In the heart of the Amazon forest lives a tribe of tupi-guarani warriors. Tabata, the Cacique, is seriously ill, and Raoni, the Shaman, is taking care of him. A powerful Spirit of the Forest took possession of Tabata’s body and only an ancient ritual can undo the spell. Unfortunately, the most important ingredient is missing: a feather of a Harpy known as Uiruuetê. After hearing this, Raoni's apprentice, Aritana, takes his enchanted staff and embarks on a dangerous mission. The sacred feather can only be found at the top of the highest mountain in the midst of the land of the terrible Mapinguari.
A sequel named Aritana and the Ghost Arrow is in the works. It is planned to be a 3D third-person action game.
This game features the following tropes:
- 100% Completion: Unlocks the true ending.
- Achievement Mockery: There are not one but six different achievements for getting hit or dying in different ways.
- Barbarian Long Hair: The Mapinguari's mane adds to his bestial appearance.
- Big Bad: Aritana is pursued by a mythcal creature known as the Mapinguari or Isnashi ("The Roaring Animal"/"The Fetid Beast"). A giant cyclopical hairy primate with a mouth on its belly, it is highly danguerous and territorial.
- Bonus Level: Collecting the Muiraquitã artifacts gets you access to the Spirit World, a maze that hides the medicinal leaves that serve as health boosters.
- Bottomless Pits: The only lethal pits are seen during the second and third fights against the Mapinguari. All the other pits will only cost you a single HP and set you back to the last safe platform. The camera will also stop tracking Aritana if he falls for too long. Some latter areas are less forgiving about this and failing to platform can easily result in falling down a "pit" that's not really there.
- Bragging Rights Reward: Collecting all the power ups and combo combinations makes Aritana able to damage the previously invincible red enemies.
- Brazilian Folklore
- Combos: Doing a chain of three attacks from specific directions nets you bonus items, though each chain has to be unlocked before it has this effect.
- Distressed Dude: Tabata, the chieftain of Aritana's tribe, is under the spell of an evil spirit.
- Double Jump: The rising attack serves as one.
- Event Flag: Similar to Rayman games, standing on certain places or collecting all the guaraná in an area reveals hidden items somewhere else.
- Follow the Money: The guanará scattered through the levels will sometimes point to places of interest or reveal secrets when collected. The ones in the Spirit World are really just there to confuse you, though.
- Goomba Springboard: You can dash through chains of enemies to get over pits and climb over high platforms.
- Gotta Catch Them All: 45 Muiraquitã amulets are hidden through the game.
- Heart Container: You get two HP for every two medicinal plants you earn from the Spirit World and the first two boss fights.
- Jumped at the Call: Aritana takes Raoni's staff and runs into the forest against his wishes just after learning what must be done to save Tabata.
- Law of 100: You get an extra life for every hundred guaraná fruit you collect.
- Mighty Roar: Mapinguari often roars during the third fight. This will blow Aritana off the screen unless he enters his defense stance.
- Platform Hell: Most of the game's difficulty lies in performing tricky and long chains of attacks over bottomless pits.
- Recurring Boss: The Mapinguari is fought at the end of each set of stages.
- Respawning Enemies: A core mechanic is bouncing off chains of enemies to get from place to place, so they will always respawn after a while.
- Shout-Out: Enemies can't be stomped just by jumping on them. Trying to do this gets you the "Old Habits Die Hard" achievement/trophy, which features Aritana as a 8-bit sprite in the style of Super Mario games.
- The Spiny: Most enemies in the game are spiked on their top, sides or the bottom. Their appearance is only visible while the power stance is on.
- Stance System: Aritana can swap between speed and power stances. There is little reason for manually swapping between them because the game actually does this on its own when attacking or jumping.
- Underground Level: The Cave stages.
- Video Game Dashing: Aritana learns grounded dash attacks early on. This is followed by air attacks towards each direction: a Ground Pound, a rising attack and finally the horizontal air dashes.
