First person dungeon crawlers have always had a cult following, the success of Dungeons of Grimrock show that there are people who still want to play these kind of games. Of course Grimrock did do many things different to the formula and actually attempted to change what was the standard for the last 20+ years. Demon Gaze, however, does not even attempt to do any of this.
Do you want a dungeon crawler where you can control demons? see scantly clad female characters and you have the capacity to play the PS VITA one-handed this could be a game for you.
First off, Character creation is a bit strange, you have your list of avatars, male being a diverse set of characters in different styles. The Woman being…well all very wayward designs that know exactly who their target audience is. The design of the character have no bearings on what class they will end up as, as you get to choose that separately after, meaning your twin sword wielding half naked cat girl is now a mage, right. Another oddity is that when you go to this screen, you are presented with a prompt informing you that the story is designed for you to pick a male, so if you do choose a female you will always be referred to as a man. Now I found this odd, as the previous Demons Gaze user was a woman, and the only reference to your sex is the use of “he, him” and one reference to looking masculine, surely it isn’t that difficult to change it to allow a female?
Graphically the game has a nice style, with very Japanese styled Anime graphics, with all the characters and enemies being 2D sprites and the environment being 3D. The first person camera works well for a dungeon crawler, but in 2014 it would be nice if idea had been expanded on. Opening doors have no animation, they just open instantly, the same with any interaction in the game. Moving can be jarring, as the grid based movement, you move and rotate a little too fast, making a little jarring in some places. Whilst some will enjoy the more retro inspired movement, I couldn’t help but feel that it can easily be improved upon. Actually fighting is the same as it has been again, I mean this is the kind of combat system that was introduced in the original Phantasy Star over 20 years ago. That was a system designed of limitations, not of design.
You don’t see your characters as they attack, you can only see what you are attacking. When you attack, you are shown a little animation demonstrating your attack, when your foes attack, the whole sprite moves and jitters. It all feels aged, and in a game where everything isn’t very unique already, it makes everything feel bland and stale, like this is something we’ve all played before. Of course if you enjoy this kind of game, you will obviously enjoy the retro style of design here.
The setting here is that demons have over run the land, killing and claiming territories as their own. There are areas where it is safe, and mercenaries work to fight the demons back. Those who are gifted with the Demons Gaze allow them to control and make packs with demon souls, getting a Persona feel here? I suppose that the comparison to Phantasy Star should have been to the original Persona games, Making pacts with demons and the whole first person thing. But the depth is nowhere near Persona levels, there are no demon fusing, no secret demons. It feels like a poor man’s persona, and when you can get the first 4 on the vita, I fail to see a reason sometimes to get this game over those. The more I played the game, the more I just felt like popping Persona 4 in and playing that, or purchasing Persona 1 or 2 and playing through those, because if I’m going to play a Persona clone, I might as well play Persona.
This isn’t saying the game isn’t good, its just there are a multitude of other games that do what Demon Gaze attempts and does it much better, and did it about 10 years ago too. Of course I doubt the kind of player who this game is aimed at really cares, a quick look by just putting Demon Gaze into Google comes up with the kind of stimulating screenshots I’m sure the developers’ were aiming for. At that point the old gameplay mechanics will be the least of their problems, I’m sure.
Demon Gaze is not the greatest game I have played within this genre, a game that takes ideas from other games and does not do a great job implementing them, adds some BOOBS for good measure, not saying BOOBs are bad, they actually help make the game more playable as the gameplay is not great Graphically the game is no where near perfect, on a system that can perform much better,it feels like this game has been ported from a system that simply did not have anywhere near the power that the PS VITA has.
Overall if the developers put a little more time into developing the game, put in some unique and new ideas, used the power that the PS VITA can offer then maybe just maybe the game would be great not just those BOOBs… BOOOOOOBS mmmm BOOBS
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
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