Lenna's Inception Review

Lenna's Inception is a pixelated game that takes a LOT of inspiration from old games, particularly Zelda, and you can see it everywhere, from the graphics to the hero himself. What makes it stand out is that the world is glitching, the hero has died, and the game is also full of satire. Even at the beginning, it shows its roots in both Zelda and comedy when you meet a (pretty dumb) hero that doesn't speak a word and is called Lance. 

Unfortunately, I didn't know the game would be satirical, so upon my first encounter with it, I felt a bit taken aback and not in a good way. I'm not a big fan of satirical games because the fact that they don't take themselves seriously makes it difficult for me to care a whole lot. I particularly have this issue when the game leans more towards the gory or gross type of satirical comedy, which is exactly what I found in this game.

That being said, the gameplay itself is actually pretty fun. Although fighting enemies is kind of easy (including some bosses), and the dungeons didn't take a whole lot of brains to beat, the game's satirical nature actually worked to its benefit. Despite it being a genre I don't particularly care for, I found myself amused and looking forward to finding more random things to experience.

A good example of how not taking itself seriously made this game weirdly innovative is how the tunics and potions work. Unlike in serious games where you can read the description to understand beforehand what items will do, in Lenna's Inception, you have to drink or wear them to figure it out. Because of that, there was a sense of adventure and fear every time I found a new one. Thanks to the haphazard danger and wacky outcomes, the satirical nature of the game became an afterthought.

I feel it's needless to say that the graphics and story are simple, as it obviously takes inspiration from old games. The story centres around a school teacher whose students get caught inside the building when a glitch happens in the classroom. Scared for their lives, she heads out to meet up with the hero, hoping he might save them — except the hero is Lance, and he's a bit of a dunce who doesn't even know how to wield a sword. Lenna (or however you choose to call our protagonist!) then takes him to a "tutorial area" to get better and ends up watching him get crushed to death instead. That's when she takes up the proverbial hero’s mantle and heads off to save the world by killing the archangels.

Afterwards, the game revolves mostly around going to dungeons and killing the bosses off. That being said, there are other things to do for those that enjoy collecting and finishing a game 100%, such as collecting all the books for the librarian, finding the four pets, or even just grinding for coins so you can buy some stuff from the merchant. Although none of them are mandatory, I think part of the fun is to find out what the hell the purple tunic does and why you can even buy an heirloom from the merchant.

Additionally, the game offers a ton of replayability thanks to its plenty of game modes. Although many games do this, I feel like Lenna's Inception has some pretty innovative ones, such as daily seed, where everyone plays on the same seed for the world generation, and reflex mode, where the game is sped up to test your skills. Aside from that, the game also offers multiple endings, different boss forms, and procedural generation. This is without counting the multiplayer mode and the two graphical styles you can choose from to add more spice to the playthroughs! 

There isn’t much to say about the graphics aside from the fact that they’re retro, and you can choose two types. I personally love it when games offer multiple options for graphics, as it adds a tiny bit of replayability for me. As for the audio, I’d be lying if I said I noticed it! But I am not particularly picky about it and rarely notice it unless it’s really pretty.

All in all, Lenna's Inception is a pretty solid game. Although it's on the short side (every playthrough is expected to run for around four hours), there are multiple things to explore to keep the game fresh for much more than that, and if not, the game is still weird enough to be worth a try.