Woodle Tree Adventures
Developed by Fabio Ferrara
Published by Chubby Pixel
Released for Xbox One (5/8/2019)
Also on Linux/Mac/PC/PS4/Switch
Woodle Tree Adventures was originally created by a single developer, Fabio Ferrara, and was released for PC back in 2014. The Xbox One version was ported and published by Chubby Pixel in May 2019. Woodle Tree Adventures bills itself as an old-school platformer that will take you back to good old days of Banjo Kazooie and Mario 64 with lots of jumping and collecting to be done. Without further ado, let's delve into Woodle Tree Adventures and see if it can deliver on its lofty promises of taking me back with a blast of nostalgia...
The story in Woodle Tree Adventures involves the great tree tasking you with finding 3 fairy tears on each stage
in order to restore peace to the forest (or something like that). There are 6 worlds to
explore, with 2 bonus levels that open up once you've collected enough
berries, which act as the games collectibles. There's a decent amount of variety to the stages that no 2 feel alike, though they all feature the same task of finding the 3 tears and then taking them to the exit. In addition to the platforming and collecting, there's also some very basic combat that involves your tree character smacking enemies with his leaf. Initially, the combat feels clunky and you have to be practically on top of enemies before they drop. As you collect enough berries, you'll eventually unlock acceess to new leaves of a different color. These upgraded leaves will fire projectiles, which help make the combat more tolerable than trying to swing the default leaf right next to the enemies.
Woodle Tree Adventures features a very basic graphic style. While simple-looking, it's easy to distinguish what everything is supposed to be and there's a sort of cartoony charm to the look. The character animation looks a bit goofy, but the responsive controls make the silly walking animation easy to excuse. The platforming challenges presented are never too demanding, though there were some issues with the camera, which can only be manipulated to zoom in or out and doesn't allow the player to shift the angle. This makes a few areas in the game a bit harder than they would have been otherwise, but in the long run it's more of a nuisance than a gamebreaker. At certain points the camera will pan around in effort to give you a better view, which resulted in a few instances where it didn't properly readjust, making it difficult to see where I was going and there were points it could only be fixed by dying and respawning. As stated, these were only a few rare instances but they were definitely annoying.
In summary, Woodle Tree Adventures is a very basic platformer that will appeal most to those new to the genre. It can be cleared within a few hours and doesn't offer much incentive to return back once you've completed it. While Woodle Tree Adventures is a bit average as far as platformers go, I appreciate that it didn't overstay its welcome and I don't regret having played it, though it isn't something I'll ever return to. If you have a young one around that you'd like to introduce to platformers or just want a simple game that won't frustrate you then might find something to like here. It's easy to obtain all of the gamerscore within 1-2 hours, which also makes this ideal for those looking to unlock some quick achievements. Banjo Kazooie or Mario 64 this is not and while it is a decent, albeit very basic platformer, I'd still recommend waiting for a sale as I've seen deals on it several times over the last year or so.
Final Verdict: Woodle Tree Adventures is a simple, old-school 3D-platformer with very basic gameplay, making it best for kids or those new to the genre. Beware that it is a short game that suffers from some camera issues and other than some minor frustrations is very easy.
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