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I played a bit of the Rusted Moss demo back in March and was immediately smitten with its grappling hook-powered exploration. Granted, you could add a grappling hook to just about anything and I'd probably try it, but this really did seem like something special. It's a side-scrolling Metroidvania set in a dreary but lovingly detailed world caught between warring humans and fae, and that world's only getting more engrossing the more I play now that the game's properly out. The lovely pixel art and music set the atmosphere, and the ominous narrative looming over protagonist Fern maintains an air of mystery, but it's the breakneck platforming that's truly keeping me on the hook.
The right way to use a grappling hook
Rusted Moss has one of the most 0-to-100 movement systems I've ever encountered, and it's all thanks to Puck, your fae friend-turned-grapple. The physics of the grapple are closer to a bungee jump cord, with an emphasis on manipulating momentum to slingshot yourself to hard-to-reach places or out of danger. The secret sauce, ironically, is how imprecise it is. The grapple is extremely fun to fiddle and experiment with, and every chunk of the minimalist map is a new environmental puzzle – one that probably has multiple viable solutions, if you're spry enough to find them.
There's a bit of a learning curve, but I quickly found myself engrossed in controlling the wily nature of the grapple. You learn to adjust to the whiplash, predict and estimate Fern's kinetic energy, and feel out the physicality of things. Muscle memory builds as you try out more ambitious maneuvers, and you expand on it each time you get a power-up and your options increase.
This is especially fascinating within a Metroidvania-style world that was designed to unfold in waves as you get more upgrades. It's the perfect genre for this system; Rusted Moss would be much less interesting as a typical platformer. The inherent creativity of the movement encourages you to challenge levels that might initially seem impossible with your current tools, and so Metroidvania tropes hit differently because the way you interact with platforming challenges is so freeform to begin with.
A standard upgrade like an improved jump has obvious implications in most Metroidvanias. "Congratulations, you can now reach this ledge and continue east," or whatever. But in Rusted Moss, your abilities are so elastic and interoperable that a simple high jump has ripple effects across multiple platforming techniques that change the way you approach its level design. Sure, I can reach higher ledges now, but I can also use that high jump to set up steeper dives into death pits to build more momentum for the return arc of the grapple that I'll fire right at the last second. An upgrade will simultaneously solve obvious challenges – like that ledge you can't reach – while also allowing for more, and more novel, solutions to countless others.
Maybe I can charge that high jump – by standing on the fae grass you use as grapple anchors, and which serves as focal points for most levels – and hold it for a few precious seconds. That might be just enough time to shuffle toward a patch of grass on the ceiling on the other end of the room. I can jump up and use that grass to form a long grapple cord that I can then use to swing to the side, loop that cord under a broken column also jutting from the ceiling, and swing up just enough to hook around on the other side and reach a max health pickup. The upgrades in Rusted Moss feel less like keys to open specific locks – ie get the special suit so you can swim in acid and reach the next area – and more like natural evolutions of the superb movement at its core.
Grappling with enemies
This unconventional locomotion also impacts combat, which is basically diet bullet hell. I can use the grapple to swing around a shielded enemy and hit them from behind, for example, or even grapple an enemy toward me to neutralize their range advantage. I'm an especially big fan of the void-like ooze that covers many levels and boss arenas; it doesn't hurt you immediately, but you'll take a huge chunk of damage if you stand in it for too long, so you're forced to keep moving. This is where Rusted Moss really gets going, because combat can go extremely poorly in an instant. It is not a forgiving game even after you get some health and mana upgrades under your belt, and bosses force you to juggle a lot of different actions.
Combat is much more involved than I expected going in. Fern unlocks multiple guns as you progress, and they all have specific use cases which can be further modified by equippable, Hollow Knight-esque charms. Slow down enemy bullets, extend the range of your shots, give the charge rifle a burst fire mode instead, shatter enemy bullets when you take damage – you can assemble a real build as you gravitate toward specific guns and play styles. I'm a big fan of the rapid-fire pistol which can also launch floating energy blades that decimate stationary enemies, for instance.
There's still a lot more for me to see in Rusted Moss – I'm especially eager to get the rocket launcher I've seen on its Steam page, both to blast enemies and to add rocket-jumping to my platforming repertoire – and I am hungry to see it. My gut feeling is that this will be a fairly brisk game, and I mean that as a compliment; it's refreshing to see a condensed, tightly designed Metroidvania like this, much as I love my 40-hour sagas. I was in it for the grapple, and frankly I still am, but I've found plenty more to love too.
Rusted Moss is available now on PC. Check out our round-up of the best Metroidvania games to find more search-action adventures to sink your teeth into.
