A review of the game 'Rusted Moss,' which tests the exhilaration of controlling characters that fly around freely and the patience to repeatedly challenge complex operations and difficult enemies
Rusted Moss is a 2D action game in which you can run characters in all directions, aim to destroy enemies with a gun, and use a grapple hook to fly around the terrain acrobatically. When I actually played this game, which is distributed on multiple platforms such as PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5 (PS5), and Xbox Series X | S, I had a hard time at first because my brain couldn't keep up with the operation, but I realized that it was a game that was worth playing and could be played by dying many times and devising your own strategy.
Rusted Moss | Game | PLAYISM Official Site
The game begins with the protagonist Fern being woken up by his partner Puck. It seems that the protagonist is being chased by something, but the game starts without any explanation of the world view or the protagonist, so the player needs to proceed through the game while inferring the world view and the situation he is in from the conversation between Puck and the protagonist.
Characters can move up, down, left and right, and jump, and HP and MP are displayed in the upper right corner of the screen. HP is the character's physical strength, and when it reaches zero, the game is over and you must restart from a save point. MP is used for recovery and attacks.
You can also jump and grab onto the edge of a wall.
You can also climb down from the scaffolding.
The protagonist is equipped with a railgun and uses both normal fire and charged shots to defeat enemies.
When you defeat an enemy, they drop mana (red frame), which you can collect to recover MP.
There are save points on the stage, and when your HP reaches zero you will have to restart from that save point.
Items scattered on the stage.
This is a trinket.
Trinkets can be equipped at save points. Each trinket has a different effect and equipment cost, and there is a limit to how many you can equip at one time. In the following cases, the number '5' written in the upper right corner of the screen indicates the equipment cost of the trinket, and the '05/10' notation in the upper center of the screen indicates how many trinkets are equipped.
When Puck's health gets low, he will say 'E!' to encourage him to recover. Note that when recovering, the main character will stop moving and there will be a slight lag until he recovers.
As you defeat an enemy, you will learn about the situation the protagonist is in and the worldview, so the mysteries of this world will gradually become clear. As you progress through the game, you can check how different your imagined story of Rusted Moss is from the actual story, which is one of the fun parts of this game.
Once you've progressed a bit in the game, you can get a grapple hook. If you aim at a spot with green moss and shoot, you can attach a hook, which you can then swing from. With the grapple hook, you can move to places you can't reach by normal movement or jumping, but be careful, because once you use the grapple hook, you can't use it again until you grab the ground or a helicopter.
It's pretty exhilarating to fly around the stage using the grapple hook. However, there are many terrains where you can die instantly if you miss the timing to release the grapple hook, so getting used to operating the grapple hook was the first hurdle.
There is also an element called 'Ichor' that will cause damage if you touch it for a certain amount of time. When you touch Ichor, a gauge will appear above the protagonist's head as shown below, and when this is full, damage will occur.
The appearance of Ichor makes the stages and boss battles much more difficult. You need to completely avoid enemy attacks, but since you won't take damage if you don't touch Ichor for a certain amount of time, there are attacks that can be avoided by touching Ichor once, so you need to think flexibly while controlling the game.
If you crouch and then jump on the fairy moss, you can jump higher. A gauge will appear next to the main character, and when it fills up, you can perform a high jump.
There are also warp points on the stage.
However, warping is not always possible; you need to travel to a designated location, so it's more of a 'minimal shortcut' rather than an 'incredibly convenient means of transportation.'
Additionally, you can throw grenades by consuming MP.
Grenades can destroy certain walls and other things.
Since it is not clearly indicated that 'You have to go here to advance the story,' it is easy to get lost. It seems that the shortcut to victory is to fill in the map thoroughly.
You can freely set the key layout from the 'Operation Customization' on the game startup screen. Because it is necessary to operate the character and aim at the same time, the Steam version recommended operation with a keyboard rather than a controller.
Below is a video summarizing the action elements of 'Rusted Moss'. The difficulty of the controls is high because you have to control the character while also aiming to attack enemies and set the point to launch the grapple hook. At first, the grapple hook confused my brain and fingers, and I made many mistakes.
At first, the boss battles and stages are designed to be quite easy, and if you have a good grasp of the timing of enemy attacks and the structure of the stage, you can beat them with just basic controls. However, as enemies become more complex and obstacles increase, the difficulty of the controls rises sharply. Therefore, although the stress of the controls decreases, the flow of the game remains almost the same, with you progressing through stages and defeating bosses while dying many times.
Although the controls are quite difficult, the character's movements are light and stress-free. At first, I was frustrated by my poor control skills, and by the time I got used to the controls, the stages and boss battles seemed to become more difficult. In particular, the grapple hook was stressful because there were terrains where I wondered 'When should I use this?' and the character didn't move the way I wanted even when I used the grapple hook.
However, even if you die from a fall, your HP will decrease and you can instantly restart from the place where you fell, and there are save points before boss battles, so there are many considerations in place to prevent you from getting too stressed out when playing the game over and over again.
It was a game that required 'perseverance' to play without giving up no matter how many times you die, 'thinking ability' to identify the key points for defeating the boss, and 'analytical ability' to unravel the hidden story.
The Nintendo Switch version of 'Rusted Moss' is available for 3,009 yen including tax, and the PS5 version is available for 3,198 yen including tax on Amazon.co.jp. The regular version of the Steam version is available for 1,980 yen, and the deluxe bundle version with an art book and original soundtrack is available for 3,546 yen.
Amazon.co.jp: Rusted Moss -Switch : Games
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