I can never get enough of colorful platformers. I grew up with them, and after enduring the era of dull grey shooters, I more than welcome the trend of reviving the 3D platformer genre. The bad thing is that it turned out to be extremely difficult to come up with something really good. We’ve seen decent attempts — from Yooka-Laylee to Tinykin — but we rarely see something that goes above imitating the age-old classics. And Trifox is… more of the same, I am afraid.
The plot is simple — there’s this fox, and some baddies steal his TV remote. Outraged (and rightfully so!), he swears vengeance and leaves his home to crash some skulls.
Let’s start with the positives. Trifox is relatively complex — more complex than I expected it to be. There are numerous updates, allowing you to become a Mage, a Warrior or an Engineer, or something in between. The robust update system motivates you to collect as many coins as possible. There are collectibles too, and every other cliche of the genre.
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Trifox plays fine. Some will like it more than others. I found the platforming part a bit unwieldy, but fighting was usually fun. The main attraction here is abilities: your (tri)fox is quite capable, and you’re always free to experiment. Graphically, though, I found it a bit too simplistic for my taste: textures are plain, and the world has nothing original to offer. It’s decent, but nothing to write home about. I played it on the Xbox Series X, which handled it with no issues. I should hope so!
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Verdict
Trifox is a capable platformer with a few tricks up its sleeve. Mostly it’s more of the same, but there are some fresh ideas here and there. I wish it was more, but even so, many genre fanatics will like it as it is.