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Haha… I just got it. INexistence. Like, you’re IN existence? But it’s also like inexistence? Right? Right? Did you get it? IN-existence!? Right? It’s–
Okay, so seriously, Inexistence is a good game. It’s a Castelevania/Metroid/Mario/Zelda clone that splits its content about 80/5/10/5% respectively. So I guess… it’s mostly a Castlevania clone. That being said, it’s short enough to play in one sitting (about 2 hours) but what you get is pretty strong.
–Spoiler Warning–
Plotwise, the game begins with some giant evil dude putting your older sister into an eternal sleep. I say “giant” because I couldn’t help but notice that there’s no way he could go through the doorway without ducking… or shrinking… or something. It made me laugh at least. At any rate, our hero Hald sets out to defeat the evil “Claos” (possible reference to “Chaos” from Final Fantasy 1 although that might be a stretch) in order to awaken his sister (obvious ties to Link’s Adventure II). Hald travels through a couple forests and mountains, meets a helpful merchant (Castlevania reference) and after acquiring powerups and gear in Claos’s castle, comes out the the victor from the final battle, awakening his sister after Claos’s defeat.
It is at this moment that the world snaps back to reality and you realize you were living the delusions of a small boy who was creating a fantasy in order to cope/escape from the fact that his father (Claos) was molesting his older sister. Yeah… I’m not making this up. At first maybe I thought I was reading into it too much and maybe just had my mind in the gutter but after checking the Steam forums and finding a post from the developer I’m fairly certain my interpretation of the game’s ending was accurate.
“The ending explain[s] that the history of Inexistence is just the distortion of reality that imagines Hald, a world where he would have the courage to overcome his tyrannical father who hurt him and his sister.” –Beyondgood
Now, I love “it was all in your head” games. When I was a kid, I couldn’t get enough of them, to the point where I thought the ending of America’s Super Mario 2 was pure awesome. That being said… I’m getting a little tired of seeing them over and over again in what feels like every indie game over the last 5 years. It’s not that I dislike the plot twist in itself… it’s just that I feel that the game should make a little more of an effort about interacting with the concept or exploring it from different angles instead of just “SURPRISE!” at the end. Regardless, it does make you wonder (if not become a bit concerned) about the game’s developer. It seems to line up all too easy with a possible tale of a real-life child who escapes a horrible family by retreating into the fantasy of SNES games.
Mechanically speaking, this game hits all the good parts of Castlevania pretty well for an indie title. Even though you have a sword instead of a whip, the controls, movements, tactics, enemies and strategies line up perfectly with the same exact traits in Castlevania. The fact that I can attack in the air, drop down to the ground, animation cancel, attack again and dash backwards is a small but critical part of how the Castlevania games functioned. Even some of the enemies like the giant stuffed knight below, with their slow movements and large weapons are reminiscent of the same foes faced in Dracula’s Castle.
Claos himself and his castle are obvious references to Dracula as well, specifically the room that you fight him in…
And his final form is even a bit reminiscent of Aguni from Portrait of Ruin.
Inexistence is a Tier 2 game with Tier 1 spirit. It was all good fun with relatively clean gameplay, a nice progression of leveling up and equipment and a smattering of secrets and treasures guarded by an appropriate amount of enemies. Apparently, the developer is on the move to release a second version of the game that doubles the game’s size and adds several other features and monsters. If it’s as good as the first one, I’d say we have nothing to lose in trying it out. As for this one it wasn’t a bad way to spend a bit of down time.
