Whenever a company creates a sequel, it runs the risk of eliminating a large section of their potential audience. They have a few options – either continue the game assuming everyone played the original and has some idea of what’s going on, make the game a standalone story that doesn’t require any additional context, or give a fairly large amount of exposition to explain what happened in the previous game. Not even realizing this was a sequel initially, this game chooses the third option, albeit in a more succinct way than you would probably think.

The Inner World first launched in 2013 to critical acclaim, with a story that is touched on in the opening as well as through dialogue as you progress through The Last Wind Monk. Essentially, after Robert’s (main character from the first game) victory over the evil Conroy, he runs away from the responsibilities he’s faced with and is petrified by one of the Basilisks he saved everyone from. Three years later, your trusty companion Peck, who is a pigeon, finally decides to bring you back from what could be considered death. Why he waited three years to do so is beyond me.

So from the get go, this is a point-and-click adventure that offers more than one character to control, and eventually gives three at any given time, each with their own abilities and tasks to conquer. Peck is obviously able to go where Robert and Laura cannot, while Laura plays the muscle, and Robert plays the timid coward that has no idea what is going on, and more or less serves as the vehicle for new players to learn what happened originally while also discovering the events since.

The game has a lot of dialogue, as the genre is known for being story heavy with puzzles. The voice work overall is pretty solid, although that’s not to say that I enjoyed all of it. Robert in particular grates on my ears, as his personality isn’t one I really care for. However, it’s well executed and certainly lends itself to his persona. Likewise, Laura’s voice actress has a very confident sound that parallels her skills, which is a much needed reprieve from the nasal-based whine you’ll become all too familiar with.

The puzzles are fairly unique, given the fact that you’ll have three different characters to use throughout. Luckily, for those that are slightly less puzzle savvy, the game offers a pretty extensive hint system. It can be as vague as mentioning a possibility, or as thorough as a step-by-step guide online you’d follow. The detail is up to you, and lets you choose how you want to experience the game. If you are here simply for the continuation of the story and hate puzzles, you can use it as a “see the content mode.” However, most people will attain their enjoyment from this while figuring out the puzzles, so merely seeing what you’re supposed to be doing will suffice as a hint.

The game’s controls, whether this was unique to me or not, seemed a bit off. I couldn’t interact with the environment unless I had pulled up the hot-spots. While I appreciate seeing what I can interact with, I don’t like being able to move about freely if I’m going to be forced to scroll through the points of interest with the bumpers, and then choose what I want to do with the object in question. It seems a bit backwards, as these should merely be there to help you locate something you missed, not something you are required to look at to play the game.

The game’s aesthetic is unique, as it’s very cartoony. Whenever I see it, I want to say it looks like something made in Flash, but only the characters because of the bold use of color and simplicity of the character designs. Quite honestly, I’m amazed by how simple they are, yet how unique they look when paired against each other. The backgrounds are lovingly put together, perhaps a bit reminiscent of some Daedalic titles. My biggest issue with the art is some of the animations you’ll see. At the very beginning of the game before you are even given the chance to play, you see a cutscene where someone starts to boo – it zooms into the person and the animation shown is a generic talking cycle; there is only one sound coming from his mouth. This may seem minor, but it left a sour taste in my mouth. There are many instances where the animations aren’t up to par, but this was one of the stand outs as it just seemed lazy.

If you played The Inner World, I can certainly see the appeal of the story and what the characters have to offer. I’m sure there are plenty of callbacks that you’ll appreciate that I wasn’t able to, such as characters and locations. As someone that came into this fresh, it’s a fun game, but a bit lacking overall. The cheery art contrasted by the dark themes the game covers comes across nicely, but those themes aren’t always portrayed in the best possible way. The character differences makes the puzzles more in-depth than some other options currently available in the genre, but with part of the cast being unlikable (most of the time for me, at least), it’s difficult to fully enjoy the game. The Last Wind Monk provides a unique spin on the genre, but it doesn’t quite hit the highs of the old 90s LucasArts games or Daedalic’s Deponia series.

7 out of 10

Pros

• Unique Character Designs
• Extensive Hint System
• Playable Characters

Cons

• Controls
• Animations
• Some Story Themes

The Inner World: The Last Wind Monk was developed by Studio Fizbin and published by Headup Games with the help of Kalypso Media Digital. It was released on PC October 20th, 2017, X1 on October 23rd, 2017, and PS4 October 24th, 2017 for $24.99 on Steam and $29.99 on the consoles. The game was provided to us for review on X1. For more on The Inner World: The Last Wind Monk, visit its official site.

 

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