Labyrinth of the Demon King Review (Doodlebug)
Finished the game in one session and I loved it. It matched my expectations which were pretty high. A lot of obvious things to praise it for, but here are the thoughts it left me with -
POSITIVES
+++++ weirdly hard and weirdly forgiving.
The game starts off pretty merciless, with high pressure scenarios and certain death, but there's not much of a penalty at all for dying and the game tricks you into being more afraid about healing items than you really need to be. Once you have an idea of how the systems work and upgrade your gear, it becomes much easier in a very satisfying way.
+++ puzzles are mostly fun.
The puzzles are classic survival horror and they are very well placed in the flow of the game. Some of them I stumbled into but a couple of them I had to scratch my head a minute.
+++ satisfying sense of discovery.
NEGATIVES / AMBIGUOUS
- the game's style is spectacular but some areas really needed a few more visual cues to keep things distinct. fun to get lost in the maze but I have a higher tolerance for it than most people, I think.
- I got very lucky with my instincts regarding the upgrade materials, but my experience with the game might've been a lot less positive if I'd shot myself in the foot by spreading those out too much. definitely pick a lane when the game feels like it's getting unfair and then stick to it. or make a save just before you drop a bunch of mats to make sure it feels like a decent decision.
- there's an area of the game I really enjoyed but man, you run back and forth through a few loading zones like 10 to 20 times to press some buttons and then check back on an area to see the difference and it's pretty brain numbing. Oddly this is when I "locked in" and decided to finish the game in one sitting, so maybe it was a genius move.
- wah wah wah I wish there was a new game plus mode of some kind. would have really enjoyed having a new weapons to make a second run more worthwhile. Or ya know, just whole sale copying the NG+ challenges and unlock systems of modern RE games.
Anyway, game is tremendous. Grats to developers.