Wizards and Warriors 2, then Actraiser, now Demon's Crest... what is it with me playing all these games lately that throw enemies and projectiles that approach you from above and below but give you no way to hit upwards/downwards? I think I finally kinda understand the younger players who complain about RE4's tank controls; I don't agree, but I understand. Because while RE4's challenges are perfectly curated for your stiff moveset (and Demon's Crest does it too, albeit less elegantly), so many times while playing this I kept thinking "This mf clings to walls Spidey-style, the bloody box art shows him bending his knees, why can't he just crouch and shoot?!"
Anyways this is a perfectly fine action-platformer; it feels rather stiff, but it boasts a unique moveset that centers around using walljumps and hovering to give you more control over your vertical positioning, and throws you some truly evil bosses to force you to learn its ins and outs. But it stumbles a bit in its execution of the Metroidvania elements - while you gradually discover new abilities that will help you unlock new areas, these take the form of new demon forms you can take rather than adding new moves to your base form. This subtle difference, combined with the fact that you can only switch forms from the pause menu, makes some sections of the game extremely tedious. One in particular forces you to switch back and forth between the Earth form (to break barriers and kill enemies on the ground), Fire form (to light torches that need to stay lit or more enemies will appear) and Buster form (fastest attack rate), and I spent more time in the menu than ingame because I was having to switch forms every 3 seconds or so! It's quite mystifying to me why they built the mechanics around switching back and forth between forms but didn't allow you to quick-switch via the shoulder buttons a la Mega Man X. This had the unwanted side effect of making the game feel clunkier and more tedious the more forms I unlocked, making the discovery of new abilities feel more annoying than liberating.
While this fire-breathing red demon game left me feeling a bit lukewarm, I do concede there's a lot to love here. A spooky aesthetic and sinister plot that somehow made it past the '94 censors, top-tier graphics and music, and some really good boss encounters. Definitely worth a play for anyone searching for decent lesser-known SNES games, and a really good time if you can get past the clunky form-switching mechanics.
Anyways this is a perfectly fine action-platformer; it feels rather stiff, but it boasts a unique moveset that centers around using walljumps and hovering to give you more control over your vertical positioning, and throws you some truly evil bosses to force you to learn its ins and outs. But it stumbles a bit in its execution of the Metroidvania elements - while you gradually discover new abilities that will help you unlock new areas, these take the form of new demon forms you can take rather than adding new moves to your base form. This subtle difference, combined with the fact that you can only switch forms from the pause menu, makes some sections of the game extremely tedious. One in particular forces you to switch back and forth between the Earth form (to break barriers and kill enemies on the ground), Fire form (to light torches that need to stay lit or more enemies will appear) and Buster form (fastest attack rate), and I spent more time in the menu than ingame because I was having to switch forms every 3 seconds or so! It's quite mystifying to me why they built the mechanics around switching back and forth between forms but didn't allow you to quick-switch via the shoulder buttons a la Mega Man X. This had the unwanted side effect of making the game feel clunkier and more tedious the more forms I unlocked, making the discovery of new abilities feel more annoying than liberating.
While this fire-breathing red demon game left me feeling a bit lukewarm, I do concede there's a lot to love here. A spooky aesthetic and sinister plot that somehow made it past the '94 censors, top-tier graphics and music, and some really good boss encounters. Definitely worth a play for anyone searching for decent lesser-known SNES games, and a really good time if you can get past the clunky form-switching mechanics.