Forest Warrior – Preview
Forest Warrior is a 2D action game developed by Inferno Studios. The game features a hack ‘n slash type of combat in a somewhat side-scrolling pixel-style forest, featuring zombies and other creatures native to the forest. The game is currently available on Steam as an Early Access game. A good choice seeing as the charming-looking game is lacking basic content and randomization.
So, first things first. Forest Warrior lacks a narrative and the game could’ve really used one, even if it was a simple introduction as to who the character is, what he is doing chopping up trees in the woods – just anything would be sufficient. Unfortunately the game offers nothing but a vision of a random bald guy venturing in the woods when he hears a moaning sound.
Visually the game stands out between all those other zombie-infested titles. As a 2D game, it offers a pixel-style artwork but not in the vintage 90’s retro-style. It certainly has its charm but the lacking randomization of backgrounds gets boring after staring at the same tree-line for a few hours. A different scenery would have been a great addition to the game, especially since the gameplay is the same in every playthrough. Something that might be a bug – or not – is the fact that every time a zombie dies, the screen goes a shade lighter before going back to normal. While the game offers a day and night cycle, this “flashing” shouldn’t be part of the game.
Forest Warrior doesn’t lack a soundtrack, nor ambiance sound, but the calming instrumental spring-tunes really don’t mix well with the overall concept of the game. Of course, this may be a personal dislike as some seem to like the soundtrack. The growling sounds of the zombies are great but never-changing and tend to work on your nerves after a short while. Luckily more creatures in later stages will bring some variation. The ambiance sounds are, well ambiance sounds. There’s a woosh, a pewpew and some booms. In all honesty, there’s nothing much to say about them.
You immediately start the game without any explanation of how the controls work and of course there’s an option to see the controls in the menu but they don’t really feel intuitive as a player with an azerty-keyboard. There is no option to change any of the settings either so you’ll just have to deal with it. The first few times I played with the controller, it didn’t feel intuitive at all but after trying out the keyboard, I can honestly say that the controller is the way to go until you can change the settings.
Anyhow, the controller supports far less buttons than the keyboard – oddly enough. You drop a weapon with LT or Q and pick up weapons with X or E, while you switch weapons with LB or RB or 1, 2, 3. RT or shift is reserved for the roll ability. Other than that, you can select a special with B and activate said special with Y while you clear the way with A.
The gameplay itself is simple. You move to the left and right and attack the incoming zombies or other creatures of the forest such as birds. As you can’t shoot in the sky, you’ll need to be wary of the birds dropping down to your height. The game is quite unforgiving as one single hit will result in a life-loss. There is a large hit-box but this counts for both you and the enemies which makes it even harder to deal with multiple incoming enemies closing in on you, especially since the attacks you do are much slower compared to your enemies.
Before starting a playthrough, you get to choose three special abilities which can be quite needed in early and later stages. You can choose between an increased speed or a roll shield, both lasting ten seconds as a level 1 ability. The level 2 abilities offers restoration of maximum ammo or maximum health, both can be life-saving, although the latter one is more overpowered. The third level abilities are creatures of the forest that can help you for thirty seconds. The husky will stun zombies and keep them at a safe distance while the bird will keep flying creatures away. A fourth special ability, or the ultimate special, is “rampage” and cannot be changed. For twenty seconds long, the anger and fury will take over and nothing can stop your berserker-mode.
The game is unforgiving and much like the old arcade games, Forest Warrior offers the option to revive. You can revive up to two times – offering you three lives each time, thus offering you nine lives without the special ability but you’ll need it. Downside is that reviving will cost you 30% of your score but in the beginning, this will be the only way to increase your highscore. Not that it would matter as there are no leaderboards – yet.
Conclusion
Competitive players will absolutely adore the relentless gameplay of Forest Warrior, although the game lacks a leaderboard. Casual players on the other hand will play this game periodically as it has nothing much to offer other than a rinse-and-repeat gameplay. Forest Warrior certainly is a decent concept but it lacks randomized backgrounds and enemy influx. The game could use more intuitive controls and an option to change these but the game is certainly playable and much can change still.
Forest Warrior - Preview,
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