Five minutes into Infernax, I came across a familiar and suspicious-looking cliffside. I was there back in 2006 when James Rolfe got all cholic about the secret whirlwind in Simon’s Quest, and I was no stranger to the gameplay and graphic choices on display here. Like a good boy, I got to the corner of the screen, kneeled for five seconds, and as if by magic, that magic tornado appeared.
As it drifted languidly towards me, I felt like a big smart boy, destined to dine at the lobster supper head table of gaming geniuses. I grinned a meme-ish grin. I did a big clever.
Then the whirlwind spat me out as bloody chunks.
“Oh,” I mumbled between rictus lips, eyes still narrowed in ill-placed confidence and self-congratulation, “this gonna be good.”
Infernax, by Berzerk Studio & The Arcade Crew, is an 8-Bit style action-adventure that bravely answers the question ”What if Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest wasn’t a big pile ff dicks?” (You spelt underappreciated masterpiece wrong – ED). It takes Konami’s 1987… uh… classic, I guess, and ropes in Zelda II too, and adds;
- Streamlined but robust controls and combat, still with that deliberate “I invested in this jump, so I gotta see it through to the mortgage” Simon Belmont feel.
- Rewarding Metroid’esque exploration and platforming, complete with NES-pad destroying jumping puzzles.
- Such easily accessible Missions, they make Dragon Age sad, along with easy-to-grasp leveling and character progression, much like Zelda II’s. Only not awful.
- A dark gothic plot that borrows from real-world demonic occultism, but also a sense of humour that stops it from getting too grim.
- Moral choices that not only matter but also change the entire game. Lookin’ at you again, Dragon Age.
- Gorgeous NES-accurate graphics coupled with big, beautiful boss and cutscene sprites. Not to mention colours greater than Castlevania II’s Brown, Red and Other Brown.
- Music that goes Beep Boop in all the right ways.
- Callbacks and cameos to its inspirations aplenty
- Also, slap Contra in there too.
This is what makes Infernax really stand out; a modern take on a couple of flawed but highly admired games, that ends up so polished and fun to play it becomes its own thing. The humour alone makes that point incredibly clear. Sure, you can find Simon’s whirlwind, but here it tears you into chunks. Yup, there’s Castlevania wall chicken, but here it makes you sick… because it’s chicken you found in a wall cavity. The demonic undead invading your home? Did those other games give you a secret ending where you jump back in your boat and get out of dodge? I think not!
That in undead invasion is where the plot starts. You, a great knight, returning from the Crusades to the land of your fathers, only to find the countryside, and even your castle home and the people under your care, besieged by gribblies and/or ghoulies. Smashing your way through demons named after actual occult sources, you discover a local fortress is sealed by dark magic and only defeating the six demons that empower that seal is the way to progress…
Or maybe you don’t. Maybe, when you find the shady Robert and his cloak-clad cohorts, you choose not to chase them out but instead drink with them, eventually joining a shady cabal intent on usurping the local church’s rule and controlling the country through dark magic. It is not often that an NES game (let’s be honest, it is) lets you not only play the noble hero but also the corrupted knight, hacking through the guards and townspeople of your home, the ones who minutes earlier you were sworn to protect.
It’s great when a game’s moral choices have such dynamic changes on the gameplay, and not just the colour of the lamp in the final cutscene. And even those choices branch off into others! Once you’ve done Robert’s bidding in destroying your castle, do you serve him… or take the power for yourself? Choices are everywhere in this game, with big obvious signposts, gameplay ones being unmistakable.
That’s just the narrative. The gameplay is the polished version of plodding Simon you might expect; not so much “unresponsive” as definite. The Dark Souls Lite approach. You’re attacking because you’re certain you’ll hit and not need to dodge. You’re jumping because you know you’ll hit the platform dead on. There’s little wiggle room once you’ve dedicated yourself, but it’s not like the game will punish you or make what you to do oblique. Enemy attack patterns are quick to learn and adjust to, and after a few minutes, you can (at least on paper) fight anything without taking damage.
As you progress, you kill more gribblies, and more gribblies means more cash and XP. Cash will get you weapon, armour, and potion upgrades, which is pleasantly expected. The XP is used at save point altars to level up, akin to Zelda II; your choice of more health, more weapon damage, or more MP. The MP is used for a plethora of magic spells you learn or buy, from healing yourself to projectiles to aggressive doves. These spells gain upgrades in much the same way as learning new spells, so more MP soon equals more, bigger special attacks to use against bosses.
Speaking of, these huge obscenities are some of the best parts of the game, a far cry from Castlevania II’s pedestrian efforts. Right off, your first boss, Paimon, gets introduced in a gorgeously gory cutscene. A spidery long-necked flesh-sack skull-face twice as big as you, skittering back and forth, telegraphing its gross attacks as expected for a first boss. Its size, posture, and movements relate perfectly to an initial encounter; a straight-forward target, but not a push-over at all.
Soon after you fight, chase down, and fight again the hulking abomination that attacked your home. Misjudging “The Abominable Grimace” here gets you smashed under a giant sword, a just reward for not simply watching its animations and learning. From there, the bosses get bigger and trickier, but they never seem unfair. Just, you know, Hellish.
All in all, Infernax is a great new-style take on an old-school classic. It is greater than the sum of its parts, and delivers where its inspirations stutter. Ironically, Infernax is the whirlwind that delivers you where you need to go, and not the one that chunkifies you.
Oh crap. I went all this time without a Symphony of the Night joke.
I guess I’m just a MISERABLE PILE OF SECRETS!!
Gettin!