One of the most interesting aspects of modern metroidvanias is the balance between designing early and late areas and/or combat encounters. If a boss can be reached at a point before obtaining a double jump, then his moveset cannot be designed around using it. INAYAH – Life after Gods, a hand-drawn debut game by ExoGenesis Studios challenges this idea, allowing the player to obtain every movement option they will use throughout the game within the very first hour.
In time a few more obstacle-removing tools become available, but these are typically meant to remove hard walls preventing story progression rather than new tools to play around with. This fast access to the full movement potential is by far INAYAH’s greatest selling point, providing a unique difficulty curve. In contrast, its other eye-catching features often do not deliver on their promises.
The most in-depth systems in INAYAH, which is also the name of the game’s outcast protagonist, revolve around the combat skill trees for the three weapons which, as mentioned above, are unlocked quickly. It is what all of the resources you collect via fighting and exploring will go into, and the customization is impressive. The fast and agile blades, the slow and powerful flail, and the fists that force you to remain stationary while attacking can all be taken in several effective directions, further enhanced by implants and heal power-ups.
All those options make it very easy to completely throw INAYAH’s already wobbly balance out the window. Focus on upgrading one weapon, add some passive upgrades from other trees and you will quickly find yourself dealing ridiculous damage numbers without the need to engage with its weapon-switching system. It can be hard to gauge what “improve damage by 5” means during a fight, but with my blade-focused build using nanites (stacks providing damage over time) I first-tried the majority of the game’s bosses before completing its first act. A lot of upgrades require very little thought as well for a substantial bonus, for example additional damage after jumping is just a no brainer, you want to be jumping anyway to avoid attacks.
Any combat challenge below the hardest difficulty quickly disappears. Though INAYAH features a “Custom” difficulty mode, it only allows you to modify combat and platforming separately as opposed to providing more balance tweaks. I would not expect more if not for the overall poor design of combat encounters. It can be hard to make a mistake when most bosses do not seem to have an answer to your damage output or even tactics as simple as jumping above them.
Combat is far from my favorite thing about INAYAH, and the same unfortunately goes for its story. It starts strong with the titular protagonist, Inayah, having to fend for her own after losing a lifelong friend and mentor, yet throughout this exciting intro I was already put off by the odd dialogue. Inayah does not sound convincing at any point. Her grief sounds like annoyance, her annoyance sounds completely normal, and her sarcasm sounds like any other line she delivers.
Some characters also feel a bit alien due to their bizarre pauses and off-putting reactions, while others impress by showcasing their strong personality in every line. Some gave off the feeling that they did not understand the context of the situation they found themselves in. The cast is a very mixed bag and drags down what is an otherwise fine story that can even be taken in a few different directions, letting Inayah develop into a selfish, heartless, or heroic version of herself depending on the player’s choices.
It does feature a bit too much backtracking though. The pace suffers by having to run back to NPCs to inform them of new developments after nearly every story beat. Most of the time they will send you to fight a boss, in my case the majority were already defeated. Admirably, INAYAH takes those instances into account every time, with unique lines for such scenarios.
With the majority of combat-related roadblocks taking me little to no time and despite my lack of investment, I still ended up with an impressive and enjoyable twenty hours in INAYAH purely due to how thrilling its platforming can be. It feels like from the start the levels are designed with the understanding of just how expansive your moveset is, not straying from challenges that require the usage of all your tools.
Though the blades provide the most mobility, with a dash, upward slice, and pogoing, the gauntlets have a directed fireball move which pushes you back, gaining just a bit of height, and the flail is required to teleport to certain otherwise unreachable spots. Two implants also provide new tools: a dash you can execute midair and a double jump, both easily found in the first act.
After obtaining those, the whole world is ready to be explored nearly in its entirety, the exceptions being the few story-related locations. As early as the starting forest area, you can be tested by the required use of two or even three weapons’ movesets to reach some of its secrets. The map can lay out the majority of secrets from the moment you enter a room, with a few hidden behind the foreground.
Exploration is rewarded not just monetarily, if it was I would not care to search around as much, but in several unmarked spots, the player can find lore-related writings, as well as one of the game’s best features: information on the area’s boss. Each boss has three items or scenarios revealing different facts and providing hints for their attacks. You also receive a percentage damage bonus during the encounter.
This alone made me excited for encounters. Even if I never expected them to be challenging, this feeling of playing as a huntress searching for the weakness of her prey. This connects to one of the characters able to join the game’s hub area: Nix, a huntress. She even displays the heads of a few defeated bosses as trophies in yet another satisfying bit of reactivity.
A great movement system and the general level of platforming challenge to match it made backtracking to locations less of a chore, but it has to be said that they are overall visually unremarkable. On occasion, you would get maps from Jasper, another resident of the hub, with a drawing of a landmark hiding treasure. This one questline proved to me just how little I remembered of INAYAH’s visuals. I memorized room layouts and enemy patterns, but not the supposedly unique points of interest the maps were alluding to despite passing them on several occasions.
INAYAH’s hand-drawn style is undoubtedly impressive, but its implementation does not fit a game about backtracking and exploration. The few memorable locations like a room with a flying robot platform or a wholly unique zone covered in a red sickness are few and far between in a slew of repetitive platforms and forgettable backgrounds. It might also be hard to appreciate and remember the finer details due to the fairly zoomed-out camera and an understated soundtrack that never made me want to stop and revel in the atmosphere. I would much rather listen to the crunchy hit effects and freaky enemy sounds as I rush through.
At times, INAYAH can teeter on the edge between mindless and zen. Flowing through zones, pogoing perfectly off enemies, and switching between weapons to reach new heights feels fantastic, but desperately scouring areas for any sign of a floating blue orb indicating a treasure or boss hint certainly made me feel numb on a few occasions. Nevertheless, I think this interesting approach to instant platforming freedom in a metroidvania is worth checking out for any genre enthusiast and proves that players can flourish in more immediately complex experiences moving forward. This fresh feeling is what I will be looking out for in any future title from ExoGenesis Studios.
Mateusz played INAYAH – Life after Gods on PC with a provided review copy.
