Inmost

Game Title: Inmost
Released: August 21, 2020
Game Length: 4 Hours
Grade: D

Expectations: There was a day when an article pointed out a new game. Before then, I had no idea Inmost was even in development. Then I noticed that it was from Chucklefish, you know those guys who brought Starbound? Then it happened: it was released in October 2019, but only on Apple Arcade! After a year of waiting, the game finally pops up on Steam. Will it turn out as awesome as Hollow Knight? It looks scary enough to follow something like Ori and the Blind Forest. The problem is I really have no idea what this game will be about without looking at the spoilers.

Reality: I probably should have looked at the spoilers before playing this game. It is mortifyingly dark and confusing. Is that a word? I'm not sure. The story constantly shifts between perspectives - a man exploring some old ruins that I nicknamed The Castle of Pain, a little girl who is slowly exploring the house she lives in, a knight who obediently slices through the darkness for an evil queen, and an old man who painstakingly takes his sweet time going down some stairs. The controls are clunky and sometimes respond differently than what you expect. This will cause you to die repeatedly as you try and figure out what the game wants you to do next. Checkpoints are everywhere as you interact with everything you can get your hands on. You immediately get thrown into the game without any clear direction of what to do or where to go. The biggest disappointment I had was the fact that you don't even get to fight the giant black things showcased on the front page. All "battles" occur during cutscenes.

Story: If you see any reviews to this game, you will generally see them avoid talking about the narrative. Yes, a game's story is a key component to a person's playthrough. I just wish someone would have mentioned how morbid it would get. It is less of a happy ending and more of a silver lining in a sad tale. The content is very similar to Sea of Solitude except that it attacks the setting from a different point-of-view. Although the game is full of allegories, I'm going to try my best explaining them. The man exploring the ruins represents a father digging through a dreadful life. The young girl has an active imagination and uses it through her stuffed bunny as she figures out what is happening in the house she now lives in. The knight searching for a flower is really a husband searching for a way to make amends to his wife by replacing the pain they received from losing their daughter with a new young girl he saved from a burning building. The flower being a metaphor for the daughter is pretty obvious from the start. It's the rest of the story that didn't make much sense to me. There are some old scraps of paper and little light orbs you can barter to the creepy man in exchange for "the truth" behind the run-down place, but they honestly didn't help explain things that was explicitly shown in a cutscene at the very end.

Opinion: Nothing is done right with this game - music gets repetitive, how you avoid monsters isn't made clear, controls don't always move your character the way you think, no real puzzle-solving other than interacting with everything, and the story is something I don't think anyone should experience in real life or in game. I was very unhappy with this game and would have quit sooner if it didn't end so quickly. Do yourself a favor and avoid this game like the plague.

 

11-29-2020