I might be more forgiving of Demon Turf's problems if it were more imaginative, wide and confident in its concepts, sadly it just lacks any kind of spark to hook me. Unbelievably standard collectathon platforming that feels... if I'm honest, wretched - somehow evoking the air of a low-rent N64 game. It all feels so stiff, from the way the character controls to how she's animated, bolt upright at all times like she's got a back brace on or something. It makes her character hitbox feel bafflingly tall??? Idk this is just such a weird, unfulfilling and ugly game. Hate to say it but Here Comes Niko really upstaged this.

Their is a great platformer as the bones here. Unfortunately it’s bogged down by terrible combat and bizarre design choices.

I’m honestly shocked that a developer that has such a solid understanding of feel good platforming mechanics has such a misunderstanding of fun combat. Even going so far to put a combat arena in the game?

Some of the design choices are also burned into my brain making me think I would never replay this game. The looping subway where you have to stand around and wait for the gap to open back up is a prime example of a weird but passable choice of for me. However, the fact I have to go back through levels with minimal changes to get an ending is the other major lame choice. This is something I could accept if it was just platforming (because the movement is that good) unfortunately it means dealing with combat again, that’s a no go for me.

If the combat sections were ripped out this would be a significantly better game but alas it’s enough to make me drop this into the abandoned pile.

a great but flawed platformer with a fantastic move set and a lot of content. first of all if you're turned off of the platforming from the start i really recommend turning the move deadzone bar in the settings to none. god knows why its on so high by default, it goes from feeling horrible to great once you turn it on 0 imo. the triple jump, wheel, wall jump, and super jumps are all extremely fun to use. the only thing that stuck out genuinely bad to me was the lack of options when exiting the gliding turf ability. you should be able to jump out of it to gain more height last minute, but instead you're sent falling and it doesn't feel good. most of the time in normal levels it wasn't a bother and i had enough height for it to not matter but in two of the glide-centric trials it is miserable performing some of the glides over large gaps. those trials are one of the many side modes in the game and for the most part they're really good. i didn't bother doing most of the photo hunts and i dont think you should have to do all 50 to get 100% completion, and despite actually liking the combat the arena challenge goes on for way too long and should only be 10 levels instead of 25, but everything else is really fun. the remixed versions of levels are fantastic too, most feel completely different from their original so it doesn't feel like padding. that being said i think the 50 battery requirement forcing you to do a large majority of those remixed levels just to reach the end of the main story was a bad idea, it should've only been 40 max. the five bosses were surprisingly good, with the first and last being the weakest. wish there were remixed versions of the four world bosses to be honest. and lastly as far as visuals go i really like the look of the main characters and the bosses, but otherwise the environments and npcs can look really ugly. hopefully they either patch some of the real big issues out or continue to improve on the game in a sequel, there's so much potential here and some of it is wasted with odd decisions that seem to have turned a lot of people off from the game.

I really, really wish I liked this more than I do, and I'll cop to the fact that trying to 100% this absolutely made me like it less, but maaaan parts of this feel tragic. The movement (save for the way you exit a glide) feels absolutely perfect, the character designs are great, and the music is really cool and distinct. The whole thing feels like a labor of love, but the level design just isn't there for me at all, and the combat feels legitimately terrible in a way that tanks so much of the game. The ingredients are here for something special though, and I really do hope the devs keep going with this franchise, because I'd like to see it develop into the game I hoped this would be. My understanding is that Neon Splash is a step in that direction, so I still plan to check that out despite my issues here.

Also, the lighting in some levels legitimately hurt my eyes! There's a canyon level early on that's so red that I couldn't really see things properly for like half an hour. It's a shame that a game this aesthetically tight has spots like that.

This was an Amazing and Incredible game with a lot of issues. I was a huge fan of Fabraz's previous game, Slime-San, so I was super excited for this, but now on the other side, I have to say it simultaneously exceeded my expectations and disappointed me.

Positives:
- The pure platforming in this game is so good. The controls were a little tough to get used to, but once I did, the level design was great and it had some amazing pure platforming sections
- The amount of content is stellar for a 3d platformer
- Great Soundtrack
- Incredible Movement. Once you get used to it, it really is the second best and most free-form movement of any 3d platformer other than some mario games

Negatives:
- A lot of things were great in design but poor in execution. Two of the biggest examples were the boss fights and the unlockable abilities. The boss fights were unique and all seem really good on paper, but playing them they were actually unfun and poorly executed. The unlockable abilities, specifically the wheel, bird glide, and time stop, all seem cool and there's some cool level design around these but they feel awful to control and use.
- Combat is annoying and cumbersome. Too many forced combat sections and they just aren't fun
- People have praised the visuals but I really didn't like them. It's all just red and purple

Overall its like somebody took a 5-star game and a 3-star game and human-centipeded them together, hence why I rate it 4 stars

I like almost all the parts of this game individually. The controls are practically immaculate, the character designs are charming, the level designs are neat, and the music is cool

But even with all the good parts put together, the bits that bug me stick in my craw enough that I can't really say I like the game. There's enough of a bounce out of the glide that it feels bad to use, the combat is absolutely dreadful, and all the good visual design gets negated by being smeared with disgusting fog that, honestly, hurt my eyes most of the time.

There's a really nice foundation here, but I can't really say that the main game does it for me. I hear the little expansion is better, and I may honestly get to it someday since I want a better version of it, but this one just fell flat for me.

Got 5 hours in and honestly the game felt like it should have ended through most of that time, but learning that I wasnt even halfway done in terms of battery count I just stopped. What charm it had ran out on me quickly and I feel like it would have worked better if the levels were more speed-based challenges rather than larger collectathon worlds.

I don't know though this game really wasn't for me and I probably shouldnt have expected to have liked it as much as any 3D Mario or A Hat In Time.

Como fan de los plataformeros en 3D, me decepcione bastante con este título. Dentro de lo positivo, tiene mucha variedad en sus niveles, se controla bastante bien sin problemas de input lag y la estética es sumamente creativa. Sin embargo, carece de elementos jugables que lo hagan único comparado a otros juegos del estilo moderno (Mail Mole y su original forma de manejarse, A hat in time y sus 4 mundos completamente diferentes en estructura, Mario Odyssey y las posesiones, etc.).
No solo eso, sino que tiene muchas secciones que están directamente mal diseñadas y que se nota provienen de un desarrollador amateur, haciéndote trampa con cosas que no podias prevenir (como las plataformas que se activan y desactivan con cubos o el poder de ralentizar el tiempo que apenas y funciona realmente en los objetos que se mueven rápido y que por alguna razón te ralentizan más a ti). Eso sin mencionar que el combate es la cosa más castrosa que hay, consistiendo en empujar enemigos a pinchos al no poder matarlos de otra forma, un proceso lento y repetitivo que varias veces corta el ritmo del plataformeo. Los jefes son hit or miss, algunos funcionan y otros son tan visualmente caóticos que muchas veces no puedes ver de donde provienen los ataques.
Y por último, me caga que para llegar al jefe final te obliguen a repetir niveles previos solo que con unos ligeros cambios y el añadido de coleccionables que nomas sirven para comprar skins y colores de pelo. Me parece una forma muy cutre de alargar la experiencia y eso fue lo que sentencio más a este juego para mi.
Una decepción más que me llevo este año junto a Kena: Bridge of Spirits.

"So close yet so far" is how I would describe Demon Turf, in short. In long, read the rest of the review.

This has been my most anticipated game ever since I saw the trailer for it, everything from the sprites to the movement and level design just looked exactly like what I was looking for. This feeling was only emphasized by the demo, which turned me from "can't wait to see what that looks like" to "day 1 purchase". The interesting thing about this demo is that along with all the stuff that excited me, there were also a couple of things that concerned me, and ultimately those concerns were validated by the end of this playthrough. Demon Turf is a very unfortunate case of not being able to stick the landing.

First off, I love the movement in this game. Or, I love most of it. You have a jump, triple jump, side jump, wall jump, several of the 3D Mario essentials are here. Where it gets interesting is when you get off the ground, as Demon Turf emphasizes movement in the air, between each jump. You have a double jump that is short and can be used for either height or distance, but definitely not both. There's also a spin move that can be used to extend a jump, and when you jump out of this spin, you perform this game's long jump. This means that the long jump can not only be done in the air, but also since you can spin without moving forward, you can do the long jump at a complete stand still, and during the jump you can adjust its length by holding the control stick either back or forward. This to me is the best part of Demon Turf, chaining all of your jumps into each other gracefully, traversing an obstacle course quickly, managing to skip a certain obstacle through a clever combination of ground and air jumps, really feeling like you're in full control of yourself and your moveset. This moveset does take some getting used to due to certain rules put on the order of how you can do things. You cannot do any other air jump after a long jump, and if you double jump you can spin but not long jump. This slightly tripped me up at the beginning, but it eventually never became a problem, but keep in mind this idea of certain things not being able to be done after certain jumps, this will become important later.

So we have a very fun moveset that allows for engaging, creative movement, and the first couple levels really show that this moveset works best in obstacle course-style levels, usually with a good amount of verticality and variety in obstacle types. Demon Turf's flaws all come from failing to capitalize on this strength, and it starts with the combat. First of all, yes this game has combat, and second of all it deserves some credit for not just being some three hit combo nonsense a lot of stuff from the 2000's did. The way it usually works is you come across a circular area with nearby spikes or pits, and enemies trying to knock you into them. Enemies have no health, so your attack is a punch that pushes enemies away, ideally towards something that kills it like the previously mentioned spikes and pits. You can charge it up to push them far, or do several smaller punches to get the same effect in more moves, and your spin can stun them. This would be fine if this game was more in line with Mario 64's enemy style, where they exist as other obstacles that you have to overcome or avoid altogether, but instead they most often appear as segments where you have to stop platforming and focus on defeating whatever amount of enemies are in an area. There's usually no getting around these segments, the only exceptions are some very precise moments of sequence breaking that can skip them, and I took the sequence breaking option whenever I could. Combat just isn't fun in this game, your punch often shoots enemies not towards where you want them to go, but slightly at an angle, just barely missing the spikes you're trying to knock them into. After you hit an enemy with a charged punch, they go into some sort of invulnerability state for a couple of seconds, which makes the process even more frustrating. You have to charge your punch, avoid getting pushed by any enemies, hit them with the punch, hope you didn't accidentally throw your punch right next to the enemy instead of right at it, hope your punch actually knocks the enemy into something, and if it doesn't start getting your next punch ready or address the other enemy who might just instantly kill you because he has spikes attached to his body and you die in one hit.

Speaking of one-hit kills, we should talk about checkpoints. When you enter a level, you have three checkpoints, and you can place them anywhere in the level you want. Ideally, this means that there's more room for riskier platforming and experimentation, as when you die you'll always start again at a location you're comfortable starting at. This also makes backtracking for collectibles not a hassle, as you can warp between checkpoints. But, and maybe this is a me problem, more often than not this system served to betray me whenever I died halfway through a level and forgot to place any checkpoints until I'm all the way back at the beginning. Granted, most of the levels in this game aren't so long that it takes forever to get back, but sometimes a sequence that's fun one time around isn't as fun the second or third time. It also doesn't help that most of my deaths were from the instant kill enemies I mentioned earlier, and not finishing a combat section means the enemies respawn and you have to do it all over again. I think it's absurd that this game has no way of getting another hit, not a Crash Bandicoot style power up or a three-point health system, because the combat shouldn't be where the difficulty comes from. I'm OK with pits being instant death, but getting side tackled by an enemy off-screen into spikes, that's not a fun way to die, I didn't learn anything or get better, I was in the middle of my least favorite part of the game and now I'm gonna have to do it again!

So the platforming is good and the combat sucks, so really, it's up to the levels to salvage this, as there's a wide variety of level types here and what they focus on can differ greatly from one another. Unfortunately, I believe every level has at least one combat section, but if the level makes these sections a little more painless and delivers on the tight and expressive platforming the demo promised, we can still have a good, but flawed game on our hands. There are four worlds here, and the first two do a good job of focusing on what's important while still having some variety. World 1 is very linear, and encourages going quickly through the stage and finding different ways to climb upward, as most of them are very vertical in structure. There are some levels that focus a little more on combat, but it's the first world so everything is still fairly short. World 2 introduces more variety, where we have wider, more open levels that involve going between different, large sections, still mostly linear but allowing for moments of exploration and less obstacle course-esque, a little more in line with something like the Sonic Adventure games, or Rayman 2. These two worlds are great, even if the bosses here are kind of nothing. But then we get to world 3 and my hope for this game plummets greatly.

In world 3, levels get much longer. Not only that, but combat becomes a lot more brutal due to more instant kill enemies and more combat sections in general. The levels begin to feel like they're forgetting what the strengths of the game are and it all comes to rock bottom at the stage Urban Tops, a stage name I remember solely because of how awful it is. The game wants to have it's New Donk City, a big city level with tons to explore and lots of nooks and crannies and the novelty of it being a fun platforming level while still being recognizable as a city. But this isn't structured like Super Mario Odyssey at all, it's about finding the goal and a couple collectibles on the way, it's linear in the end, so this is actually a terrible level idea for this kind of game. The end result is you wandering aimlessly through a boring city with nothing to actually do besides just sort of poke around hoping to find the next part of the stage. There are little sections of obstacle course platforming occasionally, but they take place in basically a different dimension than the actual level, which is about wandering into the right building or alleyway until you accidentally find the goal. It's the absolute low point of the game, and indicative of the fact that the people making it don't understand what the strengths of the thing they made actually are, and as if this world wasn't bad enough it ends with you getting the worst turf ability, but first I need to actually talk about turf abilities (I know, this is a long one, I'm sorry).

At the end of each world, before fighting the boss, you unlock a turf ability, which are basically new ways of traversing levels and taking on enemies. The first one is a grappling hook that's honestly kind of boring. You use it when you see an object to swing on, or to drag something towards you, and usually I just ended up dragging enemies right into my face and then getting killed. It uses auto-targeting, and it mostly gets the object you intend to grab, but there are definitely moments of "no, not that one". Then there's the rollout, which is easily the best of the abilities. It basically gives you the supercharge from Spyro, and all of the sections that require it are usually very fun, and the ability in general is fun to use whenever you can. The fourth ability allows you to slow time on objects, which doesn't really come up that often and so isn't actually that interesting or helpful, and I skipped the third ability because I need another paragraph to rant about it.

The third ability is a glide, and it fucking sucks. You control how high or low you glide by moving the camera up and down, and it just never feels graceful or fun. You also come out of the glide rolling, meaning you can't do any jump out of it or just stop in one place after coming out of it, so landing anywhere precise is a nightmare. On top of this, it feels every section that required the flight really demands you use it not only in a very specific location both close to a ledge while still being high, and not only getting in a triple jump before going into it for max height, but also pointing the camera as close to being directly up at the sky as it can go in order to be able to clear whatever gap is in front of you. This means the game now goes from "this gap is too wide to clear with any of my jumps, I guess I have to find another way across" to "OK I failed to glide to this ledge five times already, but maybe I'm just not doing it at the exact right arc of my jump, or maybe I need to point the camera even further up, OK I missed it again, etc". The thing is World 4 actually has some of the best levels in the game, it comes close to redeeming the game, but nearly all of them have these unbearable sections that require precise use of the glide, and it just kind of pisses on everything for the rest of the game. Like the combat, it's at its best when it's painless and simply requires getting from a very high point to a low point, but it never becomes fun.

On top of all this, the grappling hook and the glide move are the two turf abilities I want to single out for how they interact with the other jump moves (remember when I said something about certain things not being able to be done after other things? Well here it is, like 6 paragraphs later). You can only grapple onto something if you jump once, you can't do it just from the ground and you can't do it from a double jump or spin. The glide is sort of the opposite, you can spin or double jump before doing it, but can't do anything once you get out of it. These restrictions just completely interrupt the flow of movement this game encourages in the beginning. So many times, my natural instinct was to spin before a grapple in order to get myself in the right place, but no, there's a bad arbitrary law in this world that stops that. Speaking of the spin, it's kind of bad when the game starts. There were way too many instances of trying to spin onto a platform and just kind of rubbing up on the cliff, but you can buy a mod early on to make the spin much, much better, to where it floats upwards alongside staying in the air, so much better that it might as well have been the default state of the spin.

Since I brought up mods, I think I can finally move on to the side content of the game. When I played the demo, I noticed in the "quest" section of the pause menu, which tracks your progress across all the side modes and main levels, the game makes a joke along the lines of "oh boy this sure is a lot to 100%!!!" and that worried me. I don't know who told 3D platformer developers that their game needs to have a bunch of side mini games that aren't fun or platforming based, but I hope that person knows I'm upset with them. Most of the side content gives you Sweets, which are used to buy cosmetics, or cakes, which can also be found in the main levels and are used to buy mods. Mods can give different parts of your movesets and abilities different effects, like making you fall slower, run faster, or allowing you to charge your punch even farther. When you start the game you see there aren't that many mods and go "Well maybe I'll find some more interesting ones as I unlock more" and then you never unlock more, and you never gain the ability to equip more, what's available to purchase at the beginning is all there ever will be. Outside of buying stuff, there's a side mode focused on combat, and I did none of it. There's a golf mini game that's kind of fun, but never feels like the kind of thing I'm thrilled the developer made. Like, OK you can do golf, doesn't mean you HAD to. The two highlights for me are the arcade and trials. The arcade hosts what are very close to exact replications of levels from several different Mario games and it's weird. The slide from Cool, Cool Mountain, one of the secret stages from Sunshine, Flip Swap Galaxy from Galaxy 2, it's cool that they recreated them but very odd. I've never seen a game just recreate levels from a different game, but I can't help but kind of mark out for it, they’re honestly pretty neat. The trials mode is essentially this game making its own Sunshine secret levels, each amping up the difficulty from regular levels and each involving some really great novel concepts for levels. These are some of the best parts of the game because they focus on the strengths of the moveset, and stretching it to it's greatest potential. It also comes up with some really out there level concepts, so it doesn’t get stale. A Hat In Time had levels like these, but I think these are much better and more challenging. And then you get to the levels that involve the glide, and then you silently give up on this game.

The other place to get Sweets in this game is through the second visit mode, in which you go through a remixed version of all the levels of each world for not only these Sweets, but also a battery. You see, you need 50 batteries to get to the last area, and finishing a stage gives you a battery. If you go through the game without doing any of these remix levels, you will only end up with barely over half of the required amount. You have to do a good amount of these second visits, and while the levels are kind of different, having to just go through all the levels again doesn't feel exciting. The layout is new, but it's still very obviously the same level, and being forced to do almost all of them instead of this being mostly optional is insane. There's an option to just get the battery from these levels by paying in Sweets, and I went from "I'm never going to use this" to "Please make it so I never have to revisit the World 3 levels".

It was honestly kind of heartbreaking when I did that, because I started off ready to go for 100% only to end up desperately wanting the game to end. It was the opposite of when I stretched out a game to hope it never ends. I was dreading every part of the second half of this game because I could feel everything getting worse and less exciting. There's a story btw, it's kind of nothing and I feel like it could be so much more. The idea of a main character who just wants to take over Hell for no real reason other than spite is really cool, but the game doesn't do anything that fun with the idea. The main character is just kind of generically sassy to people and everything feels like a third-rate Cartoon Network show, like one of the ones they import from Canada. Anytime I thought something was going to happen in the story, nothing happened. I know it's a bit silly to rag on a game like this for having a boring story, but I was looking for SOMETHING to latch onto at a certain point. The art style and 2D sprites are fun, but if I'm being honest, the main characters are the only characters that actually look good in this style.

Now, I spent a lot of time in this review just rambling and ranting about all my grievances with this game, so why is this not a 2-star or below? Well, I still believe that this is some of my favorite 3D platforming in a long time. The good parts of this game are incredibly strong, and if you're a 3D platformer fan who can put up with some major flaws, you will get some joy out of this. Maybe wait until it's at a much lower price. I want to believe in Demon Turf, I want to be in its corner, but god damn does this game make that hard. A Hat In Time stays winning, I guess.

I love the idea behind Demon Turf; taking over areas with platforming and bosses, and getting to go through the areas again with them now under your control. However, in practice, the return trips feel just about as fleshed out as Crash 4’s N-Verted levels, which isn’t very good. It just feels like doing the same level again only it’s a bit harder with harder enemies or harder platform gimmicks in place. Sure, sometimes there's a new segment or two, but it's mostly the same level again. This in turn renders half of the game to become bland and repetitive, which is a HUGE red flag, and given how unlike in Crash 4, where these repetitive levels were graceful enough to let you skip all the levels, Demon Turf requires you to get 50 batteries, the stars of this game, which can be found at the end of all levels, be it their first trip, AND return trip. There are only 56 batteries in the game, meaning 28 levels each of the first trip, and return trip. That means you have to go through all but 6 return trip levels, with said levels not really being that interesting in the first place. Balan Wonderworld was smart enough to let you get the statues in whatever order you want to, and only required 110 out of the 228 statues. Balan Wonderworld had more common sense than Demon Turf, and half of the costumes didn’t have a jump button.

Update: Actually beaten it. I'm already forgetting everything that happened in it. Combat is atrociously dull, the ball-pulling games are a pain in the ass, and the level designs aren't that inspired. Did we play the same game, Nitrorad?

Demon Turf has fun and solid platforming but is unfortunately weak in nearly every other area.

Notably, the combat is incredibly tedious and shallow, and the game forces it on you way too frequently. Level design also feels pretty middling at some points.

Overall though, the platforming and charm of the game carried it enough for me to get through it. Plus the extra minigames, those were mostly pretty fun too.

Demon turf combines the linear, varied platforming of the Mario Galaxy games with the free movement of Mario 64 into a truly impressive indie package. There is a lot to like here as the game is chocked full of content, and all of it being fun. Every level has a harder variant which genuinely shakes up the level design and obstacles rather then just slapping a filter and random clear condition on it. The combat is itself based on momentum and movement rather then failed recreations of action combos. The one flaw here is that the final move you unlock, the time slow down, is pretty lame and forces you to to restrict your movement to get past artificial barriers when all the previous upgrades increased your movement options. Though even this games time slow is far better then the ones featured in its peers like a hat in time.

I really want to like this game more than I do, being a big fan of 3D platformers that encourage creative movement and level skips. But it just doesn't hit for me. 3 worlds in and the levels just feel a bit too basic and easy, and the moveset while expansive just doesn't feel quite as fluid as I'd like. It might just be a me thing, this game seems to be very heavily inspired by Mario 64 which I also can't get into. Also a smaller thing but as a fan of monster and demon designs, most of the NPCs are pretty ugly and bland aside from the MC's friends. Also the combat is annoying and a total pace-breaker.

It's not bad, it works and I can see why someone would love it, but I just can't. And that sucks.

This might be the most disappointing game I've ever played

I was really hoping this would be my next A Hat in Time, a game that I cannot stop coming back to because I love it so much. It's not. It's just okay, and only because it had some parts I really enjoyed. Probably 60% of the time I was playing this game, I just wanted to be done with it.

I honestly wonder if they put all the effort here into the basic movement and presentation. I am really not a fan of most of the level design here; the levels are either ridiculously easy or super finnicky, with a couple genuinely fun ones sprinkled in (the rising water and subway levels were both fantastic). A lot of the assets look out of place or bland, and anything that isn't a main character or a boss got absolutely shafted. Every NPC looks like a nightmare. This also might have the worst combat of any game I've ever played, so any forced combat sections (including the final boss) were like nails on a chalkboard. I was happy to learn the game is only 4 worlds plus a final boss, but very unhappy to learn that I had to complete 3 out of the 4 worlds (plus one more level) AGAIN to unlock said boss. I understand that the levels are different the second time around, but I just do not understand the 50 battery requirement when you only get 28 from the first plays. 2 of the abilities are kind of utilitarian instead of fun, unfortunately, and the slow time one just feels horrible to use. I just tried to brute force every section that needed it without it (it worked kind of).

On the positive side, the music in this game is godlike. It's maybe the only reason I kept playing. There's also some genuinely cool ideas here; the snake wheel ability is awesome and any level that utilizes it is a good level full stop. Any time there was a platforming section I actually had to think about, I was pleasantly surprised, and it happened enough times to be notable. I am kind of coming up dry on other positives.

In the end, this game might be more bad than it is good, but I'm gonna give it a 2.5/5 because I could play it while watching Jerma play House Flipper

Some solid platforming that's a mix of Mario 64 with power ups you can switch between. Game heavily encourages speedrunning with its timer on each level which gives them all great replay value.
The collectables are OK honestly. You don't need them to beat the game, just the 50 stars, I mean batteries. While the cakes are pretty essential for giving you bonus power ups, faster walking was my go-to and I honestly wish was just the default run speed. Lollipops don't give you much aside from colors and since every bonus level has 100 of them I got to a point where I found a color combo and pet I liked and stuck with it. They're cute additions for customization but it's nothing to write home about. I like taking pictures and selfies in the game but I couldn't care less for the missions on it.
Two of the power ups in this game are really fun to use. My favorite being the snake wheel, racing through a stage and dodging death traps is a satisfying thing to pull off without any stops. The bird power up was good for finding ways to speedrun through a stage, it's simple, kind of similar to the wing cap in Mario 64 but it's a hotkey now instead.
The Hookshot is OK, you've seen a hook shot in a game before, you know how it works.
My least favorite was the time stop, cool concept but I honestly found myself rarely using it unless completely necessary. I found it more satisfying to try to time my jumps just well enough to not need to do that.
One thing I enjoyed a lot about the game though is if there wasn't specifically a long gap between you and the segment asking you to use a power up, you could find another way around it if you were good enough. Good incentive to try new playstyles.
Overall if you're itching for a 3D platformer give this game a shot

Yeah yeah, I was brought here by Nitro Rad too. Is the game good though?

Yeah, I guess, but that comes with a lot of asterisks.

The movement and moveset in general are excellent. I could nitpick a few details, like the side somersaults' uselessness due to the triple jump not being space-sensative like in Super Mario 64. Also, the grapple hook and timestop are pretty situational in use/ Regardless, this is a very good moveset that makes the player plan each jump in advance, unlike A Hat in Time.

The level design isn't the best, but I think it's mostly fine. The game beckons players to master the moveset and perform skips in pretty much every level. Combine this with a genius checkpoint system that allows the player to control their respawn position, and those seemingly ludicrous skips are much more achievable and fun to try. I also appreciate that you can get every collectible on the first run and you don't have to come back with the turf abilities (which you earn in each boss fight) or something. Point is, the level design is pretty basic, but the game does a really good job of distracting that fact.

But now its time to talk about the highlight of every 3D platformer! Combat! Oh boy! I dunno though, this really wasn't that bad. Probably like half the levels have required combat sections, and they're over really quick. Still, that's far from a compliment. What really pisses me off is that the final boss is kind of purely combat, which I think is dumb for a 3D Platformer.

Uhh... There's a story. Is there? Yeah, but it's pretty nothing. There's an attempt at some kind of arc with the protagonist Beebz's friend, but this leads to nothing. I like the concept of beating these bosses up and gaining clout overtime, but the game doesn't really expand on this in an interesting way.

Also, this game definitely lacks the level of polish of a game like A Hat in Time. The movement feels great, but the way Beebz interacts with the environment feels spotty at times. Most of the minor NPCs look really bad too. Lastly, I ran into a few glitches.

There's also the structure of the game. Now, there's 28 Levels, and each level has a post-boss version that changes things up a bit and utilizes the newly acquired turf ability. So, there's like 56 levels in total, and beating a level gets you a battery, right? Well, for the most part, the structure is simple. Beat all 7 levels in the world in whatever order you please, fight the boss, go to the next world.

However, to fight the final boss, you need 50 Batteries, so you have to beat 50 out of the 56 levels (Or maybe there's other ways to get batteries. I haven't delved that much into the side content). Keep in mind, half of these levels are reskins. As heavily altered as a reskin can be, they're still reskins. Imagine if to fight Bowser you needed 110/120 stars. Like, why not make me just get all at that point? I guess I'll take it though, because I only had 40 batteries after beating the 4th boss, so I had to play 10 more levels, which kind of ruined the pacing.

Despite all of those problems, Demon Turf can be really fun. It has some great ideas, but I think the devs were just a bit too ambitious. Maybe if the game was a bit better paced, the combat was gone, the story was minimized, the moveset tweaked a little, all the fluff was removed, and the visuals were more consistent I'd like this game more. Oh wait, the standalone expansion Demon Turf: Neon Splash did this and it costs $20 less than this game (Not a sponsor). The lesson is, you should probably get that instead. Still, if you like 3D platformers, this is a fine time.