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~
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~