The exiled princess Amelia has turned into a succubus and joined the peaceful monstergirl tribe. Then invaders arrive led by her sister Angelina. Fighting back with her newfound powers of hypnosis and demonization she departs to take on the kingdom in a desperate bid to save her new people.
This is now my favorite shmup game. And it is also the second one (besides Tyrian) that i actually finished. Though the last level in the campaign nearly drove me crazy... i loved it.
I had this game for 2 years sitting in my library without playing it. I really should have played it earlier.
I come from the Touhou school of shmups, so it took a little while getting used to. it But I love just about everything about Demonizer. The music, how easy it is to get new bombs, the variety, hell I love the lore too. The difficulty on Normal is firm enough, can't wait to have my butt sent to Hell on Hard next time. I liked the part where Amy proves to the priest just how much she'd rather die instead of her Mommy, but the priest just doesn't have it.
Is there a way to connect the itch version to the steam leaderboards when I don't have the game on my steam account. The directions given on the leaderboards screen hasn't worked and I gave my steam key to my brother lol.
whenever you buy a game from a bundle, unless otherwise stated, the games are only available from Itch. The keys are usually given if you buy the game separate from a bundle (again, unless otherwise stated).
This game is very charming, and has a lot of old-school arcade fun. I like the whole thing a lot, but the gameplay has been very up and down so far. I have a lot of experience with bullet hell type games, but for some reason I can't seem to get the hang of this one. I'm playing through it on normal, and I thought I would have finished it by now.
I will echo some other reviewers here in saying that it's just really unforgiving, especially in the later stages. I lose my point of reference on my character very frequently against the background and swarms of enemies. There are times I'm doing well and having a lot of fun, and there are times where I feel the game is actively trying to ruin it for me. It's satisfying to beat a stage, but frustrating to struggle all the way through one just to die as soon as the boss intro cutscene is over.
If I spent more time memorizing enemy formations and bullet patterns, maybe I'd be performing better-- but I don't really enjoy that kind of play. In terms of constructive feedback: more checkpoints really would help. The extra checkpoints could even be a feature exclusive to the normal difficulty.
Your mileage may vary. I think the game's definitely worth your time. Personally, I want to know what happens in the story. I just don't know if I'll be able to get past the frustration to find out how it ends.
Picked this up about 3-4 months ago during a special sale and I'm disappointed in myself for not playing it earlier. This is a really fun SHMUP (keep your eyes out for the secret character). Glad more people will get to try this out due to it being bundled with the Bundle for Ukraine.
I would buy the soundtrack as well! It's really well done. I wish there was a way to turn off the BG like that touhou player said - and a bright dot for my player character helps too. idk how big my hitbox was
The major weak point I would point out would be the contrast between background and projectiles. The palette restriction makes it that I sometimes lose focus from my character because its color blends more or less with the other elements. For some reason, the animation of the road on highway also steals part of my attention away from projectiles, but the color issues overall will probably not be a problem anymore once I'm more familiarized with the game.
EDIT : Went back into it after a few days an yeah, the highway boss is definitely a cut above the previous ones... Throwing 3 bombs at start can't even get rid of half the 2 side units. Definitely requires training and a near-perfect knowledge of the stage, but it definitely looks possible >:D
As a casual player I could only make any progress with a constant stream of vitriol about unfair it was and restarting every time I got hit, and even then I hit a brick wall at Cave level. There weren't any levels I could finish without dying and losing most/all my power-ups, and despite really liking the aesthetic and being really interested in where the story was going, there is no way I'll find out.
As someone else suggested, an easy mode with unlimited lives and continue where you died would make it possible for me to see the story without being in a state of constant anger that drives my SO out of the room. I'm not really interested in flying through levels without enemies - I'm here to play a shooting game -but your normal mode requires memorizing the level layout, enemy placement, enemy behavior, bullet patterns, etc. I can't look at where I'm shooting and keep an eye on my character to dodge bullets at the same time, I just haven't got the shooting game chops and this game discourages me from developing that skill by being inordinately hard from the start, and only going up from there.
Ironically you already have an easy mode implemented in "Single Stage" mode, in that I can start with extra lives or power-ups, from any checkpoint and even at the boss. But I can only play levels I've already been to in this easier mode, which is a catch-22, seeing as I'm not good enough to get to the next level to unlock it. If there was a way to unlock all levels, this would also aid casual shooter fans that would like to enjoy your work. [but it seems story isn't enabled in this mode] [alternatively just having an option in Retry prompt to retry with power ups and lives]
I've suggested a number of ways you could make this game easier, because I really want to love it and see the ending, and any or all of them could make this game accessible to me. You've pitched it as "beginners, enthusiasts, and experts can all enjoy" but I wouldn't say this is true in it's current state, unless you count playing halfway through one level as enjoyment.
As an indie dev myself, I can imagine that this feedback isn't fun to read, or that you might not have the resources to implement any of these features and that's fine. I'd like to tell you I'm still glad this game exists, and I look forward to your future creative endeavors. Thank you for all your hard work, and for offering this game in the bundle in service of such a good cause.
I played the Android demo of the game. I love the gameplay and the chara design. You need to update the tutorail with this version, because that speak about keyboard instead of touch control, it's the same to launch bomb ;).
It's somewhere in style between Raptor: Call Of The Shadows and Tohou, and it innovates on the shmup style in a number of interesting ways. Enemies take cover. Environments are cluttered and destructible. There are a lot of elements packed into the (relatively) short game that made me think and strategize more than I'm used to when playing a shmup.
It *is* a bullet hell, and you're probably going to want to use the mouse for it, but also your sprite is large and can get kind of cluttered with allies, so screen clearing is a bit more effective than dodging.
Story-wise, there's clearly a plot, and there's some animated cutscenes, but the narrative isn't so much what you're here for. Monsters oppressed. Humans oppressive. I don't dislike the worldbuilding Demonizer is doing, but it's either too present or not present enough. The campaign mode's neat, but I felt like there was some backstory I was supposed to have read for it to have hit home.
Other than that, my biggest complaint about Demonizer is kind of just a complaint aimed at shmups in general. It has win-more mechanics. As you eliminate enemies, you gain blue and red hearts. Blue hearts increase the power and width of your beam. Red hearts add sidekicks. Both have the potential to go away when you take a point of damage---they scatter like sonic's rings, and you have to retrieve them without pathing yourself onto another bullet in the process.
In early stages, you can recover from this. There's enough low-level mobs that you can kind of figure out how to ramp up before the damage sponges and pellet-spammers start showing up. In later stages though, oof. Especially with things sometimes hitting and killing you without it being clear a) what hit you, or b) why it killed you. For example, burning patches on the ground seem to kill you, but only sometimes. And only some types of burning patches. Also water sometimes damages you for flying over it, with no visual indication as to why.
I'm not especially good at these types of games, so if you're a veteran your mileage will absolutely vary, but to me Demonizer felt like something you play through in one successful run or not at all. And so to that end, I kind of wish it had some RPG mechanics stirred in. If you could spend your exp at the end of each stage to upgrade, and you could keep your upgrades, dying once during a stage wouldn't mean having to instantly reset your run.
Great game! I especially love the aesthetics. It reminds me a little of Undead Line (MSX) and Sylphia (PC Engine), among other fantastic retro games. I would love an "easy" (and perhaps a "super easy") mode for a casual gamer like me who would want to fly through the levels, enjoying the aesthetics and a mild challenge. Such a mode could have fewer bullets, easier patterns of bullets, fewer enemies, more power-ups, etc. Thanks for putting this game out!
That's an interesting idea. I don't think I've seen that implemented in any game. I would definitely check that out. I would also be interested in an unlimited-continue-start-right-where-you-died mode. Although such a mode wouldn't be meditative, it would allow anyone to plow through the game, with the benefit of being able to practice any and all parts of the game.
This is wrong. I can understand the complex morality and go beyond the old "people are good/monsters are evil" framework, but this game suggests we just do wrong things. "Capture soldiers to harvest their spirit energy or transform them into allied demons"this is completely unfair to humans as a species. Such things and forced to drink a sedative
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