With the advent of Steam Greenlight and the early access model, the indie market has gained the advantage of being able to expand almost indefinitely. This is of course what happened with Valve's platform, which quickly filled up with independent productions of more or less fluctuating quality. Certainly there is no need to talk about this reality, we are all aware of what we can find on Steam. Among these works comes Demon Skin by Ludus Future and Buka Entertainment, a hack 'n' slash platform that continually tries to differentiate itself among the thousands of other similar titles with particular playful mechanics. Demon Skin initially presents itself in its simplicity, in the continuous "not being able to differentiate itself from the other indies" that characterizes most of the low relief productions on Steam. Let's talk about an experience with a profoundly linear structure: in short, we are the basis of creativity in videogame development but, as we will explain in our review, Demon Skin also has interesting advantages. The software house has in fact focused a lot on the creation of a combat system that smooths the otherwise monotonous gameplay giving it a considerable strength.
If we had just had to jump across platforms and dodge deadly traps, Demon Skin would have been a lot more boring. In reverse, the combat system shows itself as a hybridization between that of For Honor and the purest souls-like. To characterize the combat system there is an interesting mechanic through which we can choose the position of the protagonist's weapon: a sign on the screen in front of the character indicates the direction from which he will parry the attacks or, in the case in which this becomes red color, where the shot will come from. This applies to both the protagonist and all enemies, and will represent a mechanic as important as it is pressing. In our opinion, in fact, it is the combat system that most characterizes Demon Skin. During the 5/6 hours required to complete the game we found the fights difficult and rewarding, and the magic comes when you begin to perceive the need to correctly ration potions or to learn the opponent's attacks to save energy and stamina. Because yes, the souls-like nature of Demon Skin manifests itself during the most challenging fights, which may require several attempts to be completed and which will require a lot of concentration in order not to be quickly overwhelmed by the opponent.
The lights and shadows of Demon Skin
To season an already effective combat system we find the possibility of carrying more weapons, which each type has specific bonuses and / or malus to the attack power and defense. Also, exploring the map and defeating particular enemies we can get our hands on special weapons. These will allow the player, through classic combos, to make unique and very powerful attacks. Unfortunately, this is precisely where one of the first problems of Demon Skin comes: after attacking an enemy we will not see the exact amount of damage we will inflict displayedThis could be particularly problematic when we start using diversified attacks.
The second problem regarding the combat system is related to animations, not only of the characters but also of everything else, which all too often appear unrealistic. Although it is evident that the development team took a long time to make some - such as our shots -, the same cannot be said for opponent attacks, for objects that are destroyed or for specific environmental alterations, such as for example an avalanche; moreover, the transition from one animation to another often turns out to be gross. We could also turn a blind eye to this detail, but unfortunately this turns out to be a concrete flaw by the time the protagonist takes too long to turn his back, a peculiarity that makes progress in the scenarios unnecessarily cumbersome and risks discovering us to enemy attacks that could be lethal. Unfortunately, this slowness weighs heavily on the gameplay, and we strongly believe that speeding up the animation could have significantly improved both the combat and exploration phases.
An accurate and always interesting level design
While not excellent for originality, we must recognize that a decent job has also been done with the level design: structured in such a way as to always make the exploration clear and defined the objectives to be achieved, the design of the scenarios still boasts a modest variety both in terms of settings and environmental puzzles, albeit decidedly reduced to the bone. The software house has shown that it can correctly position checkpoints, traps, enemies and secrets, particularly important in order to find chests that contain potions or sometimes weapons, objects necessary to survive waves of increasingly challenging enemies.
Wanting to continue analyzing the scenarios, we were definitely surprised to see how much care went into creating detailed and very scenic backgrounds. This is a good choice, given that what happens behind the protagonist would have risked being overshadowed: on the contrary, the development team was able to orchestrate a good mix of lights, colors and environments that are always different and suitable for the situation. The result is ultimately a valid level design and that, mixed with the combat system, manages to be appreciated even more. Once again, however, we must point the finger at coarse animations, which disturb the beauty of the details in too awkward ways. Seeing barrels spinning unnaturally, or enemies moving without a precise logic undoubtedly ruins the spectacle that the team was able to achieve. Inevitably, on a visual level, the limitations that have characterized the work of the software house are strongly felt.
Sore point also for the environmental puzzles that, although they are not a point on which the work wants to aim, they are always too obvious and banal, and fail to further diversify the linear advancement proposed to us. Let's mix them with frequent lack of visual cues that they suggest what we need to do and where we need to go and we get as a result a cross between confusion and frustration that is certainly not good for Demon Skin. A similar speech could be made for the bosses who, although they are aesthetically (almost) always different, have very similar attacks and animations to each other. In addition, very often we have had to deal with an unsatisfactory visual feedback that doesn't always help us understand if our attacks are going to hit or, conversely, if the opponents are about to make one move rather than another.
As you may have understood, the frustration arising from technical uncertainties is a constant that we often have to deal with in Demon Skin and that could risk weighing on a valid combat system. In our opinion, a flaw that could have been avoided very easily concerns the inability to select certain parts of the story in which to start the game. Given that often some bosses will be particularly difficult to defeat, it may be useful to restart a portion of the game to get your hands on better weapons, potions or more simply to level up. Unfortunately this is not a possibility that the title offers us, and to go back in history we will always have to start from scratch.
However, if we were to search for the biggest flaw in the production, we would immediately point the finger at the entire narrative sector. Not very original and told through unnecessary interruptions, never manages to stand out as he would like, ending up too often to fall into ridicule with embarrassing dialogues and texts in English. Here we are not talking (only) of a wrong translation work, but of a serious linguistic deficiency that has ended up completely destroying the already empty stage sector. Was it really that difficult to write correctly those few lines of text that appear on very rare occasions? In short, Demon Skin is a constant technical uncertainty made of rough and slow animations, frequent bugs and sometimes even unresponsive commands. However, we must break a lance in his favor, and above all to the development team: we do not have the usual indie platform production in front of us where we take on the role of a knight armed with a sword and shield in which to defeat the umpteenth undead in rapid sequence.
