Platformers haven’t exactly been rife in 2022 and as a fan of the genre, I am always looking for something that will grab me outside of the giants of the genre. There are only so many times you can rinse through the Sonic and Mario titles before you’ve extracted all the fun from them. After reviewing Kao the Kangeroo earlier in the year and it falls a little flat for me personally, I was so ready to give a new experience a go. Trifox is now available and developed by Glowfish Interactive/Bromio and published by Big Sugar Games. The game is now available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and Windows PC across Steam and Epic Games Store and labels itself as a twin-stick action-adventure game inspired by classic platformers.

Introduction

Have you ever been in that position where you return home from a long day at work and just want to kick back and watch the TV only for the remote control to vanish? You search frantically around the living room, under pillows and the sofas, you check whether someone sat on it and go on a treasure hunt to find its location. Frustrating isn’t it? Imagine having it stolen from you and this is where the story of Trifox begins. His home has been ransacked and his remote control has been stolen. His mission is to now find and defeat those responsible. It’s a bit of a ridiculous and humourous storyline, but I’m OK with this for a platformer.

Gameplay

Early on in the game, you’ll be gently spoon-fed the basics of how to traverse the levels. Everything plays out pretty much like a standard platformer would, using the analogue sticks to manoeuvre around and the A button to jump onto platforms. As you progress, you’ll unlock a variety of different skills you can assign to your fox to make things a tad easier for you. In the early gameplay loop, I unlocked the abilities to dash away from enemies quickly, teleport a short range away out of the heat of battle and more. These can be unlocked between each mission using the coins you collect in-game, this gives you the incentive to keep playing to try and test different methods with your character. You can swap abilities in and out and assign them to your controller buttons, this gave the adventure different layers of replayability.

Most of the levels have puzzle elements you’ll have to negotiate in order to open up the game world further, most are fairly simple to figure out after some juggling around. Throughout the three biomes, you’ll have a vast array of different enemy types and bosses to defeat, but they aren’t easy to defeat, and you must think on your feet to try and dodge incoming attacks. The combat is satisfactory using the right trigger and analogue sticks to bombard anything in site with flashes of neon-infused firepower. One minor bugbear was the sluggish nature of your fox at times, unless you sprint it felt sometimes like you were wearing a lead-filled backpack and occasionally you would come up short when jumping from platform to platform. Overall though, there is plenty going on to keep keen platforming fans constantly engaged and amused.

Graphics & Audio

Visually Trifox does a great job both in performance and the graphics department. It has the kind of art style that you may be familiar with in games like Minecraft Dungeons albeit a little more rounded off when it comes to the blockiness. The level design is really well constructed and the blend of vibrant yet warm colours really makes the game a joy to play through. Sometimes you’d get a really awkward camera angle which was a minor annoyance but not enough to be overly critical. It wasn’t a regular occurrence, but sometimes it would put you in a situation where you couldn’t quite see what was below you or around a corner.

Whilst there is a little bit of backstory and you’d expect there to be some narration, there isn’t any really. Occasionally there would be some cutscenes without anything but gestures from NPC’S and whilst I enjoyed watching these, some may want more when it comes to a story. Sound effects perform as you’d expect with your projectiles cracking ancient vases open to reveal collectable coins which you’ll use later on, the snap of spikes emerging from dangerous areas to the rumble and attacks of hordes of enemies.

In Conclusion

Trifox is a wonderfully crafted platformer that presents challenges and hurdles consistently throughout the range of levels on offer. I enjoyed the mixture of platforming, puzzles that left me scratching my head for a few minutes at a time and the combat elements. What stood out to me was that each level wasn’t over in a matter of minutes like several other platforming titles. Each stage averaged around fifteen minutes which is perfect if you just want to casually jump on for a short blast and take your time with the overall experience. Whilst the game has set boundaries, it didn’t appear to be as linear as say Crash Bandicoot or Sonic the Hedgehog and you can go off the beaten track a little to discover secret areas.

If you’re looking for a platformer that goes beyond just jumping from A to B and just collecting stuff, then Trifox will test your brainpower and allow you to fight waves of enemies with twin-stick shooter elements. With an addictive upgrade system and a beautifully illustrated nostalgic feel to the entire package, it is a game I genuinely really got sucked into and wanted to complete. With a dozen or so hours at a reasonable price point, it is well worth a punt.