Fennec Fox is also Buggy, Awkward and Lumbered with Broken Interfaces
I had to look it up: Fennec Fox is Hungry is the sixth game in the ‘is Hungry’ series. I feel slightly ashamed that I didn’t even know this series existed, considering the Xbox has been the recipient of so many of them. We’ve had two hungry bears (polar bear and grizzly), a possum, raccoon and red panda. All of them are very, very hungry.
Looking at the screenshots of the other games, it’s fair to say that there is a consistent theme. These games deliver a series of concise platforming levels with food collectibles to find. In Fennec Fox is Hungry, the foods are fruits. You’re hunting around desert caverns for apples, strawberries and melons.
Do Fennec Foxes Really Eat Watermelons?
The little Fennec Fox doesn’t have a huge array of moves. It can walk, jump and shove little blocks around to give them a leg-up to a nearby platform. There’s no double-jump, wall-climbs or dashes, making this a relatively constrained platformer.
The controls are okay, verging on frustrating. My biggest gripe is with a little involuntary leap that the Fennec does whenever it reaches the top of a ramp. You can be approaching spinning blades (the enemies in Fennec Fox is Hungry aren’t wholly realistic) by travelling up an incline, only to find that your Fennec Fox does a little suicide-jump into the blades. You soon learn to take baby steps towards hazards.
There’s also some really odd collision-detection at play, and I’m still yet to work it out. Sometimes it’s massively generous: there are pendulum-like blades that you can clip halfway through and still not get hit by them. But there are also spikes on the floor that will steal a health pip away even if you don’t nick a pixel on them. Their collision box is bigger than they should be. Which means, if you’re anything like us, you’re in a constant state of uncertainty. Will that hazard kill me or not?
Getting by on Cuteness and a Lack of Challenge
Otherwise, it’s all reasonably fine. The jump is a little stumpy, but Fennec Fox is Hungry never asks you to make particularly large leaps anyway. Dropping down from a platform (the old ‘down-and-A’) is a little inconsistent, which can be frustrating as sometimes you have to do it at speed. But Fennec Fox is Hungry is forgiving and tends to only have five or six hazards per level when you’ve got three health pips to work with. That’s a lot of room for error.
Well, it would be a lot of room for error if there were any immunity frames. It’s entirely possible to lose three hearts in one second, as you find yourself in some spikes and don’t get out quickly enough. It’s such a platforming baseline that I’m not sure why it isn’t fixed here.
All of these problems combine to create some platforming gameplay that feels okay, not great, a little inconsistent. Which surprised me a smidge as this was the sixth in a series. My expectation was the kinks would be ironed out. The kinks, however, are very much on display.
Presentation-wise, Fennec Fox is Hungry does a better job. Don’t get us wrong: even by budget, indie standards it’s nothing special, but it does a good job of filling the screen with colour and conveying a desert atmosphere. I’d love to know what the story is – there are quite a few industrial hazards and boxes around – but Fennec Fox is Hungry doesn’t really concern itself with the whole narrative thing.
The Mystery of the Hidden Levels
There are twenty levels to work through, except there isn’t. Let me explain: Fennec Fox is Hungry offers twenty levels from its main menu. But if you were to play through and complete the game, you would find that the level counter goes past level 20. There’s more levels here, which is something I’ve never encountered in a game like this before. It lowballs how much content it’s got to offer you.
That would be a lovely surprise if you could actually access those levels. We made the mistake of returning to the Level Select to work out what was happening, only to find that – because the levels aren’t listed – we couldn’t actually return back to our previous progress. We had to go back to level 20 and work from there. Which sucks. We don’t want to do ten levels to reach the one we left behind.
From a challenge perspective Fennec Fox is Hungry sits on the easier end. Even when you’re getting hit three times by the same spike, the levels are so short and obstacle-free that it’s never a biggie. In fact, spikes aside, our most common death came at the hands of bugs. We would accidentally get stuck in our own pushed block, or get lodged into walls. Again, a restart wasn’t a problem as the levels were so short, but it did irk us that we were failing for reasons that weren’t our own.
Many Minor Issues and a Lack of Polish
You can probably sense that Fennec Fox is Hungry isn’t a polished or robust game. It’s pleasant enough as indie platformers go, but it’s riddled with minor issues that could have easily been resolved in, say, the five games that came before this one. I slightly resented how many unwanted issues rolled through the desert like tumbleweed.
I’m tempted to say that you should vote with your wallet: Fennec Fox is Hungry shouldn’t be encouraged, with its litany of bugs and control issues. But if you’re determined and you have a Fennec Fox fan in the family, then we won’t hold it against you. The problems may be many but they’re all minor, and it’s easy enough to scamper over them.
Important Links
Fennec Fox Is Hungry Continues The Snack-Fuelled Series On Xbox And PC – https://www.thexboxhub.com/fennec-fox-is-hungry-continues-the-snack-fuelled-series-on-xbox-and-pc/
Buy from the Xbox Store, Optimised for Series X|S – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/fennec-fox-is-hungry-xbox-series-xs/9N9ZGL4VZMZT/0010
Buy on Xbox One – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/fennec-fox-is-hungry-xbox-one/9P2DK7T89L00/0010
Buy on Windows PC – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/fennec-fox-is-hungry-windows/9NB3NQJ1RDDH/0010
