‘Last Inua’ is set in a frozen tundra and is an icy tale of a father and son’s journey to vanquish evil from the world in the form of a demon named Tonrar. The son, Hiko, is blessed with supernatural powers strong enough to defeat Tonrar but his frail, adolescent body is unable to handle these powers and as such he is too weak to embark on this quest alone. His loving father, the physically powerful Ataataq, opts to accompany his son and protect him in all the ways Hiko is unable to protect himself. Together this Inuit duo set out to save the North from Tonrar’s evil clutches and it looks to be a tale of fatherly love set in a tranquil, snow blanketed world. Unfortunately, ‘Last Inua’ faces a plethora of problems that spoil the experience.
Developer: Glowforth
Genre: Platformer adventure game
Platforms: PC and iOS
Release date: 11th December 2014 (PC), May 8th 2014 (iOS)
ESRB: Unrated (Mild threat)
‘Last Inua’ is a form of platforming game where you control both Hiko and Attataq in order to navigate the different levels though each character has vastly different strengths. Hiko, the teenage son, is gifted with the ability to teleport between glowing points, create bridges of light to pass over danger and fly in certain circumstances. Attataq on the other hand is the physically stronger of the two and may climb sheer, icy walls, jump and smash through enormous ice blocks that may block the path. To complete levels the player must use each character is unison and, at best, the puzzles are a solid means of traversing the environment even if your options are extremely limited. What let’s this game down however is how incredibly slow everything is and, when combined with some very touch and go controls, the whole experience is easily ruined. Both characters move at a lumbering pace as though they were wading through the snow rather than skipping across it and it’s a fairly frequent occurrence for your button presses to go unrecognized. Attataq in particular does not always jump when he is told to, usually resulting in death. This quickly becomes extremely frustrating as each death sends you halfway back across the map leaving you to plod your way back over to where you just died. This would be somewhat bearable if death was infrequent but sadly almost everything is deadly whether that’s mistimed jumps, roaming Yeti’s, spurting pools of darkness or spike traps. The entire game feels unnecessarily drawn out when you have to constantly retrace your steps at an agonizingly slow pace and this is inexcusable, no matter how pretty the backgrounds may be.
Special mention should be made of how absolutely gorgeous everything looks and the opening cutscene in particular looks fantastic. The animations are nicely detailed and, for the most part, smooth and well executed. Visually, the art style is very simplistic but also very elegant and I personally loved the sleek, stylish appearance the game boasted as well as the noticeable contrast in colour. The first few levels are by far the most stunning as the contrasts between the inky black night sky and trees and the bright, gleaming whites and blues of the snow and ice are quite beautiful. The characters themselves are well designed and the landscapes have enough detail for them not to feel barren. A lovely visual effect that I enjoyed is also connected to a gameplay feature in that if you stay too far away from a campsite containing a fire then you will gradually begin to freeze to death. When this occurs the entire screen begins to fill with translucent spikes of ice that crackle across the screen, reminding you to seek warmth quickly or else face the ultimate consequence.
Unfortunately ‘Last Inua’ is one of those games I really want to like but just can’t. It looks fantastic and the story is really quite lovely but the controls are unreliable, the animations are oddly jumpy in places, the lumbering pace is unbearable and there’s a great deal of repetition that makes the entire experience mind numbing. There’s a great deal of trial and error in navigating this game and, when error puts you so far back, you’ll find yourself constantly re-treading the same levels that already lack variety. Despite this, I’m sure there are people out there that can look beyond these problems and enjoy this quaint little game but for me it’s simply a deal breaker. Overall this game could have been so much better as there are some really promising elements about it that would have been brilliant if not for the undue frustration the mechanics caused me. So for this one I’m afraid I’ve got to say it missed its mark by a long shot.
The Good:
- It looks beautiful
- An emotional and touching storyline
- Nice animations, when they work
- An interesting concept
- Atmospheric, detailed environments
- Running from camp to camp before freezing is a nice touch
- Some truly awe inspiring landmarks
- Inexcusably slow
- Puzzles are very scripted with limited solutions
- Unresponsive controls
- Frequent deaths that put you very far back from where you died
Final thoughts: “What a shame, if only those kinks had been recognized and worked out prior to release then perhaps we’d have a real stunner on our hands. Sadly it’s just far too repetitive, slow and unreliable to enjoy properly.”
