Metroidvanias have been shining brightly for the past decade, but most have put a focus on slicing and dicing without a lot of shooting, while the genre's notorious for not being accessible for players. Rusted Moss aims to change that by offering up a blend of Metroidvania exploration with Umihara Kawase's swinging mechanics and twin-stick shooting and a ton of accessibility features to ensure that every player enjoys the experience from beginning to end. The key to a rewarding platformer is always satisfying action and each part of the formula works nicely here.

The core action is twin-stick shooting using a button to set off the shot since you can either blast or charge it up for a big damage boost. Being able to change the controls up as much as you want is great because you can play it as a twin-stick shooter if you want and use a trigger, or use a bumper for speed. I started out using RT and then switched over to RB for speed and that was a big help for both boss battles and areas where enemies were small and blended into the background. Enemies usually have visual cues showing when they're going to strike, with colors changing from black to orange, which makes it easy to time your defense -- which in turn makes it easier to avoid having your health depleted by the time you get to a boss battle or a tougher section with a lot of enemies swarming you. The ability to have not only have set difficulty levels, but adjust the difficulty in real-time is fantastic and opens the door to making the game more playable and fun in shorter and long sessions.

The swinging mechanic is very physics and momentum based and more akin to the Super Famicom-and-beyond Umihara Kawase series, but with a steeper learning curve. There, unlike something like Bionic Commando where you had a predictable grapple, in Rusted Moss it's more like an organic strand that's moving and slightly unpredictable. This game gives players an extensive tutorial for every scenario type where it'll be needed, from a basic Point A to B swing to A to a resting point to B and even combining those with another wall to change your momentum again.

It's tricky to learn, but rewarding but isn't an obstacle thanks to the accessibility settings. If the player can't get the hang of the mechanics, that's fine -- a flight mode is offered up as well. This allows you to soar past all platforming and swinging obstacles without a penalty and can make boss battles easier too since you can stay in mid-air and keep shooting, albeit with less of a guarantee that a shot can hit due to distance from the enemy. Close-up attacks are always best since you have the greatest chance to avoid getting hit, while charge shots can be much riskier because you have less time to evade. I found that balancing them was key -- so surefire hits during a long cooldown was the best way to use charge attacks, while single shots in chains worked nicely when there was distance to work with.

If boss battles become overwhelming, the player has the option to turn on invincibility at any time -- so if you keep dying at one boss, but enjoy the challenge of the platforming sections filled with regular enemies, you can just save this feature for a boss or keep it on throughout the game to play it through in the fastest time. Aim assist is a nice feature if you can't fully get the hang of the twin-stick aiming -- especially in boss battles. The only area I can think of to improve the accessibility settings would either to have rapid-fire or auto-fire as options, but with aim assist, just mashing the button for regular fire or holding for charge shots should work fine for the majority of players -- even those using a lot of accessibility aids.

The core platforming experience is largely fantastic. The swinging mechanic is going to be a love it or hate it thing for some, but the regular jumping experience works nicely outside of trying to hang off of ledges. That aspect is strange and it's easy to get stuck on the ledge at odd times. That doesn't hurt things much, however, because you can just hop off and then hop back on and course-correct. It still feels wonky and is hopefully something that gets fixed up with an update down the line, though.

Visually, Rusted Moss has simplistic pixel art for the human characters -- but far more robust looks for the backgrounds and boss monsters. The art style is easy to see in every style and enables smooth animation for the swinging, shooting and enemy encounters. There's a lot of beauty in the visuals in motion that doesn't come across in still frames and it's impressive to see a game go for a minimalist design in some ways, but accent it with a lot of beauty in other areas.

Rusted Moss has solid sound design across the board. The soundtrack has a spooky sci-fi feel very much like the original Metroid. Songs have a foreboding feel, which gets amplified with more intense tracks during boss battles. The sound effects used for the swinging mechanic offer up a satisfying boing and bounce that allow you to get a sense for how well the swing is going or isn't. The gunplay is satisfying, with charge shots sounding more akin to a shotgun and being concussive while the faster machine gun-fire sounds punier, but also shot out at a more rapid clip. It's clear that a lot of thought was put into everything regarding the audio because even the faux-typing effect used to convey dialogue is memorable and the text used for dialogue is large and easy to read.

Closing Comments:

Anyone seeking a new spin on a Metroidvania should give Rusted Moss a shot. The title itself is odd, but like ARES over a decade ago, it blends twin-stick shooting with the sub-genre well. The addition of a swing mechanic is something that adds a new wrinkle to the challenge when compared to most other games on the market, and if that part doesn't work for you, it's easy to just switch it off and soar all over the stages. The emphasis on accessibility is nice to see and something that helps make the Metroidvania sub-genre more approachable. Rusted Moss plays wonderfully with smooth and responsive controls that can be fully-customized, yet looks great in motion and sounds ominous with a frightening soundtrack and impactful gunplay.