World of demons review7/24/2023 ![]() The kind of charm that no other FromSoftware game has managed to capture in the years since. Many of the original game’s elements have been streamlined and tweaked to better suit more modern games, but a lot of the original mechanics have a serious amount of charm to them. While many of its quirks come down to its age, it is widely regarded as the most challenging Soulslike of the lot. Demon’s Souls may be the first Soulslike to grace gaming, and it has surely aged quite a lot in the last eleven years, but does the original gameplay still hold up to today’s standards? Turns out, it most certainly does.Īnyone who has played a Soulslike before will feel right at home with Demon’s Souls – relatively speaking. ![]() While it is no secret Bluepoint could do it (the studio is responsible for some of the most masterful ports and remakes), no one expected them to tackle such an iconic title in such a superb way. This time with also sorts of improvements to signify the game as a 2020 release. While FromSoftware has slowly been chugging away on Elden Ring, the highly-anticipated open-world Soulslike first announced in 2019, Sony has tasked Bluepoint Games to bring back Demon’s Souls in all of its 2009 glory. However, maybe that is exactly what the genre needs, with the brand-new Demon’s Souls serving as a breath of fresh air? Thanks to titles like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Bloodborne, it is a genre so far removed from its original twisted Metroidvania origins that it might be hard to go back to the game that started it all. Eleven years later, FromSoftware has pioneered the Soulsslike genre and repeatedly released new titles pushing the genre into a more focused direction. It effectively pushed FromSoftware, a studio widely known for its excellent work on Metal Wolf Chaos and Armored Core at the time, into an action RPG direction. It took Metroidvania-type gameplay and married it with third-person adventure and light role-playing game (RPG) elements. Its action gameplay is solid, its world striking, and it’s all brought to players without most of the F2P garbage that usually stands in the way of a game’s true potential.In 2009, a game titled Demon’s Souls effectively started a revolution. I don’t know if PlatinumGames has any further mobile titles planned, but it’s certainly built itself a solid foundation for future projects with World of Demons. It’s certainly fun, but with the amount of grinding you need to do to level up your various weapons and minions, it’s more bite-sized fun rather than sink-your-whole-weekend-into-it fun. While you certainly can do that, building up your rank to unlock more of the serviceable story, it’s probably best to treat the game as if it were still a free-to-play title and back off it if you ever start to feel the gameplay growing tedious. World of Demons is really not the type of game that should be muscled through. I got really good at the game early into my playtime but found it less and less exhilarating the longer I’d play it. ![]() You can equip two minions to each of the playable characters, and if you pick up an orb of one of your equipped yokai on the battlefield, you have the opportunity for a unique attack that can deal an absurd amount of damage. When you complete a level, you’ll have a chance of adding any of the yokai you defeat to your permanent stable as a minion, and this includes boss characters. Some are a little more hands-on, such as Ushi-oni, which not only requires perfect placement for maximum effect, but asks you to button mash while also making sure you’re dodging any attacks from opponents not caught up in its fire. For instance, the Kappa, which is the first yokai you’ll encounter, will automatically smack your opponent with a water attack. Defeated yokai will drop orbs that can be picked up and used in battle as a one-time-use special attack. Unique to World of Demons is its yokai-collecting mechanic. Mix those two together, and you’ll be able to create some devastating combos. The game uses a single action button that can be mashed for light melee attacks, or held down for stronger swings. Like with other Platinum titles, these fights against the waves of exquisitely designed yokai are restricted to a small circle that you’ll hop and dodge around as you chain together attacks to score to coveted “S” rankings. Onimaru’s journey will take him through beautifully cell-shaded linear stages where most fights are telegraphed in advance, so you’re never taken by surprise. Don’t come into World of Demons expecting Nier: Automata on your phone. ![]()
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