A nostalgic feel to platforming past
Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Banjo Kazooie, 3 platform games that resonate with my childhood that often popped into my head when playing Trifox on the Nintendo Switch. Whether that was Big Sugar Games’ intention to do so is remain to be seen but Trifox definitely has a nostalgic and simple feel to it. I played the game through multiple sit throughs and whilst it won’t go down as my most memorable of games, Trifox is certainly worth a go…
If you’re looking for a deep, innovative story, you’ll probably want to give Trifox a miss. This is a game that is very short of story-telling. You basically see the bad guy on a TV screen and your aim is from then on to stop that bad guy. Crash Bandicoot anyone?. Well, basically you are after Trifox’s stolen remote control. Take of that what you will.
Visually, the set up reminds me of Crash Bandicoot also. The levels are split into hubs, just like the old Crash games. I actually liked the art design of Trifox, it also really brought me back to the old Spyo games the way it was laid out, I sometimes feel that developers try too hard to impress these games visually and for gamers like myself, you really don’t have to and I think that the majority of gamers would also agree with me on that Gameplay wise, you can see that the developers have gone against the standard platforming jump and go situations. Trifox lets you set up your weapon arsenal before each level. You can have 4 weapons at each time, assigned to different buttons. Some are better ranged, whilst more are powerful close combat attacks. The let down I had was it didn’t matter what I picked, it seemed like any mix of four weapons were good enough in any levels. It would have been nice to have some careful consideration before each level of what to take out, but that sadly wasn’t to be. Whilst I praised the art design, the same can’t be said about the level length overall. Some levels were taking me above 20 minutes to complete, which in my opinion is way too long for a game of this nature.
Whilst the developers have tried to be creative in terms of level design, it’s not what I would call a ‘difficult’ platformer. Whether that is a design choice I’m not sure, but the game never really tested me to my limits, apart from a few instances where a huge, no, unfair horde of enemies would be released against me. Then it felt like the the game was giving me a huge middle finger to the point of ‘too easy’ that I am trying to make. It just generally feels like a breeze and more of a balanced spike would have been good to see.
Overall, Trifox is a decent platfomer to have. Would it be in my top 5 of all time? No, but if you’re looking for a few hours to kill and don’t want to pay £30+, Trifox would be a game that comes to mind. Whilst Trifox wpn’t be pushing Tails out of the best gaming fox out there, Trifox can still hold its own
Thank you to Big Sugar Games for the review code.
