Wren's Resurgence Review

Before the action in Wren’s Resurgence begins, you will have to select your game settings by selecting the difficulty between Easy, Normal, and Hard, along with the amount of enemy health, damage, shard drops, and enemy respawns from low, normal, or high. You can also choose if you want the quick save trees to appear to make your journey a bit easier or if you want more of a challenge and prefer to remove the ability to save your game.

With those set, Wren’s Resurgence starts, and we are thrown right into the action. We see two girls talking, one with blonde hair named Swan and a brunette; this is our protagonist, Wren. Below them, an army marches by with bloody-mouth monsters and huge Oni carrying spiked clubs. These Yokai have forced your people to work in the mines to collect Moonshards to be used in their nefarious schemes. Swan asks if you have the Omamori that she gave you; this acts as a shield that can take a few hits before it breaks to protect you. Swan warns that you won’t last long out there without it. If it is damaged, find a Yorishiro Tree to regenerate it, but she warns you to watch out for Okuri Inu, as it may still be skulking around.

Swan informs Wren that they have to keep the fountains safe around the whole island as they connect all the areas together. Currently, the Yokai are suppressing the Watatsumi Fountain, so the sisters have to try to defeat the enemy to free that location. Here we also learn some of the different Yokai moves that Wren can use during her journey, like
Block, which allows Wren to take less damage to her Omamori charm and stamina bar; Ledge Climb, which lets her grab the edge of a platform and pull herself up; or the always useful Double Jump. The controls in Wren’s Resurgence feel very smooth and fluid. I'm always surprised at how far I can fling myself off of a wall in the other direction to reach a platform or to bounce off another wall. Wren’s Resurgence feels like it’s a great title for people who like to speedrun games.

Early in the opening story, your sister, Swan, is struck down and dragged away by a creepy dog-like creature with no skin on its skull. Your new task is to save her and bring peace to the island using your handy katana and eight other weapons that you can collect on your travels. The Omamori charm that you carry to shield you can also be upgraded, making it stronger and protecting you from the huge variety of Yokai that are trying to attack you.

On your travels, you will meet characters who want to help you on your journey. A little blue fox has come to help you save your sister. This Kitsune is aware that Swan is being held captive in Jigoku, but time is crucial and you need to move fast. During this conversation the game froze, the animated cherry blossoms falling were still going, but the only way I could move was to hold back to end the conversation. Having to start from the beginning again, I was able to see more of this dialogue that I had missed the first time around. The fox says that there are three trials that stand in my way to get to Jigoku.

You enter the Abandoned City where you encounter multiple types of hostile Yokai that you will need to battle against. Each time you meet a type that you haven’t seen before, an entry and description are made in your journal. Some of the creepiest enemies being the lady with the rubbery neck that can stretch out to hit you or the fire Yokai who is on fire. If you get too close, Wren will also start ablaze, taking burn damage. This place is also where the fox’s shop is located, but it won’t be accessible until you defeat the monster that is hanging around the area of the booth. Once destroyed, she opens her store so you can spend your shards and acquire new items. She also travels around to different areas too. Kitsune has a variety of favours for sale to strengthen Wren's Omamori for 250 or give it the ability to regenerate, but that will cost 5000 shards, so it will take some grinding to defeat enough Yokai to get the funds you need. So as much as you want to avoid fighting all the enemies you encounter, it will be worth fighting to earn the shards you need to upgrade Wren’s equipment and make her stronger.

The game has a charming, simplistic pixel look to it. Showing off a beautiful Japanese-inspired landscape with temples and blooming cherry blossom trees placed around the island. The use of colour really makes the visuals pop. There is always something animated on the screen that adds a feeling of depth, like cherry blossoms falling, particles floating in the air, or paper lanterns moving in the wind. There isn’t much fine detail, but that doesn’t matter as you are usually running around quite fast, so chances are you wouldn’t notice it anyway.

There are 10 levels to explore in Wren’s Resurgence, each connected by a secret passage or sewer. Once you find the map, it will be easy to see where you need to go to get back to a previous area quickly or move on to the next unexplored area. Just remember that if your Omamori is destroyed, Wren is dead. If you have the Save Tree option turned on, be sure to visit the trees to restore your shield’s strength and to save your progress in case you fall in battle. When you are killed, you have the option to continue, load, or quit.

I’ve had a good time playing Wren’s Resurgence, but this is a buggy experience. I had the game lock up on me multiple times, like when I accidentally tried to pick up an item off of a pedestal that I had grabbed before. The game didn’t seem to know what to do when this happened; instead of doing nothing like you would expect since there is nothing there, Wren was locked in that spot and couldn’t move or do anything. I wasn’t even able to pause the game. Fortunately, the game had an update to resolve these issues, I was excited to see that everything was working how it was supposed to. Or at least that was until I went into the in-game menu to save my game. As soon as I did this, my character became invisible; I could move around because you could see the dust cloud when she jumped down, but even the menus weren’t appearing but you could hear that you were moving the cursor around.

Wren’s Resurgence is an engaging game with great fast-paced parkour action, but be warned that at this point, it is very buggy. I’ve accidentally found multiple ways to make bugs appear messing up the game; even if it’s a good title, it is incredibly frustrating to have this happen to you. So if you decide to check this game out, double-check to see if these issues have been addressed and dealt with.