Red Goddess: Inner World is a Metroidvania platformer by Yanim Studio for PC and PS4. For reference, for this piece I reviewed the PC version on Windows 10. Apparently Red Goddess: Inner World isn’t optimized for Windows 10 and it can crash, but I only had one or two crashes so I don’t think that that’s much of a problem.
The story of Red Goddess: Inner World revolves around Devine, a young Goddess who has to travel through her inner world to get back her memories. Something terrible has happened and she has buried her past deep inside. With every memory you find, you will unlock a new power for Devine.
Although a lot of sad things have happened to Devine, her inner world looks beautiful. It’s full of cute characters and colorful landscapes. Most of the game is set in a jungle with a deep cavern system. Together with the relaxing music it makes a nice distraction for dying a lot. They definitely helped me not give up.
There are a couple of cool things that can be said about the Red Goddess: Inner World gameplay. The first thing is that Devine has three sides, two of which are overpowering emotions. There is Anger, Fear and normal Devine, each with their own appearance and powers. Anger is red and can only attack red enemies and red obstacles. Fear is blue which can only attack blue enemies and blue obstacles. Seems simple enough, but when you’re fighting a group of red and blue enemies, it can become quite challenging. Second thing is that you have to collect diamonds to unlock gates to new areas. This means a lot of backtracking, but it’s okay, because you get to see more of the beautiful world!
Platforming in Red Goddess: Inner World isn’t always as fun. You will die a lot, which is okay, but a loading screen every time you die is not. The loading screen isn’t that long, but after a while it will get on your nerves. Platforming requires a lot of precision, but it felt like Red Goddess: Inner World wasn’t polished enough for that. Often I fell right down the side of a platform even though I was sure I had made it. I survived a lot of things by sheer luck. It could be that I am the worst at platformers and I must say, I am definitely not the best, but I don’t think every death was entirely my fault.
Combat is bland. It exists of only two moves: punch and uppercut. All enemies can be defeated the same, except for the bosses. Having to switch between Anger and Fear makes it a little bit more interesting, but it’s still mostly the same: punch punch until it’s dead.
All in all I liked Red Goddess: Inner World. The look and music is great, definitely something I couldn’t get enough of, and the story is simple but interesting. The platforming isn’t always the best, but every time I beat a hard part I was excited to see what would happen next. This is why I would say that Red Goddess: Inner World is worth the challenge.
