle of the arena and this caused me to lose some health/lose a life and restart the battle.  You have no idea how frustrating that was.

Overall, Rynn’s Adventure: Trouble in the Enchanted Forest is by no means a bad game, but I wouldn’t call it great either.  It may take some time to get the attacking down and the platforming is hit or miss.  I like the Mega Man-like aspect of the game with a stage select screen and gaining abilities after beating a boss.  The art style and music are fitting for the game, so no complaints from me there.  Overall it’s not a bad game, just frustrating at times.  However, for $9.99 it’s still a fun game once you get used to it.