Tanglewood Review

I know what you're thinking reader. No, that's not a mistake; this really was reviewed on the Sega Mega Drive. You see, Tanglewood isn’t just your regular retro-inspired platform game, in fact developer Big Evil Corp have made this as true to the original development method as possible. This means squeezing the game into a 4Mb Mega Drive cartridge (or ROM file to be played via an Everdrive in my case). It also means using original development hardware and coding directly in machine code. In the nineties, this was usually the only way to create games, but with the advent of pre-made game engines, APIs, and point-and-click development platforms, it’s something of a lost art.

The game, like so many on the Mega Drive, is a cute mascot platformer. You play as Nymn, a fox living in the colourful game world, and you have to navigate through the increasingly dangerous titular world. The style of gameplay is closer to something like Dizzy, Flashback, or Lost Vikings, with an emphasis on puzzle solving rather than simply running and jumping on the heads of things.

Yes, I really was playing this on a Mega Drive. On an old CRT for authenticity.

In fact, you generally won’t want to be jumping on the head of anything in this game, as whilst our hero spins in a manner not that dissimilar to Sonic, he’s not anywhere near as lethal. Instead, you’ll need to find ways to either avoid enemies, or take them out through less conventional means. Notable enemy deaths include dropping boulders on their heads and sending them plummeting to their doom off of a broken bridge.

The downside of the above is the fact that the pace of the game is a little slower than some more traditional platformers. Nymn can run pretty fast when he needs to, so the temptation to run right without thinking is one that’s necessary to resist, as slow and steady is almost always a better tactic here. It’s easy to get killed by rushing in, and to be fair, it’s easy to get killed without rushing in on occasion too. There are a few “leap of faith” areas where you only know that there’s going to be a spiked pit or a jump that needs pixel-perfect precision at the moment you work out that what the fox really says is “bloody hell, that hurts”. Fortunately, these are few and far between, with level design generally being very well done throughout, and most deaths feel as reasonable as an expiry can feel.

Sticking to the subject of level design, with a game like this, it’s going to be what makes or breaks the experience. There’s no getting around the fact that you’re only going to be able to do so much with four measly MegaBytes of data, and none of what you can do is going to be technically comparable to what’s around today. Just like back in the 90s, the thing that makes Tanglewood stand out as a great game is the well thought-out difficulty curve and layout. There are few points where you genuinely feel like death wasn't your fault, and the infinite lives you have make those less frustrating than back in the old days.

Nymn is stronger than he looks.

You’re aided along the way by creatures called Fuzls, which are tiny adorable balls of fluff who seem to exists only to be pushed to specific locations and provide special skills to Nymn when they are there. This can include the ability to glide, stop time, or ride the giant wildebeest-looking things that I’m reliably informed by the game’s manual are called Djakks. They are much less cute than the other inhabitants of the wood.

The sound is functional, although not necessarily pushing the limits of that YM2612 chip. It does the job of making you aware of what’s going on and setting atmosphere, but I found some of the choices a little odd, such as the Fuzl’s noise, which sounded like a bleeping robot to me and not the fluffy little critter that it is. There is incidental music in the game to set the mood for certain events like in Half-Life, and it’s lovely, but there isn’t enough of it. I’d have really enjoyed if the game had background music, but it doesn’t and maybe that’s one of the sacrifices that had to be made in order to fit all of this into less space than five seconds of YouTube video. The same seems to apply to animation, which varies from lovely smooth realism with the characters, to a jerky three frames for the rolling of a boulder. It's nothing that makes a huge difference, but if you have a bee in your bonnet about accurate mineral rotation, this might not be your jam.

Overall, whilst Tanglewood has a few minor niggles, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it as a must-have title on either the Mega Drive or Steam. It's cute, colourful and great fun. It's also a great achievement and testament to the dedication Big Evil Corp have put into authenticity.

All the cuteness.