In case you’re not familiar with the headline reference, Orpheus was a mythical Greek musician who famously descended to the underworld to save his snake-bitten lover Eurydice. The rulers of the underworld, Hades and Persephone, were greatly disappointed by Orpheus’ emo lyre game, and quickly agreed to let him lead Eurydice’s soul into the waking world, with the extremely simple condition that he not go to would look at her before they were done. both on the surface.
However, like a love-drunk wrench, Orpheus couldn’t resist glancing at Eurydice after crossing the threshold – and the result is a timeless moral about human frailty and the specific truth that you should absolutely never date musicians, like the Australian developers Oppolyon The studios have completely ignored this in their otherwise smack-dab game about kicking your brother’s soul out of hell.
I’m writing this in part because the press release does indeed call the game “Foddian”, and I love that this is now a thing. I love that Bennett Foddy’s game-long slap-in-the-hands exercise has become a genre. I love that developers are doing this with us, the gamers. It’s definitely coming. To be honest, Ascending Inferno seems relatively gentle for a Foddlike. It’s more of a traditional 2.5D platformer, with lush voxel and pixel art and mechanics specific to certain levels. That said, it is completely dependent on ball physics.
The setup is that you are a gothic footballer named Dani, who tries to save her brother Vincent from hell. Unfortunately, Vincent no longer has a body. He is an ectoplasmic sphere with eyes. On the plus side, this means he can’t get himself into trouble on his own, like many NPCs in an escort mission. On the other hand – nine realms deep to be precise – this means he’s quite capable of rolling and tumbling all the way to the bottom of the level. “It’s not enough to run, jump and punch your way out of hell – you’ll have to dribble, kick and header [as well]“glows the Steam page. Yes, you too.
Again, I don’t think this is as suitable as some of the foods I’ve come across. It doesn’t look nearly as crushing as Pushing It! Featuring Sisyphus, and there’s no multiplayer like in Chained Together, so it won’t even ruin all your real-life friendships.
I also really like the obvious fun the developers have had with the afterlife realms, each stolen from Dante’s Inferno and equipped with its own visual direction. The trailer gives us a few glimpses: Gluttony is a seedy restaurant, Lust is a heaving nightclub, Fraud is like a run-down Castlevania theme park. It makes me want to play a Sonic The Hedgehog game set in Hell. That’s where a lot of Sonic games honestly belong.
Ascending Inferno is out today. I guess, given the headline reference, I should end by discussing the music. It seems passable to my unsophisticated ears, like Vangelis but rocker. I probably wouldn’t give back the soul of someone I love if they played this against me, but I might offer them a consolation prize like, I don’t know, the soul of a budgerigar, or maybe an eHarmony coupon.