Demon Skin | Review (PC)

There are those video games that, despite flaws as large as houses, you can't help but love for a diverse plethora of reasons.
Whether they are aesthetic or playful, there are video games with such a strong and characteristic flavor that they do not make you say anything other than this time I turn a blind eye to the matter.

demon skin, for the writer, is definitely part of this category: a narrow, rough, angular and imperfect game which, however, manages to drag with it a certain way of thinking about dungeon crawlers and action adventures.

The fun part is that this game, at first glance, doesn't even seem like who knows what. Graphically you can immediately see that it is a low budget production of an independent game, from a playful point of view it is cumbersome and hostile to the player and certainly does not do much to please.

But that's the beauty, the hidden taste of demon skin it is found in succeeding in difficult fights, it is found in enduring the trial & error of certain sections in favor of a victory. A difficult game for people with strange tastes, let's put it this way.

Let's find out together.

Hi, you just turned into a demon.

Let's start with the personal data.
demon skin is a video game developed by Ludus future and published by Buka Entertainment per PC.

The title is a horizontal scrolling action adventure to setting fantasy with pretty tints grim, showing a fantasy world far away from enchanted lands and verdant forests.

The world of demon skin it's terribly cruel because the dead are not dead.
Necromancy is practically omnipresent, and every place in the game seems to want to kill its guests more than anything else. The environments are hostile, the forests are dangerous, the caves are fatal: the world of Demon Skin has seen darkness excel over good.

The only hope is represented by the order of Wanderer, of the vagrants who own superhuman powers capable of dealing with dark threats. The player, in the role of one of these shady characters, will assist as a spectator to a forbidden ritual who was tasked with restoring the power of an ancient artifact.

In an attempt to block the ritual the player will end up overwhelmed by an uncontrollable energy flow coming from the artifact and will die, only to then come awakened in the form of a demon.

Our wanderer protagonist will now have the task and the intention of recovering his human form but to do so he will have to get the artifact back again. Therefore as players we will find ourselves accompanying him on a long path made of caves, opponents, threats and bestialities of various kinds.

During our journey we will also meet mysterious figures, whose support for our cause is decidedly doubtful and more magnanimous figures, able to support us in some scripted sequences.
The rest of the game it will weigh completely on our weakened demon shoulders.

In demon skin the narrative is little more than a pretext to allow the player to experience the characteristics of the gameplay.
During the course of the approx eight hours of gameplay necessary to finish the work, the boys of Ludus future they delivered to movies with animated drawings (interesting, in our opinion) ea cutscene with the game engine the task of telling the story of our protagonist.
The dialogues are stripped down and, in the vast majority of cases, don't add much to the experience.

Communication in demon skin is left at earthy atmosphere of the game and merciless gameplay that, death after death, tells the player what the code they are interacting with is made of.

Of demons and slaps

demon skin is a video game that completely revolves around an idea of ​​gameplay that is not entirely original but functional and fun.
Basically we take Rastan, or a hack and slash bidimensionale with multiple opponents, pits with spikes and broadswords and let's bring it to the present day by adding depth.

La depth extra to gameplay, otherwise already nearly forty years old, it is given by a system of stances or poses which allows the player to choose where to attack from and where to block shots.

Based on the shape and equipment of the enemies, for example, we will only be able to attack certain parts of the body: an armored skeleton without a helmet will only have a vulnerable head, forcing us to attack it starting from a high pose, for example.

The same thing can be said for parades: by putting ourselves in a high pose we will be able to parry high attacks and so on. Attacks will be marked with red segments indicating the pose from which the attack comes, giving us the right time to respond to attacks (at least in most cases). Beyond that it will be possible for us attack i weaknesses of the opponents based on the color of the aforementioned segments: blu to deal more damage e orange to run a super gory finisher.

These elements are then further embellished by an RPG-like system with upgradeable stats, combos and magic attacks based on the usable weapon.

The skeleton of the game, in essence, is solid e offers some variety, also thanks to the different types of enemies that arise in front of the player.
The game is funny and it's practically absorbed completely in a fantasy mood from the nineties to beyond deathtrap dungeon; there are the bastard traps, the incorrect opponents, the powerful weapons (whose abilities often recall other video games!) and even the misconceptions!

To do creak the play sector is the cleanliness of the gameplay, a bit imprecise and jerky when it comes to movement skills. The level design does not always make the player understand at first glance what kind of jump he has to make, nor does the movement system prove to be malleable the right when you have to cling to nearby ledges.

Even the choice of dedicating the choice of poses to the mouse / analog right leaves a little side to a series of critical perched, given the absence of a pointer, you are not always sure about precision of movements that are taking place. For this reason it would have been smarter to associate a rose of three frets with the poses, so as to be able check better their actions.

The end result, as far as we are concerned, is however pleasant because it is impossible not to feel satisfaction in slaughtering zombies or arachnids with hammer blows; even the cumbersome exploration forces the player to always be at attention and therefore keeps concentration high.

comfort zone

The last point to analyze before summing up the title in question is the technical appeared.
demon skin is a video game made with du spicci as they say and can be seen in many of its situations: the polygonal models are so-so, the animations are not exactly artistic masterpieces and the settings are poor in details and polygons.

Despite everything we believe that the final effect is greater than the sum of the parts because, in the end, Demon Skin succeeds in the to communicate theadventure atmosphere a bit edgy from the countryside Dungeons & Dragons among its forests and caves.
Some glimpses are pleasant, as it is interesting the design of some monsters (like the really disgusting wild zombies) but in general nothing to get too excited about.

Slightly better speech for the music sector, made with the usual orchestrations, the usual melodies a bit cheap but perfectly able to adapt the type of game proposed.

Demon Skin is one of those video games that is more than the sum of its parts. Yes, because technically and narratively it is not that great and I miss the gameplay is a stroke of genius but, despite all this, if you are passionate about Action Adventure and are looking for a square, fun and violent game you have found bread for your teeth. If, in the meantime, you also like fantasy settings and gory action scenes, with a splash of old nineties video games, you have just found your must buy for the month of April.