izigame.me

Labyrinth of The Demon King is an excellent entry in the genre of PS1 Graphics Simulators made by a developer with a PHD at Grime and Muddy Textures. It's also a game. A game heavily inspired by King's Field ---
"HMMMM wait a second did you just said KING'S FIELD???? ?? ?? ? As a DARK SOULS PLAYER I've watched videos on youtube about it and ---"
Presentation and ambience are what this game excells at, its first two hours are downright impressive and dare I say, I didn't felt so overwhelmed ever since Silent Hill for PS1. Cutscenes got this strong vibe of what the HELL am I'm looking at and are also a masterclass of how compressing videos in order to reduce their quality can make them very scary. I admit that I instantly dropped my controller and ran to take several notes for my upcoming Analog Horror series (Coming Soon On Youtube)
The combat is quite serviceable and functional, albeit very simplistic, to defeat most enemies all that you need is the classic back and forth movement to strike and avoid attacks. Weapons are meaty with satisfaying weight, ranging from katanas, spears and short daggers (the best weapon IMHO) and you can beat the game with pretty much any that you judge to be your favorite. Parrying is also essential so you can counter fast attacks, it's also possible to dodge but ---
"Did I heard PARRYING AND DODGING??? ?? ?? Do you mean ROLLING??? ? As a DARK SOULS PLAYER ---"
--- overall, most battles are set in very cramped corridors and the dodge feels janky and unnecessary. As a design decision, the game is letterboxed to force a 4:3 ratio, which works wonders to make every encounter close, personal and very claustropobic.
"Well, as a DARK SOULS PLAYER, I love hard ga-"
HOWEVER, past the first hours unfortunately the gameplay doesn't evolve or require you to do much to beat it. You will find some roaming enemies fighting and killing each other, which is a pretty cool idea but also a batlant solution by the developer so you won't be constantly overwhelmed fighting more than one at once. The magic system is just kinda there, waving at you awkwardly like "ha ha onegai shimasu p-p-please r-remember that I exist" for most of the game in form of consumable talismans. Apart from the healing and teleport, the other talismans weren't much interesting or impactful.
Which brings me to this game major flaw: despite of its very strong start contained in the demo, Labyrinth of The Demon King doesn't continue to ramp up the thrill or put weight in some of its "hardcore" and survival elements. For a quick example, the torch that you use for 3 minutes in the intro is never used again as there aren't no other dark areas in the entire game. The first two towers that you explore are excellent in terms of dungeon design, but the last tower is mostly composed of strenuous linear corridors to force you fight some extremely annoying skelletons skelletons that were more like a chore to beat than actually hard even using weapons with blunt damage.
The final minutes were probably the most disappoint part, since after completing the main objectives all left was a marathon to the credits screen with no big reveal. It left me with the strong impression that at this point the development got really rushed to wrap things up. While the intro sets up a hard impression of survival horror, there aren't no penalities for dying, nor loss of progress apart from the consumables you have used. As for the lore ---
"LORE???? ?? ??? ? OMG as a DARK SOULS PLAYER I LOVE LORE AND JAPAN, also yesterday I've watched a 5 hour essay about the runic dimdlarinshards found at the Crimson Dilarindimdom Forest by Vaa---"
NO. Unfortunately, despite of the initial impression there isn't much worldbuilding or lore. Apart from their introductions, NPCs aren't complex or deep, they don't have much to offer or say either. Now, ffs can you PLEASE stop?
Overall, Labyrinth of The Demon King is far from flawless, but I'm still going to heavily praise it for being a retrorealistic experience (I've just coined the term) that doesn't overstay its welcome, with smooth gameplay that is a clear improvement from janky old PS1 and DOS games. While my expectations weren't exactly blown away in any manner, I still really enjoyed it for being short and sweet with a presentation that perfectly NAILED the vibes from some of the best horror games that I've played. I'll be eagerly waiting for the developer's next PS1 Graphics Simulator.
I give Labyrinth of the Demon King a 7.61 score because this number is prone to trigger people with OCD.