PLATFORM: PC, PS4/5, SWITCH, XBOX ONE/SERIES (REVIEWED) | RELEASE DATE: 14TH FEBRUARY

A young duke returns home from the violent crusades to find that “something” came back from the Holy Land while he was away – a mysterious book, written by a madman, whose words were believed to hold great power… Meanwhile, a magic seal has locked the door to the local citadel, with five gems needed to open it. You know what that means – it’s your job to get that door open and find out what on earth is going on!

Infernax is a side-scrolling action platformer that feels a lot like Zelda II crossed with early Castlevania and absolutely nails the look and sound of the 80s / 8-bit games that it was no doubt inspired by. The bright and bold pixel art is very striking, and the monsters and bosses – as well as the liberal amounts of blood and gore that gets splashed around the place – makes everything feel gloriously silly and inoffensive. The gameplay will be similarly familiar to anyone with a fondness for retro titles – visit small villages to talk to the locals, buy supplies and pick up side quests, then head out to complete your various objectives.

It’s fair to say that Infernax doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it hits most of its marks successfully enough. It stumbles a bit when it comes to its world design though – you’re rarely given much information beyond “find such and such a person or thing”, which often leaves you wondering where you need to go. The map itself is quite small so it doesn’t take a huge amount of time to search around the place, but the game’s insistence on making you scour every single area multiple times wears thin quickly – chances are you’ll spend more time replaying sections just in case what you need might be in there rather than actually progressing through a new area, which leaves the game as a whole feeling repetitive and disjointed. As such, Infernax might just miss out on the “must have” label but there’s still fun to be had for those with a fondness for retro-inspired platformers.