Inheritage: Boundary of Existence Review

When I think of SHMUPs, I typically associate them with lots of chaotic action. Dodging brightly colored bullets, blasting through hordes of floating enemies, and so on. I never really expect much of a story when I play one, much less a story that's actually interesting. And yet, interesting is exactly what Inheritage: Boundary of Existence's story is. The game itself isn't all that bad, either.

Nala has been protecting the city of Bandung for two years: ever since she and her best friend Alya were killed in a vicious attack by a Yaksa, which is essentially a race of very unfriendly demigods. She's become the city's Arca, or guardian, and has been using her immense powers to push back the invading Yaksa and seal the dimensional rips they keep trying to pour through. It's a tough job made even tougher by her insistence on maintaining her everyday life at high school, much to the chagrin of her animal companion Reta, but it gets a whole lot tougher once the source of her powers begins to disappear. Players will have to fight their way through waves of Yaksa, large boss monsters, and even other Arca as they attempt to uncover the truth and restore the balance to their city.

Inheritage is functionally very similar to a number of other iOS SHMUPs, so it's easy to jump right in to the action. Over the course of the campaign players can unlock new special weapons as well as other animal companions with a variety of support attacks. There are a fair number of combinations to experiment with. And like I said previously I was honestly surprised by how intriguing the story turned out to be. The gameplay here is certainly competent, but it was the desire to find out what happens next that really kept me playing,

It's a shame, then, that such an interesting story has to be filled with so many translation errors. Almost every line of dialogue has some for of grammatical error, some much more severe than others, and in some cases it can take a few attempts to grasp what they're actually trying to say. Even the character bios can't decide on a gender. I also had a few problems with the pause and special buttons not registering properly, which often resulted in taking a hit or two while I had to tap them repeatedly.

Inheritage has its share of problems but they weren't severe enough to ruin my enjoyment. The buttons might be a little tough to use but it's still a fun shooter. One with a legitimately entertaining story despite the rough translation.

iPHONE