Reviews from

in the past


Played on Super Nintendo Entertainment System - Nintendo Switch Online, but didn't make it very far. It's not that I think it's a bad or a boring game, but it's just not for me, so I will not be returning to it.

Just 100%ed this and holy moly this game rules. Challenging at times but never too hard and goddamn the atmosphere and art is amazing. Huge fan of this series. I’m now in my gargoyle era.

Oh shit it’s over, that was actually too quick because I didn’t get all the secret stuff but I’m gonna keep playing and try to 100% it. This game fucking rules. Amazing visuals and atmosphere and like everything honestly. Big fan.

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.

Un muy buen juego, con buenos gráficos y una genial banda sonora, jugablemente es muy divertido.


It's going to be a little complicated to evaluate Demon's Crest, but I no longer think it's that wonderful thing that a lot of people point out, for me it's like Banjo Kazooie, it's a good game, not wonderful, not even my favorite, but it works, despite having been part of From my childhood, what about Demon's Crest? well, it's a Megaman either, some bosses are cool, others are meh, some are motherfucking difficult and two are disgracefully unfair, the graphics are pretty but not impressive, and the beginning of the stages is very challenging, but as you go you get items to strengthening the game is calm, but strangely it becomes empty, I don't know after the first stages the game becomes emptier than my soul, but hey, that's actually a positive point due to the lore of you being a lonely demon that absolutely NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU and much less you with them, since the game, as beautiful as it is, lacks a bit of charisma in the characters, I think the only one who can be saved is the crazy person who sits in the village who probably treats you with every transformation of yours as if you were someone else and that's kind of cool, it has a cool replay value too, but I don't think it's enough for me to play it over and over again or miss playing it again, I don't know, after playing the 3 games in the Gargoyle's series, I thought the second is more fun than the first which I don't recommend much and even Crest which isn't bad, it's good, but it doesn't make me think it's an incredible game like a lot of people do.

This review contains spoilers

Metroidvania/mezcla/Megaman
Un juego oscuro repleto de secretos y zonas por explorar, donde necesitaremos ir consiguiendo nuevas habilidades e items para poder acceder a nuevas zonas. Ademas para poder ver el final verdadero necesitaremos tener el 100% de los items. El apartado musical nos satisface en todo momento, graficamente increible para su epoca.

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.

Really outstanding but done a disservice by an incredibly short playtime. It's so full of mechanics and unique presentations of time-tested game basics, and the player just isn't given enough time to play around with its toybox.

Aesthetically it's staggering though, presenting incredibly menacing sprite work, a truly charming bestiary, and a gloomy soundtrack. On this alone it's worth checking out, but know that playing through to see multiple endings is the best way to get the content for your time, but will only extend the short experience so much.

I quite enjoyed this game. However, there comes a point in which the path forward becomes very unclear.

I think this game strikes a really fun in-between of exploration and linear platforming, more games should do it. Super good atmosphere and artwork too.

Loved playing as a demon tho this game makes you a bit too overpowered, there was backtracking but it wasn't as good as I hoped since you can quite literally fly over everything and it just makes the experience and exploration less fun. Cool music and bosses but altogether... a slight above average experience.

the beginning was kinda rough without knowing some of the stuff to get better/stronger before meeting some bosses but overall it was great once you get the hang of it.

it's the best of the Firebrand Trilogy and honestly the best Ghost'n Goblins game in the series.

also the gargoyles in these games are hot like GODDAMN, Capcom

This is one on the Switch Online SNES service that I've had a mind to play for a while but finally got down to actually doing when I was helping a friend with their fundraising Twitch stream last weekend. I had night crew duty, so once the other night crew went to sleep and I didn't have friends to play Kirby with anymore, I cracked open this to play on stream. I ended up beating it juuust as the person hosting the stream woke back up, but then I put a few more hours into it to get the best ending (or at least to try to XP). It's not the hardest SNES game I've played, but it's up there for sure. It took me around 6 or so hours to beat the SNES version of the game on the Switch Online service with limited save state use.

Demon's Crest is the third and final game starring Firebrand, the red demon from Ghosts 'n' Goblins. 1000 years ago, a demon named Phalanx defeated Firebrand and threw him in the underworld's arena, and that's where the game starts. However, at the end of this match, the force of defeating your foe makes a shockwave powerful enough to break a hole in the wall to freedom! After once again dispatching your previously-not-actually-dead dragony enemy, Firebrand sets off to set the underworld free from under the foot of the demon king Phalanx and his foul machinations. Firebrand himself is a silent protagonist, and there ultimately isn't that much story in the game save from talking with the one demon NPC in the city and then with Phalanx himself.

There are several endings to the game, depending on how much of the collecting you've done: If you go to fight Phalanx immediately, if you collect all 6 power crests, and if you collect EVERY item (very much like how Mega Man X hides its super weapon), and Phalanx gets harder for each better ending you want, gaining first an actual dungeon (it's not finished yet if you go too early XD) and a second form, and then a much more powerful third form. Beating the game even nets you a secret password for a new game+ with a new powerful gargoyle form and you can fight a much MUCH MUCH harder true final boss. Phalanx, like the rest of the bosses in the game, is a pretty good fight (though his third form is a bit too tricky to be much fun, I found), but the true final boss (some "out of nowhere" actual strongest demon simply named Dark Demon) is an absolutely awful test of luck and endurance and I didn't have the patience to actually kill him for his ending (I gave it an hour and a half of my life and I won't give it any more XP).

The gameplay itself is a bit different from the other Gargoyle's Quest games, playing a bit more like the weird Metroidy cousin to a Mega Man game than the sort of weird cousin to Zelda 2 the other GQ games play like. There's a Mode 7 map to fly around in, and from there you go to locations (some of which are pretty well hidden, but those are optional) and those locations are your levels. Even the game's one town is actually a level. This is functionally your level select screen, much like a Mega Man game. However, each level has multiple paths leading to different bosses (not to mention oodles of hidden power ups and secrets), so the game's 6 levels feel more like 10-ish. Of those goodies are pieces of vellum you can get spells put onto (which I never actually used since they're not that useful), bottles to put potions into (which can do everything from teleport you out of a level to giving you a full heal), or even give you new modes of fire. Finding all of the variations on Firebrand's normal fire breath actually nets you one of the crests you need for the best ending, although these breaths themselves tend to be either used for progression (breaking breakable blocks) or just slight power upgrades.

Speaking of progression, Firebrand's main mode of travel is jumping, clinging to walls, and then a hover he can do indefinitely until he gets hit. That hover kinda compromises how levels can be designed, and so they tend to be pretty dangerous and narrow so you can't just fly over everything. Additionally, as you find the actual crests (all rewards for beating bosses, Mega Man-style, although not every boss drops a crest, and most actually drop health upgrades, Zelda-style), you also get rewarded with new gargoyle forms! These forms let you charge through barriers, not just hover but fly, and even swim in water. Unfortunately, you can't have the previously mentioned Firebrand breaths at the same time as a crest form, and especially once you get later forms that are literally just super-powered up Firebrand, the extra breath forms kinda become either extremely situational or outright useless (I basically never used them at all). The level design isn't Capcom's best, but it's still really solid and generally fun and fair feeling. Really, Firebrand's kinda slow movement and the general difficulty of the game hurt the flow of the level design more than anything.

Talking about the difficulty, it's kinda a weird one. Because the game has a level select (although more levels are opened up later as you get more gargoyle forms, so you can't go genuinely anywhere at the start), the difficulty at the start is one of those cases where there's an intended path, but you can do it in many potential orders. What order you take will determine what order you fight bosses in, and some like Flier SUCK as far as how maneuverable they are compared to you and just how much health they have. The game has a real "inverse difficulty curve" problem, where it starts out hard and gets easier as you go on, but largely because you're just more survivable, as well as just getting better at the game. The more moderately difficult parts of the game are good fun, but the more punishing stuff (particularly those hardest bosses) feel more clumsily designed than a genuinely fun challenge. Thankfully, the game is pretty ahead of its time in that it doesn't have any life or continue system. It uses passwords to save progress, unfortunately, but you can have as many attempts at a boss as you want because you effectively have infinite lives. It's not an easy game, and it's definitely one of the harder Capcom games I've played, but overall the difficulty is pretty nice once you get past the bumpier beginning parts.

The presentation is pretty nice, and about what you'd expect for a late-life SNES title. The music is pretty darn good. Nothing particularly MP3 player-worthy, but all good tracks that fit their environments well, as you'd expect from Capcom. It's also a very pretty game, making beautiful enemies and landscapes of the demon realm, though the animations are often limited. Later levels can hit a bit of slowdown, but it's nowhere near as bad as I'd heard it was, and overall the game ran really well. Even the slowdown that was there never impacted my ability to play it, which was nice.

Verdict: Recommended. It's got some rough aspects to it, and the difficulty problems will definitely turn some people off, but this is a really solid game! The physical cart is hideously expensive, but the Switch Online service is a really great way to experience this game. If you want some Mega Man-ish, Metroidvania-y fun in a SNES-era style, this is a great way to spend a weekend~

The most likely scenario for a sub-series like this is that, after one attempt, it would just fade away while the main series would take over, and yet, this was not the case with Gargoyle’s Quest. These titles wouldn’t go onto being as widely talked about as the main Ghosts ‘n Goblins series, but they would still hold up in terms of quality quite a bit, with each game being very fun, simple platformers with interesting gimmicks that made them interesting to check out, despite their faults. But naturally, every demon has to die at some point, and thus, the series would be concluded after only a four year run, while the main GNG series would continue to go on for… not long at all initially, but hey, that would also come back eventually too. However, before the series could die off, there was one more title that would release for the series: one that doesn’t bear the Gargoyle’s Quest name, but one that would continue the same gameplay, while innovating on it beyond anything it had resembled before. This game would be known as Demon’s Crest.

Just like with the other two Gargoyle’s Quest games, I had never played Demon’s Crest until not too long ago, even though I had seen it in action before. Unsurprisingly, the game is the best looking and most impressive of the bunch, which definitely left an impression on me when I first saw it, as I love this type of gothic-horror shit, especially from this era of gaming. Seriously, how can you not at least be impressed by some of the sprites in the game, like the dragon corpse you fight at the beginning of the game? But anyway, I decided to give it a shot, and yeah, I’d have to agree with most when they say that this is the best game in the series, and one of the hidden gems of the franchise as a whole. It does have its faults, ones that I haven’t seen many others touch upon, but it still stands as one of the best titles in this series as a whole.

The story is typical enough for this series, where the Demon Realm is in a war over who will claim ownership of the Crests, six magical artifacts that, when combined, can give you the powers of a god, and after plenty of fighting, Firebrand manages to gain all of them, only to have them then stolen by the evil Phalanx to use to take over the realm, so it is up to Firebrand to gather all of the crests once again and take him down for good. It is a simple enough scenario, but one that is presented in a, for lack of a better word, epic way, and it does make you more curious then before to give the game a shot. The graphics are fantastic, having that gothic style that I mentioned earlier, while also having fantastic sprites for Firebrand and his forms, the enemies you find, and especially the bosses, the music is pretty great, having that gothic, organ-y tone throughout most of the entire game, making the tracks great to listen to as you trek forward, and the control/gameplay is very similar to that of the previous game, but changed up plenty in terms of how you approach playing the game.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Firebrand one more time, go through plenty of different gothic locations all across the realm, defeat plenty of enemies using your various gargoyle abilities while taking on plenty of tricky platforming segments, gather plenty of different items to help you get other items from shops, as well as plenty of upgrades throughout the land that can boost your abilities in plenty of ways, and take on plenty of large, grotesque creatures that will give you quite a challenge if you aren’t up to the task. When taking into account several different aspects of the game, it is very similar to that of the previous games, but then there are all the new elements brought into this game, as well as all of the elements that were changed around, and it almost feels like it came from a completely different series.

When you first start the game, it feels like your typical Gargoyle’s Quest affair, going through a linear level, defeating enemies, getting items and fighting several different bosses: nothing you haven’t seen from this set of games before. But then, when you defeat the final boss of that opening stage, you are then given a new powerup that allows you to transform into a different form, which catches your interest immediately. This is then followed by you being thrown into the overworld, and from there on out, almost the entire game opens up for you. You can now fly to plenty of other different locations throughout the map, take on plenty of new stages, fight bigger and badder foes, and find shops to buy more items or to get more money. These elements aren’t anything particularly new for video games, but to see the series being evolved from what it was before, a game trying to be an RPG, to this, is something to behold.

Another thing to appreciate about this approach is that, upon beating that first level, you now have this sense of freedom that not too many other games at that time had. Yeah, some of the levels are closed off until you complete certain objectives, but that can’t stop you from going to plenty of other levels, taking different routes, seeing what else is available to do, or even beating the whole game immediately. Seriously, you can just go straight to Phalanx to take him out if you want to, without playing through any other level, which may seem pretty anti-climatic, but the fact that the game gives you this option at all is something you don’t see every day, and is something I really appreciate. But even then, if you do decide to go beat the game already, you would then miss out on where this game truly shines: the upgrades.

Throughout the game, you can find many different items throughout the stages, each one either helping you carry something to use on your journey, or ones that will make you stronger as you keep going. These items can range from simple health upgrades, potion bottles, or scraps of paper for spells, but then there are the talisman that you can find, each one giving you a new ability to use, such as being able to break blocks, climb up walls, and take less damage. None of these compare to the crests though, for when you get them, you are able to turn into different gargoyle forms, such as one that allows you to break heavy objects on the ground, one that will let you fly high to the skies, and one that lets you swim underwater. Each one of these forms can be very helpful in plenty of situations, not only for defeating your foes, but also for exploring around the stages more to find new items, as well as new paths to take which can lead to extra pathways, bosses, and rewards. There may not be that many stages in the game, but they make up for it by making these stages meaty, and you will wanna see every corner of them before your journey is all over.

All of that is well and good, but there are some elements that do hold it back, such as the fact that this is still Ghosts ‘n Goblins, which means it will not be afraid to jam that fleshy head of yours straight into a vat of spikes. It is easy enough at the beginning, but it can get hard pretty quickly, and you will need to bring your A-game to take on some of these challenges. Although, even that may not be enough at some points, as I swear, there are just some parts in this game where it seems impossible to get through without getting hit, even though I tried plenty of times to make that the case. It’s not that big of a deal, I’ll take the hit like a man and move on, but still, that does kinda suck. And speaking of things that kinda suck (stop thinking that), this may be a personal peeve that I have with this game, but it is a peeve nonetheless: why can’t you crouch? There are plenty of moments in the game where you will have these pots or enemies that you can’t normally hit on the ground, all because you are too goddamn tall, so your fire goes over them, and you have to position yourself to where you can actually hit these things. Sure, you do have different forms and tools to take care of that for you, but then that requires going into the menu, going to select the form, leaving the menu, and uggggggggggggh……… it could’ve gone by so much faster.

Overall, despite some gripes that I have with the game, personal or otherwise, this is definitely one of the best ways that this sub-series of games could’ve ended out, managing to retain the same basic gameplay that fans have come to know and love from this series, while also expanding on it tremendously to where it could never go back to what it did before… at least, if it had the chance to. I would definitely recommend it for those who were fans of the previous Gargoyle’s Quest titles, as well as those who are a fan of more open-ended platformers like this, because this game will give you plenty of what you want and love out of these types of games, and you will feel satisfied by the end of it. Unless, you know, you do end up going to fight Phalanx right away, in which case you end up throwing the Demon Realm into chaos anyway… so, way to go there, ya demonic dickhead.

Game #520

As it is one of the last games for the SNES, it really gets everything out of the console technically, especially graphically. The sprites look fantastic and the levels are beautifully designed. The game also has no end of atmosphere, especially for an SNES game it was very dark. I really enjoyed the gameplay itself, and Firebrand's different abilities complement each other well. Unfortunately, you have to do a lot of backtracking during the rather short duration of the game to find the various transformations and other items. Unfortunately, there are no clues as to where anything else might be hidden, which quickly leads to frustration. The level of difficulty is also a bit strange. Sometimes I was stuck on bosses for ages, sometimes, especially towards the end, I defeated bosses with 5 attacks, which didn't feel very balanced. The music was great for the most part, but a bit more variety would have helped here too, especially the boss fight theme really got on my nerves. All in all a good game but I would recommend reading a guide to avoid unnecessary backtracking.

Jogo muito bom, divertido e difícil, a velocidade do personagem ser lenta me incomoda as vezes, os visuais desse jogo é muito foda, sem falar na trilha sonora que é boa

Firebrand is so cool and hes my friend

Demon's Crest suprised me with how good it was and is easily the best of the trilogy. Capcom took the core gameplay of Gargoyle's Quest 1 and 2 and upgraded it to the point where it is essentially Megaman X with a Ghosts N Goblins coat of paint, both in Gameplay and Presentation. The game also has metroidvania elements in the sense where you can replay levels and they all have branching paths leading to different upgrades that you will need to collect to have a chance with the final boss... Or you could just go straight to the final boss from the get go - BOTW style. Demon's Crest is definitely one of the most underrated SNES games as it belongs up there with the likes of Megaman X and Super Metroid, but is barely spoken about. If you like Megaman X and want a spooky theme to it, this is the game you must try.

If the main character wasn't so slow the game would be much better

A challenging and often extremely obtuse Super Nintendo platformer. An atmospheric world and thrilling boss battles help to elevate this 1994 Capcom adventure to a slight recommendation for those with a high tolerance for an old-school challenge.

Full Review: https://neoncloudff.wordpress.com/2021/07/31/now-playing-july-2021-edition/

Seems like a good action platformer based on the first few levels I played.

Le plus beau jeu de la console mais affreusement dur.

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.


Ghosts 'n goblins can go to the principal's office, this is the real good stuff.

Demon's Crest is a spin-off of the much more popular Ghosts 'n Goblins franchise by Capcom. In it, you play as the dreaded Arremer, Firebrand, who was possibly responsible for the many deaths of Arthur in previous titles. This is an excellent action platformer by Capcom. It has a cool world map that is used as a stage select area, excellent levels with tons of secrets and collectibles, and really awesome bosses. It reminds me a lot of Mega Man X's level design. A super tight experience that I consider a must-play.

Already played the game with little to no Saves and Rewinds but now i did with just none of it. and in the right order i should have done before

yeah i like it way more

Demon's Crest, being the third game in the Gargoyles Quest series, which are platformers with RPG progression, decides to open up the formula and let you tackle levels in your own order, Mega Man style. The difference being, in the Gargoyle's Quest games, they had linear structure. So, what's the issue here?

This game was not designed around the upgrades it gives you. Even from the very start the game gives you the ability to infinitely hover which allows you to bypass a lot of the level design. This, and other abilities give many sections no challenge. The only instances of this game I remember being a fun challenge was when I did not have a lot of health at the beginning and was forced to learn boss patterns. The bosses are well designed and fun but you can just tank through a lot of them later on. The soundtrack is also pretty boring and repetitive. It's a shame because Gargoyle's Quest 1 and 2 each are designed well and have you utilize your abilities equally throughout the games, instead of this games lack of thought out upgrade distribution.

This game's worth trying if you like permanent character upgrades. Not an awful game, but it still has glaring issues.