Game: Inops
System: Nintendo Switch
Genre: Puzzle, Platformer
Developer: ZRZ Studio
Price: €9.99| $9.99 | £9.99
Age Rating: EU: 3+ | US: E (Everyone)
Release Date: January 26th, 2019
Review code kindly provided by ZRZ Studio
A cute group of critters have their home torn away by fiery demons, it’s up to you to scour the world for your lost friends and defeat the enemy. This challenging puzzle adventure will pit your friendly Inops against the vibrant but unforgiving landscape, looks do decieve so beware!
The Journey Home
Each level in this brief adventure begins with you assuming control of a single Inop. You can move and jump around as you head toward the level exit. On your way you meet more Inops, who will join you and loosely mimic your movements.
The key is to then unite into one giant Inop to traverse most of the hazards, lest your strays fall to their untimely doom. There are also however times you must disassemble once more to squeeze through gaps and solve some of the games more sophisticated puzzles.
For the most part this mechanic is functional, the game does a good job at indicating and reminding you of when is best to use each form. However, reuniting can get a little tricky once your Inops stray too far or between obstacles. Swimming in particular, forces you to seperate leading to very excruciating segments of directing your erratic cloud of allies. I had instances in-game where Inops would haplessly wander into hazards, get trapped in walls and have difficulty reuniting. This may have been intended as part of the challenge, ultimately I was able to overcome this by retrying time and time again.
Also, on your journey, you may stumble upon optional collectibles; stars and gems. The stars are required – alongside surviving Inops – to progress through each world. The gems allow you to resume from the last checkpoint should every one of your Inops perish.. However this proves almost completely redundant as you only respawn with a single Inop, which counteracts the primary goal of getting as many to the end of the level as possible. Considering the often hazardous ordeal of obtaining these gems, I can say it’s simply best to not bother. Restarting each level – frustrating as this gets – is the key to success should any of your friends fall.
Rough Roads Ahead
The stages themselves present a whole host of issues to me. Though they are nice to look at, a frequent issue I encountered was that a lot of the hazards came in the form of a suddenly appearing threat or simply one that was difficult to detect against the games moody backdrop. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate a game thats primary challenge comes from difficulty.
But when I steamroll all of my Inops unwittingly into a hazard that wasn’t even on screen for a second before requiring a reaction, it quickly becomes tiresome for me. Especially, as mentioned earlier, because this means having to restart the level and bit by bit learning what to avoid each time until completing. The game only has 15 levels, and so I figure this is the studios attempt at prolonging game time. Though not being punished for deaths does give the game a laid back feel.
Each world has 5 levels and a boss. To confront the boss and move onto the next world you then must save the majority of your pals and a collect certain number of stars. I have to admit, I didn’t find the game particularly rewarding or satisfying enough to want to continue, but persevered nonetheless. It is easy to keep track of your progress which makes it easy to understand what’s still required.
The relief of finally finishing each level came from overcoming the time-consuming nature of them rather than feeling accomplished. Most of the challenge comes from simply memorising a level rather than applying a significant level of developed skill. There are certainly some clever moments in the game in regards to puzzle design, but then in the later stages a lot of that intelligence and originality seems to run dry.
A Brief Encounter
So while the characters are cute, and the levels present as moody yet nicely designed artistically, the overall experience tied to this game unfortunately fell flat to me. I would have liked a Platforming, Puzzle Adventure to have been more satisfying and to have certainly lasted longer. The fact that it was made by a modest developer would usually earn it some bonus praise from me even. But alas, I felt I spent too long keen to keep moving forward at a steadier pace, only to find that when I did the game had come to its end.
There is the opportunity to return for all the collectibles and to set a Speed Run record. I can safely say I am not tempted. I did appreciate the opportunity to play the game, but sadly it simply wasn’t for me. Art style and ambitious gameplay mechanics aside, the often frustrating and unrewarding difficulty holds it back. For the current price tag as well, I would have hoped for the main campaign to have provided a fuller experience.
