Infernax is a game eleven years in the making that sports a gritty, retro feel and a metal chiptune soundtrack. If those words I just said ignited the happy sensors in your brain, then I strongly consider seeing if Infernax is worth your time.
Here’s my two cents.
Infernax opens with a brilliantly designed tutorial, introducing you to things like its setting and the basics of combat. Beyond that, this opening section introduces what was easily my favorite aspect of Infernax: choice and consequence.
Infernax is consistently asking you to make difficult decisions that alter the outcome of events. This extends into the game’s multiple endings as well, which helps encourage repeat playthroughs. I personally felt the endings lacked enough variety to incentivize going for them, which left me feeling undersatified. Repeat playthroughs are mostly here for those who want to one-hundred percent the game.
Or for those invested in Infernax’s world, which is put together with fairly noticeable attention to detail. This may be a love letter to retro classics of yesteryear such as Castlevania II, but its world still feels alive and lived in. Most of this is admittedly due to the choice and consequence nature of Infernax, but the game’s side quests help carry the experience as well.
While certainly nothing groundbreaking, the sheer volume of side questing available in Infernax genuinely surprised me. Now we’re not talking Skyrim levels of questing here, but we are talking about something that could easily increase your playtime by a decent margin.
These quests are usually worth your time due to the variety and value of their rewards as well. Some may reward you with simple things like gold or XP, but others open up things like new quests or storefronts to purchase gear from. I consistently found myself stopping in each village to talk with everyone during my playthrough, as I was always curious what reward I’d receive next. Be careful doing this though, as some of these actions will lead to unforeseen consequences.
Now as much as it pains me to admit, this is about all of the good I have to say on my experience with Infernax. But that doesn’t mean it may not appeal to you, so I’d strongly consider hearing me out before making your own call on the game.
For starters, I want to talk about the topic of trolling the player vs wasting the players time. On the surface, these two things sound like they’re the same, and in many ways they do share overlap. In order to distinguish the two, and to help make my point easier to explain, I’ll bring up this little game that was just released called Elden Ring.
You may have heard of it.
In Elden Ring, the game consistently, from the opening moments, does all it can to mess with the player’s expectations. Elden Ring then proceeds to maintain this theme throughout its runtime, building upon this philosophy again and again until the credits roll. In this scenario, “trolling the player” works because you, the player, know to expect it and to be ready to combat whatever’s around the corner.
When looking at Infernax, a game I played immediately after my time with Elden Ring, I couldn’t help but feel slight bitterness. Bitterness at the way my time as a player was disrespected (God that sounds pretentious).
This became apparent to me upon reaching a specific point in my Infernax quest where I had to do some guesswork in order to proceed. Only the issue here is failure to guess correctly leads to death and a reload at the nearest save point, sometimes resetting ten-plus minutes of progress.
This wouldn’t be such an issue if I didn’t have to repeat this process numerous times throughout the game. Sadly that wasn’t the case in my experience, as this problem persisted until the credits rolled some six hours later.
There’s no issue with making a challenging game, or even a love letter to a classic title from yesteryear. The issue arises once you get to a point of wasting the players time for no other reason than to waste time or inflate your game’s playtime.
It does make me wonder if the devs decided on this intentionally. It’s possible they made Infernax this way intentionally for the sake of preserving that “retro feel”. Unfortunately it was a major detractor when it came to enjoying my time with this one, so I felt it was worth mentioning.
Beyond that, I think I could best describe the rest of Infernax as being inconsistent. The melee combat in this game leaves something to be desired, but the magic is fun as hell to use. The bosses, while unique and fun to look at, are boring to fight and offer little challenge. The world, while sprawling and diverse, rarely gives you any fun or unique platforming sections or enemies to contend with.
It all ultimately left me feeling unfulfilled in my journey to rid the land of evil.
While I wish there was more positive praise I could give to Infernax, this one really didn’t do it for me. There are multiple aspects that are appealing, such as it’s art direction, sound design, and focus on choice and consequence. Unfortunately these things don’t deal with much in the realm of core gameplay, which means I was left feeling bummed out during the majority of Infernax.
If you’re a fan of true to inspiration retro throwbacks and hypotheticals where Undertale meets Castevania, Infernax may be worth your time. However, if you’re more like me and don’t necessarily care to play something that frustrates more than fulfills, maybe consider skipping this one.
atrocious.ink 