Back in March of this year, The Arcade Crew released an amazing title called Infernax. This action title was a clear throwback to the NES days of Castlevania 2 with some fantastic edge thrown in for good measure. To celebrate the Halloween Season, the developers have decided to add a brand new playable character to the game for free! This character is called The Stranger, and while his story is about the same as Alcedor’s, his play style is very different. I got to play around with the update a bit early, and I want share some impressions of him.
Now that the update is live, all you will have to do to play as the new character is simply start a new game with “stranger” for the name on the save file. The first thing you will notice when you start playing is The Stranger’s look. He looks like what you would get if you mixed Rick from Splatterhouse with Ash from The Evil Dead. The weapons and armor you obtain throughout the game really drive this home. I thought this was amazing, since I am a big fan of both franchises and these themes fit into the world of Infernax perfectly.
At fist glance you may think that The Stranger will play quite a bit like Alcedor. While they do get the same skills and spells, there is one huge difference: their weapons. Right off the bat you will notice The Stranger doesn’t have a shield. This makes some areas of the game more difficult since you have no way of blocking projectiles outside of cutting damage with the shield spell. The trade off here is that you have a bad ass shotgun. This weapon is very powerful, but it does have some knock back when you use it. This means using it around a drop off can be deadly. This makes using it in area with pits a bit of a pain, but you can fire it in any direction by holding down the fire button and moving the analog stick. This make it very useful against enemies above or below you. The biggest drawback I found while using this character is you lose the ability to carry any potions. This certainly amps up the difficulty here, but there are plenty of accessibility options to tailor this game to however you want it.
I loved Infernax when I reviewed it back in March, and the developers adding new content for free only sweetens the pot. This game is well worth it’s $19.99 asking price, and if you haven’t picked it up I highly recommend you do so.
