Classic Capcom action game, hard on the bosses side
good sprites
Demon's Crest is a very unique game for the SNES era. In it, you play as the demon Firebrand, who's on a quest for revenge and ultimate power, which is a stark contrast from what most other games of that era were doing. Also unique is the game's atmosphere, featuring a haunting art style and macabre music.
Gameplay is pretty fun, with the ability to swap between different forms and abilities. However, the game can be extremely frustrating due to its pretty high difficulty so it's a little hard to recommend for those who don't like tough games. Otherwise though, go for it!
Gameplay is pretty fun, with the ability to swap between different forms and abilities. However, the game can be extremely frustrating due to its pretty high difficulty so it's a little hard to recommend for those who don't like tough games. Otherwise though, go for it!
I would have given this game 5 stars, except that it’s too short.
I mean it. It’s the third in a series of action RPGs set in the Ghosts n Goblins universe starring Firebrand the Gargoyle (known as Red Arremer in the Ghosts n Goblins games) on a quest to save the Ghoul Realm from humans (I think, I haven’t played all the games, just Demon’s Crest).
In Demon’s Crest he’s saving it from…a demon? M
The problem that Demon’s Creat is good. Very good. It could have been great, had they made it longer. It’s hitting its stride when it suddenly puts you against the boss.
But even so, it’s a satisfying game with some truly great artwork that is suitably dark and ghoulish.
Some fun bosses and a pretty challenging overall experience.
It drops the rpg elements from the prior games, which is a shame (I’ve played roughly ten minutes of the first game on the Gameboy - Gargoyle’s Quest, where you walked around towns and talked to “people”).
So, it’s flawed. Should you put time into it? Hell yes! I think you might be pleasantly surprised by how fun it is. Just be aware of the challenge level. The levels themselves aren’t bad, but I remember some of the bosses just going ham on you.
I mean it. It’s the third in a series of action RPGs set in the Ghosts n Goblins universe starring Firebrand the Gargoyle (known as Red Arremer in the Ghosts n Goblins games) on a quest to save the Ghoul Realm from humans (I think, I haven’t played all the games, just Demon’s Crest).
In Demon’s Crest he’s saving it from…a demon? M
The problem that Demon’s Creat is good. Very good. It could have been great, had they made it longer. It’s hitting its stride when it suddenly puts you against the boss.
But even so, it’s a satisfying game with some truly great artwork that is suitably dark and ghoulish.
Some fun bosses and a pretty challenging overall experience.
It drops the rpg elements from the prior games, which is a shame (I’ve played roughly ten minutes of the first game on the Gameboy - Gargoyle’s Quest, where you walked around towns and talked to “people”).
So, it’s flawed. Should you put time into it? Hell yes! I think you might be pleasantly surprised by how fun it is. Just be aware of the challenge level. The levels themselves aren’t bad, but I remember some of the bosses just going ham on you.
This review contains spoilers
A long while back, I claimed I was going to do a playthrough of this game only after beating Gargoyle's Quest 2. Well, I found that game kind of boring, so now, a few years after saying that, I've beat Demon's Crest. I think I'd say this game was a fun experience overall, its definitely better than Gargoyle's Quest but still has some sore spots and signs of missed potential. Its a bit of a shame how this game removes a good amount of the RPG elements from Gargoyle's Quest, for example, although I think that's ultimately for the better since they were usually more annoying than interesting in the previous games (stuff like random encounters, a more involved overworld, minor side quests, etc.).
Demon's Crest is a pretty standard platformer. Firebrand can float in the air and shoot fireballs, just like Gargoyle's Quest except you no longer have a gauge for it so you can just fly infinitely. One could argue that this change removes some challenge from the game, but trust me, Demon's Crest is still tough even with unlimited flying. Most of the difficulty is with the bosses, though; its not often that I died to the actual levels. I see folks criticize the game's length since it only consists of 7 levels, but I feel like Demon's Crest still makes good use of these levels, especially if you're trying to grab everything (which this game is pretty much built around encouraging you to do). You can do the levels in whatever order you want except for Level 1, but it does seem like the game has a certain order of progression you're intended to do. If you really want to, you could go straight to the final level and beat the game right there, but you get the bad ending for doing that and the final boss is incredibly difficult to beat without any upgrades. It's already tedious enough to beat him when you're supposed to fight him in my experience. Something cool that Demon's Crest does is that each level (except for Level 1) has at least two different paths, some may be hidden and others are available in plain sight. Level 5, for example, has an area you get to with a green tornado you can fall through to reach the hidden area; if you instead just keep going forward, you get the normal path. Demon's Crest sometimes does an almost sort of Metroidvania thing by gating those extra paths in levels behind the transformations you get. A good example of this is how, when you get the Earth Gargoyle form after beating the first level, you can then use the Earth Gargoyle's shoulder bash move to open up a few secret paths in other levels. The Tidal Gargoyle form is also used to hide a few underwater paths with their own bosses to fight. The only problem with this more free-form structure, in my opinion, is that it isn't clear which order is best to beat the game with. Sure, you can skip areas or do them in whichever order you want, but some bosses will be WAY harder without the moves they're more susceptible to. It's not quite a Mega Man style weakness chart, but the bosses do take more damage from certain powers; Gwemon, the white wolf boss in Level 6, takes a ton of damage from the basic fireball you start the game with despite being a boss I thought the game wanted me to beat later on, which actually probably makes him a decent boss to start with aside from his annoying invincibility gimmick. Flame Lord in the forest level takes a ton of damage from the Earth Gargoyle's earthy fireball that travels across the ground and I fought the final Arma battle (he's a recurring boss you fight a few times) with the Demon Flame and destroyed him like it was child's play. I watched videos where people do the final Arma fight without it and it takes forever in comparison. Because of these hidden weaknesses the game never tells you about, it can feel like you're wasting your time fighting these bosses without them. Nonetheless, I mostly enjoyed the open-ended system this game abides by, and its a big reason why I think its short length is actually a good thing. I used a guide and the game still took me around 9 hours to beat since I wanted to get everything...well, I ALMOST got everything, but the game locks the final health upgrade to a stupid headbutting mini game that is ridiculously hard and I hate it with the fury of a thousand suns. No secret final boss for me, I guess.
The game really doesn't have much of a story, so I'll move on to other parts of the game. One thing I will complement the hell out of Demon's Crest for is the visual and sound elements. They really nail that spooky gothic vibe, everything from the character designs to the level aesthetics. The music is also great, I love listening to many songs in the OST and even the ones that I'm not as big a fan of are still quite atmospheric and interesting. If you guys ever want to check it out for yourself, I recommend the songs Beyond the Colosseum, Metropolis of Ruin, Caverns of Ice, and The Hell of Civil War (bad ending theme).
Overall, I had a great time with Demon's Crest. The core gameplay is fun, exploring the levels fully bit by bit as you get more upgrades is fun, the visuals and music are immaculate...only thing is, if you don't want the bad ending, you might need a guide on you, and the game doesn't tell you things that would be nice to know. Admittedly part of this might be me being stupid, but I had no idea that the Earth Gargoyle can shoulder bash or that the Aerial Gargoyle can flap its wings straight up, so I wasn't getting full use out of those forms until quite a bit later in my playthrough.
Demon's Crest is a pretty standard platformer. Firebrand can float in the air and shoot fireballs, just like Gargoyle's Quest except you no longer have a gauge for it so you can just fly infinitely. One could argue that this change removes some challenge from the game, but trust me, Demon's Crest is still tough even with unlimited flying. Most of the difficulty is with the bosses, though; its not often that I died to the actual levels. I see folks criticize the game's length since it only consists of 7 levels, but I feel like Demon's Crest still makes good use of these levels, especially if you're trying to grab everything (which this game is pretty much built around encouraging you to do). You can do the levels in whatever order you want except for Level 1, but it does seem like the game has a certain order of progression you're intended to do. If you really want to, you could go straight to the final level and beat the game right there, but you get the bad ending for doing that and the final boss is incredibly difficult to beat without any upgrades. It's already tedious enough to beat him when you're supposed to fight him in my experience. Something cool that Demon's Crest does is that each level (except for Level 1) has at least two different paths, some may be hidden and others are available in plain sight. Level 5, for example, has an area you get to with a green tornado you can fall through to reach the hidden area; if you instead just keep going forward, you get the normal path. Demon's Crest sometimes does an almost sort of Metroidvania thing by gating those extra paths in levels behind the transformations you get. A good example of this is how, when you get the Earth Gargoyle form after beating the first level, you can then use the Earth Gargoyle's shoulder bash move to open up a few secret paths in other levels. The Tidal Gargoyle form is also used to hide a few underwater paths with their own bosses to fight. The only problem with this more free-form structure, in my opinion, is that it isn't clear which order is best to beat the game with. Sure, you can skip areas or do them in whichever order you want, but some bosses will be WAY harder without the moves they're more susceptible to. It's not quite a Mega Man style weakness chart, but the bosses do take more damage from certain powers; Gwemon, the white wolf boss in Level 6, takes a ton of damage from the basic fireball you start the game with despite being a boss I thought the game wanted me to beat later on, which actually probably makes him a decent boss to start with aside from his annoying invincibility gimmick. Flame Lord in the forest level takes a ton of damage from the Earth Gargoyle's earthy fireball that travels across the ground and I fought the final Arma battle (he's a recurring boss you fight a few times) with the Demon Flame and destroyed him like it was child's play. I watched videos where people do the final Arma fight without it and it takes forever in comparison. Because of these hidden weaknesses the game never tells you about, it can feel like you're wasting your time fighting these bosses without them. Nonetheless, I mostly enjoyed the open-ended system this game abides by, and its a big reason why I think its short length is actually a good thing. I used a guide and the game still took me around 9 hours to beat since I wanted to get everything...well, I ALMOST got everything, but the game locks the final health upgrade to a stupid headbutting mini game that is ridiculously hard and I hate it with the fury of a thousand suns. No secret final boss for me, I guess.
The game really doesn't have much of a story, so I'll move on to other parts of the game. One thing I will complement the hell out of Demon's Crest for is the visual and sound elements. They really nail that spooky gothic vibe, everything from the character designs to the level aesthetics. The music is also great, I love listening to many songs in the OST and even the ones that I'm not as big a fan of are still quite atmospheric and interesting. If you guys ever want to check it out for yourself, I recommend the songs Beyond the Colosseum, Metropolis of Ruin, Caverns of Ice, and The Hell of Civil War (bad ending theme).
Overall, I had a great time with Demon's Crest. The core gameplay is fun, exploring the levels fully bit by bit as you get more upgrades is fun, the visuals and music are immaculate...only thing is, if you don't want the bad ending, you might need a guide on you, and the game doesn't tell you things that would be nice to know. Admittedly part of this might be me being stupid, but I had no idea that the Earth Gargoyle can shoulder bash or that the Aerial Gargoyle can flap its wings straight up, so I wasn't getting full use out of those forms until quite a bit later in my playthrough.
This game looks visually impressive af for the SNES. The gameplay is as hardcore as you can get from a Ghost'n Goblins spin-off: 2 hits, dead. Just slightly easier because you can fly with Firebrand, I suppose.
Playing this after the first Gargoyle's Quest feels really nice btw.
Playing this after the first Gargoyle's Quest feels really nice btw.
Honestly I didn't play this much but what I did play was pretty fun. I like it much better than any ghouls and ghost game. Being a bad guy like Firebrand is cool. I need to play this for real soon and give it a better review.
Nice level design, nice (if rigid), controls, wonderful artstyle, pretty cool bosses, and neat collectables. This game is pretty good, though you practically need to 100% it to get full enjoyment. My main problem with it is probably game being too easy if you know what you're doing but I admittedly haven't tried any self imposed challenge.
MUITO BOM, tem uma estética muito legal. A mecânica de mudar de forma conforme o poder era demais. Nunca tive a fita desse jogo, só joguei em emulador.
A grande parte do brilho desse jogo para as outras pessoas é o que faz ele perder uma boa parte da graça pra mim. A cultura do SNES de utilizar "segredos" como forma de aumentar o fator replay simplesmente não casam bem com o que eu gosto. Apesar de tudo, ótima ideia e muito bem executada.
Fazer o final ruim é muito fácil e pode ser desestimulante. O jogo possui um design antigo que tem uma orientação e direcionamento um pouco ruim pros dias de hoje, mas é notável que o design era um dos melhores na época.
waaaaay too short but i love everything else, especially the aesthetic and music.
Derrotei o final boss depois de 3 fases e não sei como pegar o resto das coisas, então foda-se.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Fiz o bad ending admito...
Fiz o bad ending admito...
I quite enjoyed this game. However, there comes a point in which the path forward becomes very unclear.
Un muy buen juego, con buenos gráficos y una genial banda sonora, jugablemente es muy divertido.
I liked the exploration but found the level design to be lackluster.
cool game. neat art.
you never see any of the bosses twice.
you never see any of the bosses twice.
mejor que el ghost n goblins añañañaññaña
Le plus beau jeu de la console mais affreusement dur.
Joguei na infância, lembrei que era um ótimo jogo, peguei pra zerar depois de muito tempo, e posso afirmar que está no top 5 melhores jogos de SNES, Ótimo jogo, mas não perfeito, consegue ficar na sombra de Mario World, Super Metroid, Zelda, Chrono Trigger, mas com certeza recomendaria para as pessoas jogarem.
Enredo 8/10: Ótimo enredo, consegue ser consistente e entregar uma boa história, mas não faz tanta diferença entende-la, logo não precisa entender inglês.
Personagens 7/10: Não precisa saber muito dos personagens, e essa nota não significa nada, significa mais o nível de profundidade dos Personagens, mas os 3 mais importantes eles trabalham bem.
Gameplay 9/10: Para um plataformer, ele é tanto bom quanto difícil, precisa lidar muito com a movimentação, até precisa entender o moveset de alguns inimigos (Principalmente os chefes) para passar, pois você vai morrer muito kkkkkk.
Trilha sonora 10/10: Todos do meu top 5 recebem essa nota, com esse jogo não seria diferente, é maravilhoso ouvir aquele começo, que até bate nostalgia, e a "Beyond the Colosseum" no próximo cenário faz a magia, se não tivesse uma trilha sonora tão marcante, com certeza a nota não estaria assim
No geral: Recomendo pra quem gosta de um plataformer difícil com uma gameplay adaptativa (Depois do primeiro mapa do jogo, você pode ir em qualquer fase que liberou, coisa que no Mario de SNES são fases lineares, e que só no mario 3d world que tem, acho isso um charme do game), e quem não gostar do jogo, ouça a trilha sonora, sei que vai gostar de alguma kkkkk
Enredo 8/10: Ótimo enredo, consegue ser consistente e entregar uma boa história, mas não faz tanta diferença entende-la, logo não precisa entender inglês.
Personagens 7/10: Não precisa saber muito dos personagens, e essa nota não significa nada, significa mais o nível de profundidade dos Personagens, mas os 3 mais importantes eles trabalham bem.
Gameplay 9/10: Para um plataformer, ele é tanto bom quanto difícil, precisa lidar muito com a movimentação, até precisa entender o moveset de alguns inimigos (Principalmente os chefes) para passar, pois você vai morrer muito kkkkkk.
Trilha sonora 10/10: Todos do meu top 5 recebem essa nota, com esse jogo não seria diferente, é maravilhoso ouvir aquele começo, que até bate nostalgia, e a "Beyond the Colosseum" no próximo cenário faz a magia, se não tivesse uma trilha sonora tão marcante, com certeza a nota não estaria assim
No geral: Recomendo pra quem gosta de um plataformer difícil com uma gameplay adaptativa (Depois do primeiro mapa do jogo, você pode ir em qualquer fase que liberou, coisa que no Mario de SNES são fases lineares, e que só no mario 3d world que tem, acho isso um charme do game), e quem não gostar do jogo, ouça a trilha sonora, sei que vai gostar de alguma kkkkk
minigame da parede é imbecil, chefes são bons, mas demoram demais pra morrerem as vezes