Why do we play games?
Maybe you enjoy the relaxing nature of a vibrant and pleasant platformer, the social interaction with a huge community in the latest first-person shooter or perhaps you enjoy your patience, concentration and anger being pushed to the limit? If the reason you play games is even slightly relevant to the later, Green Lava Studios have more than got you covered with their latest title.
Fenix Rage is a 2D action platformer which follows in the footsteps of fellow indie title Super Meat Boy for its wonderful style, precision jumping and the requirement of inch-perfect timing. In the build-up to the game’s release, Green Lava have pulled no punches in promoting the fact that this game is tough and much like its meaty inspiration, new controllers may be required for some as this title will have you gripping the pad until there is little more than controller debris in your infuriated hands.
At first glance, the game appears to be a pretty platformer with several interesting environments, but this feeling of pretty levels is lost early on as you soon become accustomed with the constant dangers in Fenix Rage. While you are gradually introduced to enemies and dangers, the game’s opening levels are relatively simple. As you reach the fourth or fifth level however, the game changes entirely.
Enemies mainly come as blobs of goo, normally bright green or black with a green border. While these are stationary early on in Fenix Rage, they soon intertwine with each other and contribute to making the hero’s life a living hell. As well as the smaller blobs, there are also huge square enemies who do not move, but make moving around the level very difficult. Green lasers feature throughout most of the game and, similarly to the blobs of goo, they kill Fenix with one hit which sees you returning to the beginning of the level with the timer reset. While you can’t get rid of any enemies by using combat or any other means, the gameplay is a lot more in-depth than your average platformer.
Learning new mechanics in Fenix Rage is a lot of fun and the word ‘fun’ isn’t something I would normally associate with the game. As you progressively unlock each of the four worlds, the game throws up new situations for you to deal with such as being set on fire to breaking through ice or travelling from end-to-end through portals. In order to catch fire you have to either slide down the side of an orange rock face which will set you alight until you interact with the ice or you can be shot with fire from a distance later in the game. The coloured portals force you to constantly be on your toes as enemies can appear from them at any point. While Fenix’s foes move in a pattern, there is so much going on at the one time that it’s easy to forget the patterns. All of these special features wouldn’t be as enjoyable if it weren’t for the platforming itself, right?
Credit has to be paid to Green Lava Studios for their focus on how Fenix is controlled as the jumping is pin-point accurate and, although his powers sometimes become overwhelming, it feels great to nail a move perfectly to try and beat a level’s par-time. With the game being so heavily focused, Green Lava recommend, as soon as the game starts, that you should use an Xbox 360 controller as every millimetre counts. Fenix is able to move around the environment by unlimited jumps, and dashes which can also be used to break rocks and snow. Aside from these two abilities there aren’t many other controls to learn, apart from the restart button which you may find yourself pressing a lot if you’re a completionist. Speaking of which, there doesn’t seem to be any gain of collecting the special object in each level.
With each level receiving the typical three star awards for how you perform in the level, there is also a cookie to be found in every level. In typical fashion, the stars are awarded by how much you die and how fast you complete the level in. Even by completing the level in under par-time and collecting the cookie, there is no guarantee of receiving three or even two stars, which adds to the frustration of dying constantly and Fenix dies A LOT. If there’s one hurdle you have to get over in Fenix Rage, its how punishing the game is even if your concentration lapses for a millisecond. It all counts towards misfortune and players will soon find themselves in a constant loop of reaching a certain point of dying over and over again. Much like games such as Super Meat Boy and Dark Souls, death teaches you a lesson and as you gradually get to grips with each level, it can evoke a great sense of achievement once you’ve reached the end without dying.
Much like in every other game, the boss battles force you to use skills you’ve picked up throughout the levels, and even require you to go beyond the boundaries of the game that you have so far grown accustomed to. Bosses come in a variety of shapes and sizes and see you using your inch-perfect reflexes to avoid their advancements. While not wanting to go into too much detail, you will have to flee from your large enemies, dismember them and hit them when the opportunity arises. While there is combat to some degree in these sections, it is no different to the game you’ve already been exposed to.
Fenix Rage is a solid platformer and by solid I mean as tough as nails. The game makes no excuses and takes no prisoners in how precise and calculated each move has to be. Luckily enough the mechanics are very well executed and has the ‘one more go’ vibe which constantly challenges the player. The main criticism I have is that while the mechanics are good, it feels as though you’ve hit a wall far too early and while it is very difficult, you don’t feel as though you’re developing your skills. It, more often than not, feels much like luck. Despite this, Fenix Rage is an all-round great package and I would encourage PC players and eventually PS4 and Xbox One owners to give this a try.
Fenix Rage is available now via Steam on PC and will be released in 2015 for PS4 and Xbox One.