Another day, another Metroidvania. There sure are a lot of these. Luckily, there’s a reason for that; it’s hard to argue with the rush of satisfaction you get from good ol’ Search Action. Besides fighting strange creatures and filling out a map, Inayah - Life After Gods brings its own ideas to the table. I ran into some gnarly issues along the way, but Inayah’s combat system seeps into the rest of the game in a way that’s interesting, distinct, and challenging. It’s fumbly too, but you can’t have all the nice adjectives sometimes.
Don't like bugs? Bad news
Inayah’s (the game) storytelling is uneven, with lots of noticeable tonal inconsistencies, voice acting that sounds like two homies vibing instead of talking about life or death matters, and a bunch of dialogue choices that are “be nice or mean.” But the premise and world itself is interesting, and gorgeous to look at thanks to some absolutely stunning hand drawn art and animations. Inayah, titular protagonist, lives in a post-apocalyptic ruin, with ancient technology overtaken by plant life everywhere you look. This place also has lots of bugs, big bugs, bugs that look like different animals, bug people, so on and so forth.
Inayah’s (the person) family was attacked when she was little, but her father left behind a gauntlet that grants her the good stuff, the kind that lets you be a Metroidvania protagonist. She sets out to deal with all the bugs and various tribes of surviving peoples, hoping to find evidence that at least some of her own tribe is still alive. More gauntlets would be nice, too.
To navigate this world full of annoying doors and roadblocks that, by total coincidence I’m sure, seem to exist in identical groups, you get a set of three weapons. Yes, I meant to say you get weapons to help you navigate. Inayah’s weapons are the key to breaking down most of the usual progress-blocking doors, and they’re also where a good chunk of your mobility tools live. There’s a catch though; you pick one weapon to start, and it’s up to you and your sense of direction to get the other two. I picked the fists, leaving a flail and sword to find later.
Story time
I ended up in a bad situation, one that is more my fault than the game’s, but colored my experience nonetheless. Things open up for you pretty early, with plenty of roadblocks in your way to guide you. The spots where you get the two weapons you left behind are marked on the map, but one of them was well out of my reach for some reason or another. I filed that room away in my mind as a “come back with more stuff” box, and ended up in a situation where all of my quest objectives were blocked off by vines, which the sword takes out. I ran all over the map, going through rooms as meticulously as possible, basically doing a couple loops around the areas I could access.
Obviously, I should’ve thought to check the weapon room again sooner; can’t say why I didn’t. Once I got the sword, I got an air dash in the same room, and we were off to the races. But until then, my goodness, I was having a really bad time, folks! Especially because of something I noticed as I backtracked more than I should’ve: Metroidvania map rooms are generally pretty small, with some exceptions that are serving some kind of purpose. There are also lots of defining features, be it biomes, colors, or whatever Dracula’s Feng Shui situation is in a given century. One of the things these features help with is memory. The other, speed. There will always be that moment you’re missing the one piece of real estate you need in games like this, and you spend time retracing your steps.
All that said, the rooms in this game are massive. And in the opening area they all look the same. Not literally the same, but each screen is generally overgrown, techy ruins in some configuration or another. Because the rooms were so big, and because it was really hard to nail down a sense of places and rooms, my rookie mistake here was costly. Things sped up significantly after I finally discovered the “come back with more stuff” box was wide open, and while the rooms are still annoyingly huge (and it was impossible to ignore that at this point), the dash move sped me way up.
I knew I mostly had myself to blame for this pain. I did appreciate the opportunity to think about Metroidvania maps from a new angle. And I stand by the rooms being too big. Frankly, I think the map is a problem too. First of all, the default map is made of big, empty squares. You see the number of exits and their rough (sometimes misleading) placement. You have to pull up a different window to drill down into a room, which provides some helpful details. Here’s another but: You have to be in the room you drill down on, otherwise you can’t do it. To recap, we have big rooms, with multiple exits and gimmicks, with a map that’s really weird about how it gives you information. Ultimately, moving forward feels good in Inayah, but backtracking or getting lost feels worse than I usually expect.
The good part. Really good
Once those three weapons come together though, the game changes. There are gadgets or gimmicks all over the place, and lots of vertical spaces that are just barely out of reach. Each weapon, though, has a movement gimmick, like a backwards fireball that shoots you forward some, or an upwards slash that also acts as, like, half a double jump. The fist weapon also has some environmental features with ledge-grabbing and wall-sliding in special spots. A lot of these gimmicks are found in groups, because the game has to accommodate for different starting weapons.
But when you get all three? It’s a riot. You can instantly swap, and with all the gimmicks everywhere, you can zip around in ways that are definitely intentional, but feel like you’re getting past things you shouldn’t be. You gain more and more control of air space as you get used to it, and some of the routes you can take feel inorganic, almost like things are set up kind of like puzzles, but don’t look like or have the same presence in a space. It’s really cool in practice, and ended up as my favorite part of this whole experience.
Using the weapons to actually fight, however, was more in the opposite direction. Combat seriously lacks feedback or reactivity; often an encounter with an enemy looks like two drawings flailing at each other until one goes into a death animation. Things like hit stun are present, but there’s still a lack of impact. Readability ends up making defensive maneuvers difficult to judge at times as well; with the complex (and very nice-looking) drawings and animations, and the lack of feedback, it’s harder to judge things. And if enemies wander into each other and overlap, it’s a mess. Boss fights that just do their thing and don’t seem to have hitstun makes those problems louder, and on more than one occasion I opted to just run in and mash while tanking damage just to get the fight over with.
As a Metroidvania-enjoyer, I largely had a good time with Inayah - Life After Gods. There’s a creative world to explore, some truly impressive art and animation, and the weapons doubling as your door keys and fake sequence-breaking gadgets was awesome. Combat was a real downer, though, and the awkward map and enormous rooms made for some unpleasant backtracking. Even if you don’t end up in a goofy situation like I did, you’ll feel the pace dragging down. It’s probably a good idea to start with the sword.
Inayah - Life After Gods is available on March 27, 2025 for PC, with console versions planned for summer 2025. A code was provided by the publisher for this review.
INAYAH - Life After Gods
- Using the weapons as multipurpose tools is a really cool idea
- Hand-drawn art is always great to see; animations too!
- Cool world filled with neat bugs
- Rooms are too big; makes backtracking annoying
- Combat isn't fun
- There's a whole skill tree system I forgot about; it's fair to say it isn't memorable
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replyLucas White posted a new article, Inayah - Life After Gods review: Jumping over your limits
