Risky Woods

Risky Woods is a platformer created by the Spanish studio Zeus and published by Electronic Arts and Dinamic Software in 1992. It was released for the Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, and Mega Drive/Genesis.

The game designed by Ricardo Puerto and Raúl López represents an excellent entry into the platform shooter genre. Controls are similar to Turrican, but the most similar match is probably Ghosts 'N Goblins. However, the Capcom coin-op conversion suffered many problems, while Risky Woods's quality is fantastic. With responsive controls, fluid animations, detailed graphics, and a very dark tone, the game is a real surprise: it also features impressive parallax scrolling. This is one of the few titles where we can observe parallax scrolling with 16-color backgrounds, which the Amiga did not support, at least not with standard solutions. The developers programmed a routine using one of the Amiga's custom chips to show continuously recycled sprites to create the illusion of a moving background. You won't find this technique very often. You can also add excellent intro music and good sound effects.

The only downside of this game is the high difficulty level, especially on the first levels, but it becomes more acceptable when you progress. But don't think you can go ahead and buy random weapons. To beat the end-of-level bosses, you will need some planning.

Overall, this is one of the best platformers you can find on the Amiga, and it can easily compare with the best titles on the Mega Drive.