Title: Fenix Rage
Genre: Platformer, Adventure, Indie
Developer: Green Lava Studios
Publisher: Reverb Triple XP
Release Date: September 24, 2014
Price: $14.99 USD
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Fenix Rage reminds me of the good old NES/SNES games. From the first intro movie, to the selection menu, the slight deliberate pixelation in the art to electronic sound effects. It is also a very modern game with a rich lush and colourful art style. The platformer attracts with a simple premise, but make no mistake, this is not a casual experience.
The story loosely ties around Fenix Rage’s village being attacked by a dark creature; which he follows through portals left behind to other dimensions seeking revenge. There are small snippets of story thrown in between levels as comic pages and boss fights are reminiscent of the popular Super Meat Boy. This is all just miniscule dressing and the game as a whole is designed to quickly get you into action and keep you there.
Gameplay & Level design
It has simplicity in its controls which can fit on a NES controller (For the new age gamers, that’s 2 buttons). The skills are limited to a simple vertical jump and a horizontal dash. You can chain these jumps and dashes indefinitely, literally allowing you to fly through levels. As Game developer and steam user MountainOutcast puts it, “In most platformers you need…well…platforms. In Fenix Rage it’s optional to land on one in each given level once you take off. Some levels don’t even have platforms. With infinite jump and infinite dash are given to you you‘d think that a platformer should be easy…right?”
Fresh level mechanics (like portals, and breakable walls) are introduced with each world and you will find a variety of obstacles through the levels ranging from green slime monsters to ice walls that require you gain a charge of fire from nearby red-hot bricks. All of these come together to provide a difficult challenge. Completing levels within the timelimit the developers set, gets you yellow stars which are used in the “arcade shop” to unlock upto 10 minigames. Steam leaderboards are integrated for the score hunters.
The game is difficult, Punishingly so. Only through strenuous, rigorous and stressful repetition can you get through levels. You will fail often, but the quick respawn will have you back in the action even before the sad sigh leaves your breath or the fiery draught if you are starting to rage. The game challenges you with an optional objective (cookie) to collect for a better rating, Collecting enough of which will net you a real life recipe (which is far better than the promise of cake we never got). There is great precision involved in the platforming with responsive controls making for a superb, fun and speedy gameplay. The challenge comes from there being a lack of safe spots or checkpoints, forcing you to clear the levels in a continuous flow as you would in games a decade or two ago. There are some fun and moderately crazy levels, designed with the standard get through the doors design. These are tiny in size, with the best speed runs constantly taunting you with within the impossible 15-20 secs range, for which it took me 60s (on a good run). The constant timer on the top by itself is powerful enough to give you a sense of urgency, ramping up the pace.
The difficulty curve is uneven. You expect difficulty to be gradually turned up as you progress, however, I found that the game does not follow the set precedent. With over 200 levels you will find the challenging ones often mixed in with the more simple ones. It’s like they shuffled up the difficulty order, this throws off the gradual learning as you are expected to do quick paced maneuvers as early as the 6-7th run. With the inability to skip levels you end up being forestalled. Also, some stages are fun while others are an exercise in frustration. Many sections also have chokepoints which are impossible to pass through, due to a fast paced obstacle, and you find yourself resorting to brute force to get through, which involves repeating until you get lucky.
Music & Art
The mix of retro 8-bit synth with guitar rock keeps the same tone as the art style i.e. Modern with an old school charm. The character models are somewhat blocky and with slight pixelation on the edges along with a good colour pallet and high quality artwork steering towards an HD comic-cartoonish look. The art style is very colourful with smooth animation and effects. The backdrop vista on some of the larger levels changes as you span across the screen, casting a faint glow on the platforms, making for a very pleasant looking session. The colour pallet for the background and assets is on the brighter side, but the repetition involved in the numerous attempts will make sure you don’t die a cheap death because you could not see the level (there are plenty of other obstacles that will take care of that).
Conclusion
The satisfaction of completing hardcore levels makes it is easy to recommend Fenix Rage. Masked by a simple core set of rules, it constantly demands more from the players, never letting them down. It’s fun, frolic and ferocious. A well made platformer which satisfies the need long left unfulfilled since Electronic Super Joy or vvvvv or Super-Pig. Remember: Keep calm to rage on.
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What’s ill:
+Extreme difficulty(for the masochists)
+Over 200 levels
+Good music
+Boss battles
What’s not:
-Extreme difficulty(for others)
-Uneven difficulty curve
