Lenna's Inception Reviews

I love the Zelda series. Any game that channels the series definitely grabs my attention. This game hit my radar originally 5 years ago due to one of my favorite YouTubers doing an LP of it. And I've had mixed thoughts of the game, though it is mostly positive. Lenna's Inception follows the titular hero, Lenna, as she searches a randomly generated land in search of her missing students. She quickly meets the hero, who promptly dies. Lenna then takes up the quest to save the land and stop the archangels from terrorizing everyone. Are they the main cause for the world glitching and causing corruption? Yes, Lenna's Inception is one of THOSE games: It is an homage to gaming in general while it's tongue is firmly in cheek. It's not going to win any awards. It is also not going to insult your intelligence. There are hints of Lovecraft in it, though it's not scary. It's more of there's beings beyond people's understanding. Otherwise, this is standard classic Zelda: explore the map, go to the dungeons and find the key item, defeat the boss until you get to the final dungeon. Rinse, wash, repeat until the game is beaten. There are cleverly hidden secrets scattered throughout the game. However, rogue-likes and rogue-lites are hard to do well. Make it too random and the player feels out of control; keep it too standardized and everything feels the same. Lenna walks that line fairly decently. Her equipment is randomly assigned a color with each new seed. So you might luck out and get a hover tunic early or the bombs might be in the 2nd to last dungeon (I think the final dungeon always carries a certain item). It definitely makes each play through unique. But it also means that certain seeds could end up with Lenna overpowered while others keep her a tad under powered until the end. The game isn't hard. Especially if you have a few attempts under your belt. It's a very fast game. Controls feel solid, especially with a controller. And depending on how you play, a seed will last around 5-7 hours. Graphically, the game gives you the option of 8-bit NES that is in no way possible in ordinary circumstances OR the 32 bit style. I like the 32 bit style better as I think it looks nicer. Things are very telegraphed. The domes / areas are unique. The game has a few enemies and are animated rather nicely. The glitch (pun intended) is that the world sometimes feels a bit disconnected. This is also true in the dungeons and the main glitch of most rogue-styled games: the rooms look very similar with variants seen throughout the game. Musically, the game is solid. The title track is a bit haunting, with a more somber version playing throughout the dungeons. The over world has a peppy and heroic step in its beat. The sound design is solid as well. Overall, there's a lot to like about Lenna's Inception despite its glitches. It's a solidly paced Zelda style game. It definitely scratches that itch. And in some ways, it's infinitely replayable with the randomized elements. And for 10 bucks, you can do far far worse. If you're a fan of classic NES games and Zelda, you owe it to yourself to check it out. It's rather amazing that an indie game studio put together a rogue-lite of a well loved game that is solidly put together.