I was initially pretty curious about INAYAH – Life After Gods because of what it seemed to offer at first glance—a Metroid-like game, clearly inspired by Hollow Knight’s combat, with a really interesting art style? Sign me up! As I’ve stated many times in the past, Metroid is easily my favourite game series of all time, and I have a particular reverence for Hollow Knight, which probably makes me a bit more critical of attempts to emulate it.
But like I’ve said before, if you’re going to adapt something, you really need to understand what it is you’re building from—and I’m not fully convinced INAYAH – Life After Gods does. While it’s not a particularly bad game, it definitely feels like a case of style over substance, and the longer I played, the more annoyed I became with it.
The story is fairly straightforward. You play as Inayah—pronounced In-ai-yah—who was orphaned as a child when a mysterious group of Ironclad soldiers ruthlessly murdered her tribe. Years later, after being found by a lone wanderer, she is thrust into a hostile world, determined to find answers. Armed with her father’s magic gauntlets, she sets out to uncover the truth behind this ruthless faction, discover who she and her people truly are, and maybe even reunite this fractured world.
I feel like I’ve found myself saying this a lot recently, but my problem isn’t so much with the story itself as with how it’s told—namely through Inayah herself. This girl does not know how to shut up. Almost every single moment, she’s either commenting on the scenery, commenting on enemies, or stating obvious facts about the current proceedings. Look, I don’t have a problem with a vocal protagonist, but I do take issue with one who seems to think her heart will explode if she stops talking.
“INAYAH – Life After Gods quickly lost its charm as it became more defined by what it could have been than what it actually is.”
My issue with this—besides the fact that it gets pretty annoying pretty fast—is that it doesn’t fit the mood of the narrative, nor does it suit the genre INAYAH – Life After Gods is trying to capture. When we first meet Inayah, she’s dramatically recounting the death of her people and talking about the vivid nightmares she’s had since she was a child. Shortly after, her mentor and sole companion are obliterated by a giant mechanical threshing machine. The scene is set for a sombre character defined by loss, and yet here she is—playfully quipping and making remarks about every little thing like a literal child.
Not only that, but Metroid-likes are meant to be lonely, isolating experiences. Games like Hollow Knight are enhanced by small moments of humanity found in the depths of despair, but for the most part, you’re meant to feel alone against the world. In games like these, you let the world do the talking. You don’t stop the game every five minutes to have a dialogue encounter with other humans or the ghost of your mentor.
I had hoped that with a narrative that immediately got on my nerves, the gameplay would come in for the save—and it generally doesn’t. It’s fine by every definition of the word: a bog-standard Hollow Knight clone made even less interesting by giving you too much at the start and pitting you against ineffectual enemies and boss fights that are pathetically easy or mistake annoyance for difficulty.
The problem is that almost immediately, you’re given too much, so exploration is never engaging. Yet none of it is deep enough to make the combat particularly challenging. Near the beginning of the game, you’re given a choice of one of three weapons: a sword, a big spiked ball, or a pair of flaming fists. Each one operates a little differently in combat but also has practical uses for movement. The sword lets you bounce off enemies like in Hollow Knight and gain a bit of altitude from an upward swing. The ball lets you warp to grab points, and the fists allow you to grab specific walls.
“The game never provides the brick walls that incentivize exploration; instead, it presents you with plexiglass—it’s technically a wall, but it’s totally transparent.”
Normally, in a Metroid-like game, you’d be given one weapon and, as you progressed through the world, you’d encounter a series of brick walls with the implication that you’d need to return once you found new abilities. However, in this game, almost every platforming obstacle is presented with multiple ways to traverse it—clearly taking into account that players might choose different weapons. While some areas do require specific combinations of weapons to access, the problem is that you get all three weapons so early that it’s functionally pointless.
The game never provides the brick walls that incentivize exploration; instead, it presents you with plexiglass—it’s technically a wall, but it’s totally transparent. It feels to me like the game’s real focus was combat, since each weapon itself has a veritable cornucopia of upgrade options, and it seems like that’s where much of the attention went. I couldn’t understand why INAYAH – Life After Gods wasn’t just a 2D spectacle fighter like The Dishwasher or Katana Zero. Have levels that require a bit of light platforming, but don’t give me a whole world with no real incentive to explore it.
INAYAH – Life After Gods implements another odd decision, and that is the inclusion of moral choice. After almost every meaningful character interaction or boss fight, Inayah is confronted by her ghostly mentor and given a chance to weigh in on the preceding events. However, like any game that implements moral choices poorly, players are only given three options—good, neutral or bad. While I don’t mind the idea of a Metroid-like game incorporating a morality system, offering choices after unavoidable boss fights that amount to: “be good” or “be history’s greatest monster” are not compelling ways to progress any story.
Visually, INAYAH – Life After Gods is a bit of a mixed bag. The game uses a hand-drawn aesthetic that blends bright colours with neon lighting effects to create an impressive style. Many of the animations are smooth and clearly had a lot of love put into them. On the other hand, some enemy designs and cutscene animations can feel a bit flat and static, making the game resemble one of the really high-end titles you’d find on Newgrounds.
The audio can be a bit inconsistent too. For the most part, it’s pretty good, with solid voice acting and generally decent music throughout the game. However, for some reason, Inayah’s inner monologue has a static reverb effect that makes her sound like a robot, while dialogue from her Mentor’s ghostly form doesn’t—which just feels like an odd choice. He’s a ghost, give him a bit of reverb!
If I can conclude this review on a somewhat positive note, I will say that for a first game from ExoGenesis Studios, INAYAH – Life After Gods is definitely a valiant attempt. There was clearly a lot of love put into it, and attempting a Metroid-like for a debut title is a challenging prospect—even for a studio of industry veterans, let alone indie newcomers.
While I don’t think it’s a terrible game, its lack of focus and somewhat amature design left me more annoyed than satisfied while playing it. It might be a perfectly serviceable game to fill the gap while you wait for Hollow Knight: Silksong, but I’m patient enough to hold out.
