Risky Woods
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 Cover art | |
| Developer(s) | Dinamic Software, Zeus Software |
|---|---|
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts |
| Composer(s) | José Antonio Herrán Martin |
| Platform(s) | Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis |
| Release | 1992 |
| Genre(s) | Side-scroller |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Risky Woods is a computer game developed by Dinamic Software and Zeus Software, and published by Electronic Arts in 1992. The game has a side-scroll view, and a fantasy theme. It was also released as Jashin Draxos (邪神ドラクソス, Evil God Draxos) in Japan.
Story
The ancient monks, who preserve the wisdom of the Lost Lands, have been frozen in stone. Young Rohan must plunge into the Risky Woods to release them. Only then can wisdom triumph once again.
Gameplay
Most of Risky Woods involves Rohan running, jumping ledges and fighting monsters while freeing the monks from stone. At every third stage lay a boss, usually some gigantic floating insect that throws fireballs. Both the monsters in the levels as well as these insect bosses drop coins, though bosses drop considerably more. These coins can be used after each level to buy weaponry upgrades and extra life energy.
During the game, a number of other elements present themselves, such as evil monks who were also trapped in stone. Freeing them will cost you and even hurt you; they can be distinguished from regular stone monks by how their stone looks. However, some later levels switch which monks are trapped in what color of statue, which can be quite disorienting at first.
The secondary objective of each level is to pass through multiple "Eye-Key" gates. The player has two find two halves of an Eye-Key object, then use the completed Eye-Key to pass through these gates, otherwise the gate will send the player back in the level to find the missing key again, at the cost of half the player's life energy.
Continues may be found during the game, but only two are given in the entirety of the game. Once those continues are used up, that's game over and the player has to restart the game. The final level leads to a castle in which we must defeat Draxos, and upon which we are given a short animation and game over sequence.
Mega Drive Version
The Mega Drive/Genesis version of the game is considerably different from all other ports. While maintaining the core gameplay and keeping the stages of the original version of the game, this version of Risky Woods changes a few things around:
- Rohan's portrait is not shown in the lower-right corner with his energy meter. Instead, boss portraits are shown there with their life meter underneath.
- Rohan no longer wears generic traveler's gear. Rather, he appears as a priest in a robe and carries a staff.
- Eye-Key pillars are instead stone gargoyles with whom the player must play a memory game. Successfully completing the arrow sequence will destroy the gargoyle statue, allowing Rohan to continue.
- The can no longer clear the screen using a completed gate token. This is done, instead, by using the Skull items which were potential hazards in other versions.
- However, using a gate key with a gargoyle statue does still clear the screen.
- In addition, there are three different attacks for clearing the screen, depending on Rohan's armor status (see below).
- Shoppes have been completely removed from the game. This changes two major things about the game:
- The player can no longer purchase weapon upgrades. Instead, they can be found from destroyed gargoyle statues.
- The Coins previously used for Shoppe purchases instead boost Rohan's defenses: At 33 coins, the player is awarded battle armor which reduces damage taken by roughly half. At 66 coins, the armor is upgraded to golden armor which nullifies damage entirely, though Rohan will still flinch if hit. Either armor will be downgraded if the player loses too many coins – something that happens if Rohan is hit or falls into a bottomless pit.
- If the player runs out of time in a level, they restart that level with the exact stats they had when you entered the level. This includes coins, health, Skulls, and lives. Losing all one's lives will still result in a game over, however.
- The ending sequence is slightly more animated, in this version.
All and all, the Mega Drive version of the game is much easier than any of the three other ports due to the changes made as well as other minor changes to levels. It is otherwise very faithful to the original Amiga version.