Infernax Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/19/2026)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Infernax

Developer: Berzerk Studio

Publisher: The Arcade Crew

Genre(s): Metroidvania

Platforms: PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X

Release Date: February 14, 2022

Usually, when a modern game pays homage to the pixelated period of the NES, it harkens back to the celebrated titles that molded the medium. Yet, we can’t allow this fun little nostalgia streak to color our perceptions of the past. The eraser we’ve been using to etch out the medium’s mistakes cannot be so effective that it completely clears any graphite smudge tracings that indicate a mistake was never made in the first place. Gaming must always preserve the memory of its errors not only for preventative measures, but also to preclude a false impression that gaming had reached its spotless peak ages ago and it's been on a steady decline since. In addition to pronouncing these blemishes with sensible prominence, I’m a vocal advocate for taking these failures back out of the scrap bin and tweaking them to a standard of adequacy, something the industry rarely ever attempts to do. Fortunately, risk-taking is a common aspect of the indie sphere, and Berzerk Studio showed the world how brass and behemothic their balls were when they created Infernax; a fused tribute to both Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link with modernized flourishes. As you all might be aware, these NES sequels live in infamy as the designated “black sheep” of their long-running respective series. I’ve certainly done my fair share of shitting on Simon’s Quest, and while Zelda II holds an ultraspecific position in my heart, I don’t question the unanimous disdain it receives from fans of the series. Still, while I concede with the popular sentiment that both of these games are fundamentally flawed experiences, neither of them was a complete waste of cartridge space. Both titles implemented admirable feats of innovation in world design and action-adventure combat, but were ultimately suppressed by instances of austerity and irritatingly tepid tedium to extreme degrees on opposite ends of the spectrum. Using hardware that is light-years more advanced than Nintendo’s indestructible 8-bit box with over 35 years of criticisms to use as reference, Infernax takes a stand to rectify some of the most salient sequel sins in gaming history. Or, at least that’s what I believed its mission to be, but it became rather difficult to determine if we were on the same page.

I’m not certain whether it's the evolution of the medium’s sensibilities or the unshackling from Nintendo’s family-friendly brand, but Infernax revels in the potential for brutal violence fostered by a fantasy, medieval-esque thematic backdrop that an 8-bit Zelda and Castlevania couldn’t provide. Zelda should ideally limit the level of bloodshed to maintain its fairytale whimsy, but it always struck me as inappropriate to center a series around Dracula with not even one drop of the organic red fluid making an appearance. On the other hand, Infernax spurts and gushes red pixels like a confetti cannon, so vividly that the developers felt obliged to issue a disclaimer stating that its explicit content might terrify and/or warp the minds of impressionable children. Besides the expulsion of cherry-colored sprites leaking like a sieve out of every enemy, Infernax really cranks up the grotesque viscera with its animated, comic-like still shots. Alcedor, the crusader protagonist returning home from an exhaustingly lengthy crusade overseas, finds that there is something rotten in Denmark when a rather feral peasant crosses his path. If the player decides not to trust the ambiguity of the frantic scene, meeting the man with the head of his trusty mace will display a gruesome, stylized image of the commoner's face pulverized to a pulp–where the only discernible physical feature is his eyeball bursting out of its socket by the optic nerve. The screen becoming eclipsed in a jarringly red backdrop as the protagonist meets a terrible fate is a visual reference from Zelda II. Still, I don’t recall this death sequence ever depicting Link getting decimated to a bloody paste in comical, overkill fashion–with the silhouetted screen almost acting as a source of censorship. The game over screen that follows every death is a rather ghastly image of postmortem Alcedor with his entrails wrapped around the murder weapon still lodged inside his torso. Boss designs are creatively freaky and grotesque, and female NPCs tend to be more buxomer than those that invited Link in for some “healing” of the (alleged) Marvin Gaye variety. Considering how suppressed the extent of a game’s visuals can be when pixelated, it’s impressive how genuinely disgusting the overall presentational flair of Infernax is. I certainly never felt the instinct to wince at anything I’ve seen in any NES game, much less Simon’s Quest or Zelda II.

For those uncultured swine who took the line in the previous paragraph literally, no, Infernax’s setting is not the Scandinavian country that owns Greenland. The dark fantasy land of Infernax is the Duchy of Upel, where Alcedor has achieved the noble status of dukehood. Upel features an array of topographical assortments commonly associated with a regal dominion, such as flat, breezy valleys, precarious mountain peaks, musty caves, and a cemetery for good measure to signify the domain’s storied history and its high mortality rate. Several separated burgs are also scattered across Upel, where the player can converse with the NPC denizens for new quest information in addition to providing comfortable respite from the various hostilities that surround them. I suppose that integrating towns as hubs is a mark of world design that can be credited to both of Infernax’s primary NES influences, but the uncivilized lands outside these quaint settlements are modeled 100% after Simon’s Quest. Before you decide that this sentence is a dealbreaker, I’ll place myself in the rare position of defending the legacy of Simon’s Quest–begrudgingly, of course.

Simon’s Quest may not have been granted the distinction of the Castlevania game that prompted the Metroidvania portmanteau, but arguing that it at least laid out the skeletal fundamentals of the subgenre is anything but an outrageous claim. Simon’s Quest failed to ignite the revolution because its broader, non-linear approach to 2D platformer design proved to be more lethargic, disoriented, and disappointingly pathetic than watching an ancient, wheezing dog trying to drop a deuce. In all fairness, Metroid’s NES debut isn’t the one receiving royalty checks for its contributions in formulating the Metroidvania mold either, so I’ll use Super Metroid’s eminent influence on the subgenre as evidence that the NES was simply too primitive to cultivate that extra dimension of design depth. Because Infernax is merely masquerading as an unsophisticated NES game like a child of an upper-middle-class wealth bracket wearing clothes they purchased at a thrift store, it can achieve that nuanced design philosophy that was inconceivable on Nintendo’s first home console. Progression is no longer a cryptic, confusing ordeal, as each upgrade Alcedor receives on his journey should spell out exactly where it is utilized in advancing through Upel. Every night is still a horrible night to have a curse in Upel, as it was in Dracula’s district, and yes, there is a day-and-night cycle sequence that abruptly emerges on screen and stops all action dead in its tracks. However, the creatures that appear before dusk signal the day’s end aren’t as sluggish and submissive compared to the Scooby-Doo ghouls that roamed the grounds during daytime in Simon’s Quest, so the transition isn’t nearly as jarring. Oh, and any service provided in the towns will still be available after the sun has set–thank fucking Christ. Overall, there isn’t anything extraordinary about Infernax’s map or its methodology in progressing through it. Still, it’s awfully neat seeing something with Simon’s Quest’s particular graphics, setpieces, and geographical layout exhibit a substantial level of competence, like a clunky old toy being remodeled with new parts. Infernax isn’t a perfect overhaul, however, as there is a progression point involving summoning lightning that is equally as oblique as kneeling in a specific spot for a tornado to whisk the player away. If this is intended as an homage, shouldn’t the developers realize that you can’t pay tribute to something that everyone collectively dislikes?

We’ve detailed plenty of characteristics that Infernax shares with Simon’s Quest, so let’s now turn our attention towards what it shares with its other parent, Zelda II. Particularly, it’s consistently brutal and unforgiving difficulty curve that, believe it or not, arguably even exceeds that of its other primary inspiration. Similar to that of both Simon’s Quest and Zelda II, Infernax’s main quest trajectory is divided into five dungeon milestones that are located all across the map and are intended to be completed in a specific order. Once Alcedor has triumphed over the challenges within these five labyrinths, the pentagram-shaped seal locking the entrance to the final palace will be broken, and Alcedor can duel the source of the scourge that plagues his homeland. Unfortunately for the player, Alcedor’s path to victory is akin to a kilometer-long coal walk with shards of glass the size of tree bark strips. A single death in Infernax is all it takes for the player to witness the “game over” screen with Alcedor well into the rigor mortis process, and reviving our protagonist will revert the player’s progress back to the last save shrine they prayed at. Because the error margin for death in Infernax is incredibly strict and absolute, the player is constantly on pins and needles attempting to prevent a frustrating cyclical loop of lost progress. Field traversal tends to demonstrate a moderate level of adversity, or at least the enemy activity seems consistently manageable because checkpoint shrines are scattered across the map in reasonable placements.

The dungeons, however, are the epitome of an endurance test where every nick of damage received should be treated with stark gravitas. Because light doesn’t permeate through the dank catacombs of these arcane establishments, the player’s prayers to save their progress while encountering crushing contraptions, perilous platform placements, and dozens of dangerously savage enemies at a shrine will be unanswered. Admittedly, it’s fortunate that the player isn’t forced to hike back to their demise point from Alcedor’s arrival point like Link from the mausoleum in Zelda II because a shrine will at least be located directly outside of the dungeon. Plus, the strain of spelunking is significantly reduced when the player can afford upgrades and potions to stave off death’s harshly punitive hands. Before Alcedor can feasibly fund his increased likelihood of success, however, the first few dungeons will prove to be as maddeningly difficult as Zelda II’s notorious Death Mountain section that has been slaughtering hundreds of thousands of gamers' souls since 1987. The strategy that I employed was dividing each dungeon’s two primary destinations-the upgrade and the boss battle-and returning to the entrance so my arduous trek to procure the upgrade wouldn’t become all for naught. Still, approaching every dungeon in this manner does somewhat compromise the climactic arc generally felt while conquering this self-contained challenge area. If all else fails, the game suggests to players who are struggling to regress to a “casual mode,” where extra lives can be stocked aplenty, and shrines emerge in the dungeons that are probably powered by magic (or maybe there are undisclosed electrical outlets). Do not be deterred by the condescending attitude the game may express or be repelled by the thought of tarnishing your credibility as a gamer, for I would argue that “casual mode” is the ideal way to experience Infernax. Most Zelda II detractors commonly bemoan that the overly punishing difficulty stipulations are what stain its enjoyment factor, so injecting these quality-of-life enhancements into the fabric of an already frustrating game should quiet those prevalent vocal criticisms. Besides, it’s not as if the gameplay fundamentals decrease in difficulty on casual mode either. Infernax becomes breezier with every potion purchased and upgrade area allotted, but its final boss proves to be hilariously easy compared to the earlier challenges that precede it. What a horrible night to have a glaring oversight in your assbackwards difficulty curve.

Infernax’s final boss may not prove to be the pinnacle of the game’s challenges as it's propped up to be, but the finale should still be stimulating because of the smattering of different endings that could occur. Specifically, two endings designated as “good and evil,” plus lighter versions of both of them that fall on the less defined areas of the moral spectrum. In the absolute good ending, Alcedor succeeds in forever ridding Upel of the demon scourge and ushers in an eternal era of peace for the kingdom, while the more sinister side of Upel’s future sees Alcedor using the Necronomicon source as leverage to bring forth a “reign of unholy terror” as its tyrannical leader. The game also adds some incentive to delivering doom onto the world with Alcedor at the helm because evil Alcedor swaps his plain ol’ nice guy mace with a giant sword, whose radiant orange glow probably becomes brighter the more it pierces the blood of its victims. Ultimately, the player will probably end up with an inferior ending where Alcedor dies a hero after the final battle or where he becomes afflicted with the infectious demon plague because Infernax’s choice mechanic is rather vague about which decisions are meritorious or scandalous. For example, I assumed that I had nobly euthanized the villager at the game’s beginning because he was a zombified husk of his former self with no humanhood to speak of. However, the man’s wife chastising me for my choice that continues when she locks me out of her home in Arkos signaled to me that I made a grave mistake. That is, until I learned that sparing the man results in him transforming into a hideous, beastly boss that you have to kill anyway, which is probably a nightmare of a brick-wall battle if we recall the game’s reversed difficulty curve. I still feel rightly vindicated for my original decision. The same logic of showing compassion to those afflicted with the demonic curse did not apply when I chose to reason with a caged beast instead of torching it, for it took my act of diplomacy as an opportunity to slit the throat of a human bystander. I genuinely wasn’t feigning ignorance when a priest reprimanded me for “stealing” some coinage from a church, for it was sitting pretty on a pedestal as if it was a reward for my discovery of the institution. Forgive me, Father; I’ve been playing too much Zelda, and Link is apparently a bad influence. Maybe I’m just a gigantic clod, but Infernax’s choice mechanic seems to operate on a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scale. It seems inappropriate to treat the outcome of every decision they make with glibness when their choices have a direct effect on the narrative’s conclusion. Common sense is factored into a good handful of the choices, but be prepared to also make a massive faux pas and then defend yourself hysterically while the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme starts playing to accompany the scene.

So what was Berzerk Studio’s objective that drove the development of Infernax? Initially, I thought it was to enhance some of the NES era’s most notable blunders, but it almost seems to me that we’ve found a group of people who genuinely respect and adore both Zelda II and Simon’s Quest with no trace of irony to be found. They didn’t unite under the goal of making the average gamer reconsider the flawed, undercooked properties of either game, but to pay tribute to them exactly in the same way that Shovel Knight famously did for the bona fide NES classics. Well, I suppose it’s bold of them to express their love for two things that are commonly reviled. Still, what makes them think that unsavory elements of either title, such as the gruelingly punishing difficulty curve and hints of cryptic nonsense, would now be appreciated decades onward if they were just repeated? Blood and boobies shouldn’t be the prime selling points, but perhaps those hints of bawdy irreverence spell out a sort of parody Infernax might be conveying in its overall homage. You had one job, Infernax, and instead of doing that job, you fucked around and got sloppy.