Game Review - originally written by Sliver X
King of Demons is a sweet SNES platformer that was released late in the systems life.
You take the role of a man named Abel, who’s wife and daughter were kidnapped by your supposed best friend, Bayer. Typically, victims of kidnapping face a grim fate, but even more so in this case. It seems a demon needed some resurrecting (And not just any demon, mind you. The KING of demons!), and your family was just what was needed to accomplish this. Abel doesn’t like this very much, so he takes his lucky handgun on a quest of love and vengeance.
The gameplay is pretty good: Think of a mix of Super Ghouls ‘N Ghosts and Castlevania. Abel can double jump, slide, stomp, and shoot a semiautomatic pistol (Which can also be charged). You can also get a familiar ala Symphony of the Night that will attack your enemies and resurrect you if you die, which just happens to be your dead wifes soul in the form of a mutated looking fairy (?!). Also, after each boss fight, you can pick up a crystal that will transform you into one of three forms: A red creature that has really fast attacks, a green demon that has more power and less speed, and a blue dragon that’s really big and slow but very powerful.
Graphically, the game is good, with an art style that reminds me of Blackthorne. A game this dark in nature really needs decent graphics to convey the proper atmosphere (Remember Monster Party? Good game, but about as scary as the Teletubbies. Oh, wait..), and it doesn’t fail in that aspect. The music and sound effects are alright, but nothing really memorable.
Overall, if you like games with a dark atmosphere, or even platformers in general, you should like this game.
King of Demons is a sweet SNES platformer that was released late in the systems life.
You take the role of a man named Abel, who’s wife and daughter were kidnapped by your supposed best friend, Bayer. Typically, victims of kidnapping face a grim fate, but even more so in this case. It seems a demon needed some resurrecting (And not just any demon, mind you. The KING of demons!), and your family was just what was needed to accomplish this. Abel doesn’t like this very much, so he takes his lucky handgun on a quest of love and vengeance.
The gameplay is pretty good: Think of a mix of Super Ghouls ‘N Ghosts and Castlevania. Abel can double jump, slide, stomp, and shoot a semiautomatic pistol (Which can also be charged). You can also get a familiar ala Symphony of the Night that will attack your enemies and resurrect you if you die, which just happens to be your dead wifes soul in the form of a mutated looking fairy (?!). Also, after each boss fight, you can pick up a crystal that will transform you into one of three forms: A red creature that has really fast attacks, a green demon that has more power and less speed, and a blue dragon that’s really big and slow but very powerful.
Graphically, the game is good, with an art style that reminds me of Blackthorne. A game this dark in nature really needs decent graphics to convey the proper atmosphere (Remember Monster Party? Good game, but about as scary as the Teletubbies. Oh, wait..), and it doesn’t fail in that aspect. The music and sound effects are alright, but nothing really memorable.
Overall, if you like games with a dark atmosphere, or even platformers in general, you should like this game.
This review contains spoilers
Totally raw back-to-back grotesque bosses with a fun and rigid GnG-style control scheme. Love the contrasts between the gorgeous BG art and small character sprites, such an overpowering sense of space, if that makes sense. Reminds me of Atomic Runner.
Wish it got localized so puritans could shit their pants over eating dead fairies and pointing a gun at your cursed daughter
Wish it got localized so puritans could shit their pants over eating dead fairies and pointing a gun at your cursed daughter
I was at my local retro game shop the other day when I asked one of the employees for recommendation (whilst having a conversation about soulsborne with another employee at the same time) and he pulls out a repro cart of this game, tells me its a fun challenge n whatnot. I decide to take it home with me and tell my friends about this game, watched one of them play it before I booted the game up for myself and it was quite short, but rewarding and a fun ride. Its like if castlevania and altered beast had a biblically accurate incest baby, and I was all for it (I do not condone incest). There are points where the level design feels like crap (I.E the ice level) and some levels really do not give you enough time to beat them, you'll be at the end of the stage fighting a boss at 10 seconds left in the level, which when you respawn they put you back at the start of the boss with full time back which is nice but at the same time it just feels stupid, why give us only 5 minutes to beat an 8 minute level? oh yeah I'm playing an snes platformer, that explains it. On another note there are two endings and To get the
good ending, you have the get the first three orbs that drop from a boss in a certain order (orange, green and then blue.) meaning that you have to wait and let the orb that the bosses drop change color.
overall the game is good and it sucks that we didnt get it here, though it makes sense considering there are naked ladies locked in cages in the first level.
good ending, you have the get the first three orbs that drop from a boss in a certain order (orange, green and then blue.) meaning that you have to wait and let the orb that the bosses drop change color.
overall the game is good and it sucks that we didnt get it here, though it makes sense considering there are naked ladies locked in cages in the first level.
Pretty decent overall. Brings Castlevania to mind as many people will tell you, or maybe Musya if it wasn't dogshit. No real major complaints here, though I guess the player character Abel moves a little sluggish and the good ending is a bit hard to figure out without a guide. I didn't even know there were two endings really until the last five or so minutes when somebody else chimed in to point it out. I would probably recommend this one either way.
Good sidescroller that started off as castlevania with guns before I started transforming into various deviantart ocs for each stage which was totally unexpected and really neat, definitely a hidden gem, please don't be like me and not realize you can eat some enemies to restore health for the entire game