vgmusicologist…seriously? It’s Link’s Awakening again. I’m beginning to think the universe is conspiring to hand me only one kind of game for the rest of time.
I promise, I will GIVE these games their due attention someday, but I seriously need some variety here.
Ok ok, time to really dive into this.
Little hints up front that Lenna is…some kind of demonic creature. A scythe against the wall in her bedroom, a suspicious horn….motif in her hair, some suggestive reflections from her students.
Unmistakable undercurrent of parody. A distinctly Undertale style of parody. I’m concerned this may turn into a secret genocide story. The writing is straightforward, but often quite clever. There is lots of humor, but it’s mostly delivered with a straight face. I haven’t yet decided how I feel about the game’s urge to rationalize some of the video-gamier contrivances of Zelda. For example, the lampshading of the dead monster loot-based economy. It’s cute, but could become too much of a good thing, unless it turns out to be part of the theme of the game.
The combat is not bad, but it lacks the kinetic bounciness of the game it’s imitating. The animation isn’t quite as developed.
This game is really fucking easy.
Elements Lenna’s Inception has in common with Undertale: Extremely deadpan humor, conspicuous 8-bitness, playful lampshading of video game artifices, mercilessly punny skeletons, puzzles that aren’t actually very novel or challenging, horrific past events recounted out of order to obscure the full story, a mechanic to peacefully resolve combat that increases the difficulty of the game the more you use it, and a sneaking suspicion that you might actually be the bad guy.