That’s right, Demonschool is finally out. After being delayed several times, a game originally slated for release on September 13th, 2024 (Friday the 13th), is releasing over a year later. Did the extra time secure a flawless launch, or is the final release a bit rough?
Demonschool
Developer: Necrosoft Games
Price: $24.99
Platform: PC, PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch
MonsterVine was supplied with a PS5 code for review
I think you see Demonschool and, visually, it looks almost perfect. The pixel art is stunning, the animations are fluid, and the world is full and vibrant. Demonschool looks like it was created in a laboratory for great games.
After that, how could you not be waiting for the other shoe to drop? It’s coming, but barely. Demonschool is still pretty buggy, even after several delays totaling over a year. And yet, despite the bugs, despite the hair-pulling, the cursing, the deep sighs, I still think Demonschool is one of the best games to come out this year.
Faye is an enthusiastic college-aged demon-hunter on her way to Hemsk Island to go to, well, Demonschool. On the boat to the island, she runs into Namako, a loner girl who isn’t anywhere near as enthusiastic as Faye.
As they reach the island, gangsters are sorting the students who get off the boat, and Namako is about to be separated from Faye when Faye intervenes. Never underestimate the power of saving a friend’s life; they might stick with you for the long haul.
Because Faye knows something that almost nobody else on the island knows, Faye knows that in just 11 weeks, the world is going to end. What’s in 11 weeks? New Year’s Day, of course! January 1st, 2000!
I remember December 31st, 1999, because I remember ditching a New Year’s Eve party to play Sonic Adventure on my Sega Dreamcast. Of course, things might have been different if my school chums were being forced into possession by gangsters on the island where I was going to school.
Sa la vie.
Hemsk Island is at the center of a conspiracy involving demon portals opening up, and it’s up to Faye to gather up a couple of demon hunters to stop them! Could this demon conspiracy go all the way to the top?
As Faye, the player is expected to make the most of their time each day, as there are a lot of things you can do on the island. Not all of them make a ton of sense, like playing Aina’s ‘Guess the Face’ game. But things like karaoke, beetle racing, and fishing are littered about the island, ready to be enjoyed.
Some of these mini-games are used to forge relationships with the other members of her crew, with whom she’ll interact throughout the game. Others are just good clean fun! Or, I guess, sometimes you’ll get things like currency, skills to learn, or cool stuff to put in your clubhouse.
There are so many little things in Demonschool that just delighted me to no end. The clubhouse, for example, can be customized to fit the player’s desired style. Maybe you want your clubhouse to just be packed to the gills with ’90s electronics, or perhaps you’d prefer a cafe, or an overgrown plant sanctuary? Each style has collectibles around the island for you to acquire and place.
Fishing and cooking were both minigames that I had a great time with. Both are extremely simple but very different in function. Fishing in a solo minigame that has multiple locations around the island, to fill out the fishing guide. Cooking is something you do for friends to grow closer. And they’re both simple and fun!
But Demonschool’s draw, the thing that’s going to make you keep playing, is the combat. The battle system is quick; it gives you the ability to rewind after planning an attack, restarts are simple, and the number of characters allows for a wide range of strategies.
Combat is a two-part affair, with a planning phase and an action phase. In the planning phase, Faye and three others will navigate a grid, pushing, pulling, and murdering demons, gangsters, and cops. The action phase plays it all out, allowing players to see the fruits of their labor.
I know restarts are simple because I often restart the entire combat sequence. You’re given marks at the end of combat based on how well you did. Combat is primarily fought on a wide, long grid. In the corner of the screen, Demonschool gives you a target. Kill X number of demons in Y turns.
However, there’s a little extra that needs to be done. Because you can’t just kill X number of demons by Y turn, and combat is over. A character has to be on the opposite side of the grid from where they started to seal the demon portal away.
Likewise, each turn is given eight action points. You can either move or attack (which can involve movement) for 1 action point, but every consecutive action that turn takes an extra action point.
There are a lot of little intricacies introduced throughout the game to make combat trickier and sometimes way more fun. For example, I have a character with an ability that attacks in an X or + pattern depending on the angle she attacks from. Her attacks also set enemies on fire. Fire deals damage at the end of every round and then spreads to nearby enemies.
Another thing that makes the combat so darn good is the variety of enemies. There are SO MANY different enemies in this game. Some enemies explode when you hit them, jump in the air and slam down on you, possess your team, remain stationary and attack from range, stun when they hit, kick you more than three spaces, the list goes on.
Your teammates are all equipped to deal with these baddies in different ways, but it can absolutely throw you for a loop if you’re not prepared. Thus, the restart and rewind buttons are crucial to the design of this combat system.
If I hadn’t praised the combat system enough, there are, in fact, boss battles, and they’re doozies. A lot of the boss fights have you dealing a single point of damage to the boss, and you have to deal with a specific mechanic heavily to meet the turn requirement.
So for one boss, you’re on grates above molten lava, and three valves pop up around the level. Navigating the level, the player must hit each valve once in order to spawn a big valve in the center. Hitting the valve causes it to shoot fire and knock back anyone around the valve at the end of the turn. So the player needs to rush in, hit it, and rush out before taking damage or being thrown off the level.
Some bosses seem a little hostile towards the player. One boss had tongues pop out of the center and slap the ground. If you got hit, it took away a single health point and knocked you to the side. However, Demonschool doesn’t communicate to the player where the tongue is going to hit, so that kinda sucked.
The combat rules, though, it’s fun, it has lots of different strategies and variables in it, I’m glad the combat system rules because Demonschool is mostly combat. Now, the other half is writing, and man, if it sucked, it’d be a drag. Luckily, at the very least, it’s witty and understands its purpose.
Demonschool’s story is fairly simple and does an excellent job of building. The stakes are slowly rising, and they do a pretty good job of unraveling the mystery over time. There’s one area that feels like a bit of a lore dump, but, again, masked well with where it fits in the story and is littered with combat.
However, the asides, character interactions, and relationship moments are top-notch. All the characters are a little kooky and have their own niches. Every character dominates their niche and is such a treat to have at the party. I have my favorites, but good golly, everyone is written so well and without leaning too hard in any direction.
Destin is a dumbass; he just likes to get into fights and doesn’t really understand the world around him that much. Do they lean into his stupidity? Not really! Sometimes it’s used for a bit of levity, but Destin has a heart of gold and is extremely helpful from a narrative perspective.
We’re spending a good amount of time with these characters, and Necrosoft Games knew how to round each of these characters out. The writing pairs very well with the static art portraits, which convey so much emotion with just slight changes in each frame.
I mentioned the art earlier, but it really is stellar; the whole world is gorgeous and perfectly filled out. And I wish I knew how to critique the music better, but there are a couple of earworms I have been humming all week. I’m really looking forward to listening to the soundtrack independently of the game.
If you’ve read my other reviews, I can be a little relentless when something doesn’t make sense to me. Demonschool being delayed over a year and still being as buggy as it is does not make sense to me. And had Demonschool not been such an incredible experience to play, this review would’ve been much shorter and much worse.
But damn it all, Necrosoft Games, you pulled it off. Demonschool is a treat!
The Final Word
Aside from the buggy launch, Demonschool is a must-play for RPG and turn-based strategy fans. Demonschool was made from top to bottom with care, and it shines through in nearly every frame.
MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
