Inkulinati Review (Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Switch & PC)

It wasn’t all that long ago that I had a rather odd, albeit somewhat insightful conversation with a priest at my local cathedral about, well, monks. Specifically, the art of which the ancient scribes would carve out into the cloisters during times of prayer and, to my amazement, complete and utter boredom. In my mind, each of these carvings had a spiritual meaning, and had something to do with a much, much larger purpose. But I was wrong, apparently. In the words of the priest who opted to enlighten me on the scribbles rather than the appropriate dress wear of which one would sport to such an occasion, these drawings—aptly titled Inkulinati—had another meaning, and one that, in all honesty, I wasn’t expecting to be subjected to.

If you, like me, prefer to kill time by romping through colossal buildings of some architectural complexity, then there’s a good chance that you too have caught a carving or two in a cloister or six. And when I say carving, I’m not referring to the God-centric designs that you’d find mounted on a towering stained-glass ceiling, or anything of that sort, for that matter. No, I’m talking about the talking cows, or the man-eating snails with jousting sticks — and all of the other oddities like that. That, my friends, is Inkulinati: weird and wonderful carvings of a certain type, delivered by scribes with twitchy fingers and a mind for tongue-in-cheek, fart-obsessed humor.

It goes without saying at this point, but if you are the sort of person who spends lazy afternoons binging a Monty Python flick or two, then there’s a good chance that you’ll like what Yaza Games has etched into its latest slate on consoles and PC. Not quite convinced? Then let’s go ahead and rewind the clock.

“I Spit in Your General Direction!”

It goes like this: a scribe, whose only purpose is to cure their own boredom between shifts down at the writing desk, has set up the paperwork for a new type of anthology—a set of tales that will see in the arrival of several unlikely heroes, and an everlasting feud between a sword-wielding dog, and a shield-hugging fox. These, among several other unlikely characters, are what make up the board in each battle—feuds that see both teams of five thrashing it out for a place at the apex. Think Worms, but with fewer bazooka-loving slime balls, and more time-appropriate, bow-and-arrow type goons with medieval attire, and you’ll have a basic understanding of what it looks like — at least to some extent, anyway.

Aside from the bog-standard versus mode, the game also comes loaded with its own campaign—a relatively short journey that sees you rolling from one inkblot point on the page to the next, and earning new characters to ultimately deploy and formulate into a well-oiled machine of a small army. It’s isn’t the longest campaign in the world, nor is it exactly in receipt of a game-changing storyline that’ll leave you on tenterhooks for months to come, either. With that being said, it is a nice addition to the overall experience, and something that helps break up a lot of wall-to-wall battles that accommodate some of the other areas of the game. But, eh, don’t expect to witness anything all that interesting.

To cut a long story short, your quest is to resurrect your master—an ill-fated pawn on the board who, at the time of your arrival, is shackled to Death itself. Your goal, in short, is to whittle down the paper roadblocks, and essentially wage war with the skeletal armies that stand before you.

To Arms?

Combat in Inkulinati is simple to grasp, as it’s more or less the case of chalking up an ally for the board, and choosing between a melee-based or ranged attack to project onto the battlefield. To win an encounter, players must either crunch their opponent’s health bars to the bare minimum, or come up with some lucrative way to knock them from the margins on the page. Again, think Worms, and how the basic idea is to move around the map and take swipes at the enemy players, either by hitting them from point-blank range, or with some form of weapon, and you’ll have an idea of what I’m getting at. The only real difference here, however, is that characters can only move a set amount of spaces at a time.

To really make a dent in the battlefield, you need to accrue ink—a resource that allows you to draw out additional troops, as well as utilize special moves. For example, if you begin to lose momentum, then you can obtain ink in order to deploy specialist archers or swordsmen and ultimately turn the tide against the opponent. It’s an easy tool to figure out, and definitely something that prevents each battle from grinding to a halt and leaving you to fumble for new strategies to adopt in later attempts.

While on the subject of difficulty, the battles, in general, aren’t overly complex, nor are they teeming with a cascading number of obstacles or puzzles. For the most part, it is a relatively straightforward, wall-to-wall turn-based RPG, and one that the vast majority of frequent gamers will be able to gel with right from the get-go — even on a tougher difficulty setting.

“He’s Not the Messiah!”

Aside from the unruly cattle and mischievous strays that flesh out your army, there’s also another pawn to keep tabs on—a scribe, of sorts, who bears the power to deploy game-changing moves with the appropriate amount of momentum and ink under their belts. These heroes, who can be customized to suit your general play style and situation, are the driving force behind your every move out on the field; they’re mostly immobile during conflicts, but thankfully possess the power to flip the script and conceive new ways to annihilate oncoming pawns.

Set pieces and chessboard cast aside, there’s also another unique feature that poses an issue: “Boredom”—a mechanic that essentially forces you to switch up the cards in your deck every several rounds. To this end, you aren’t quite able to locate the perfect build, as the game more or less begins to shove its weight around after a short while and tasks you with experimenting with alternate pawns. Granted, this does complicate things ever so slightly, but with each of the available characters all having fairly equal stats and abilities, it isn’t all that difficult to grasp, to be fair.

Having said all of the above, Inkulinati is, in more ways than one, something that requires a wealth of patience to be able to work through — not because of its learning curve, but because of its lack of depth in the storyline department. To be clear, it isn’t a game that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat, much less prying at the corners of the next page to get a whiff of the next battle. That is, of course, unless you’re a sucker for a few more fart jokes, in which case you’ll probably get along with it just fine.

Verdict

Inkulinati does manage to tap into some pretty interesting themes, that much is true. With that said, it is, unfortunately, let down by its fairly barebones gameplay mechanics and lackluster progression. It’s entertaining in short bursts, for sure, but it doesn’t take all that long for the experience to start dwindling into monotonous moments that linger for far longer than needed. Don’t get me wrong, its art style is something to take note of, as it is, in some ways, the Holy Grail of a Monty Python sketch in a modernized format. With that said, it isn’t the Holy Grail of turn-based RPGs, nor anything of the same breed, for that matter.

Downsides and drawbacks set aside, there is, as much as it confuses me to admit, something awfully endearing about the inkblots and scribbles that Yaza Games manages to drizzle on its medieval canvas. And whilst I, for one, probably wouldn’t return to its roots for a second inning, that isn’t to say that another player isn’t likely to find something that’s worth picking up the quill and ink for. For me, though, the thought of having to witness the bare backsides of another slew of rabbits is, in all honesty, one thought too many. Sorry, Yaza Games.