Good lord, this aesthetic! I absolutely love it. I've played Das Geisterschiff before and it seems the dev improved since then, both on the technical and on the gameplay front, I think I'll give this a shot.
The aesthetic is what reeled me in, but the grind made me stay lol Das Geisterschiff is now on my radar, thank you for that! DLR deffo seems like a step up from DG but im buying it on sale :D
I feel this game had potential to truly stand out, but the devs clearly had a vision with this and were dead set into not straying from it one bit, to the game's disservice I think. Its a pretty basic dungeon crawler by modern standards. You cant really customize any of your characters other than choosing who will join the party at the start. There's no equipment system, no real progression system other than grinding battles and randomly unlocking new skills during fights. You dont level up, your characters just gain stats after a fight (you gain more the more "difficult" the fight was, depending on the strenght and number of the monsters killed), but the stat allocation is completely random, so you cant control progression either. The combat is pretty bare bones even for a game thats trying to copy the early wizardry games. You just choose your moves for the turn and then spam through the dozens of combat notes until the next turn. There's no tactics other than choose your target, trying to inflict status effects, buffing yourself or running away. Basically the only way to heal is by resting on the dungeon, done by pressing a key multiple times and hoping you arent attacked. You cant see the monsters in the dungeon either, it works like an old jrpg or the early dungeon crawlers, you just get into random encounters as you move/try to rest. The game has no map, so you have to draw it yourself, so I guess thats something if you're into that, but its actualy more incovenient than entertaining since there's little point in exploring the dungeon, since there's nothing actualy out there of interest other than the exits, traps, chests that only give random status changes, and pentagrams (which are only relevant after you beat the first part of the game). There's no sidequests or alternate routes, and no secrets to find other than one random encounter you can get anywhere in the dungeon, so no need to actualy crawl through the dungeon other than to find exits. The layout isnt randomly generated, so its the same every time you play. This game is pretty much a modern copy of that one early wizardry game rhat i cant recall, the one in which (Spoilers) You get to play the villain after you beat it once. After that you control the villain as he attempts to escape the dungeon, but with even less control since you cant actualy control the monsters you recruit along the way, so the second half of the game has even less gameplay. To its credit, the game has a pretty cool atmosphere, the few music tracks are cool and the sound effects are ok despite being pretty basic. The art is just pixelated, monocromatic versions of the stuff this one famous japanese game artist's stuff, so its pretty great. The dungeon environment is extremely basic, even early wizardry games had more to show. So yea, sorry for the rant, but this is the game in a nutshell. I feel there's so much that could have been done with this, the art and mood are great, but there's very little apart from that. In attempting to be "old school" the game just ended up being very bare bones. Unless you arent mapping, you'll likely only get a few hours out of it, and those hours wont be very engaging. You can get way better dungeon crawlers by getting the old wizardry games from GOG while paying less. Other than the art, this game really doesnt have anything else going for it. Feels almost like an asset flip, since the dungeon is extremely basic and the art is just taken from someone's archive.
You need to rant more because that was a great read. While I agree with you in majority of your points, this was my true first experience with this genre- which is why I rated it so highly. You're onto something, having customization & the sort could've made this game to something much greater. I read a lot of what the dev had to say about Demonlord & it came off to me as if this was gonna be a test to see if he should invest time into making something better- and while I know that comment in itself seems like a bit of a disservice to this game, it was just a breath of fresh air to be told straight up what it was gonna be instead of them promising a No Man's Sky. If you have any recommendations on something like this but better I'd love to know! ALSO- thank you very much for checking my video out, means a lot more than you'll ever know!
yes, like I mentioned in my Graphics, Sound & Artstyle- from Toriotto's Archive. The dev has been very open about it. twitter.com/surt_r/status/1656760071575990312?t=ZPPdxc8KR4C5qWV89xkGPg&s=19 I had never heard of the artist until DLR so I'm just happy to be consuming art here. Thanks for watching, hope you liked the review
I'm on the same boat as you, I hadn't really played anything like this prior, & there are times where I feel it's a barebones experience upon reflection. Like I said in the review, there's stuff missing like items Or a map that would greatly help this. It's currently on sale for $4 & that's not a bad entry price to dip your feet into the genre just keep in mind it's 100% a "does not hold your hand" type of game
man, you don't even know how much you made my entire day. thank you so much for those words of encouragement, may the universe bless you with everything you want for being so kind to me
@@MFKraven I believe that credit should always go where it’s due. Your video made me buy the game and I highly enjoy it! Keep up the good work and you’ll have a viewer out of me for life! 💜💜
yes! its good for what it is, and from what i understand the dev really just made this game as a sort of feeler to see if anyone would be interested in buying this sort of game. hopefully their next game comes with more mechanics like items & equipment systems, cause man this game is hard lol
How do you play the game on steam deck while drawing the map? I'm really curious. Or you don't draw the map at all? Also, thanks for the review, you gained a new subscriber!
obrigado amigo! you know you just blew my mind, I never even thought of drawing the map while playing. I more or less just remember where the lower level door is. Like I said in the video, I'm really new to this genre but after reading your comment I went to check out how people map it out. im seeing @smbhax 2000's video on how he does it, I didn't realize it was that complex lol
@@MFKraven Wow, I'll take a look at his video too. I thought about it thinking about Etrian Odyssey. People say that there are also a lot of old school games where you have to draw maps, but I never played them.
The artwork is the only great thing about it,it sounds like from the comments. I'll probably get it anyway. Its on sale for 5.59 on psn right now.5-5-24. Thats top notch character illustration.
Yes, like I mentioned in my review- the art is from Toriotto's archive, the artist allowed to use it in other projects, including commercial ones. www.pixiv.net/en/users/5887541/artworks
@@MFKraven I'm 43, I did play games from 30 years ago with more features than this It has nothing, no map, no inventory Heck even the character selection has no UI, you have to "scroll" until you find what you want The main viewport is useless, it shows no monsters, no items, nothing at all Minimal is a style but this game is not minimal, it's just empty, lacking any interesting feature Feels like a project assembled in 2 months with "stolen" art just to cash in some money, I expect more seriousness from indie devs these days
completely valid points, this is my first real experience with this genre of dungeon crawlers, admittedly cut some slack for what I thought was an artistic approach. I'd love to play a proper dungeon crawler if you have a recommendation for me. Thank you for taking the time to comment on my video btw!
@@MFKraven If a real one has to have an old release date and a bunch of content, it's Daggerfall. I first played the vanilla version a few months ago and it's still playable today. Actually, the whole skeleton of serial mechanics is here. From modern dungeons, this is Delver. But regarding the Demon Lord Reincarnation, I totally disagree with the previous commenter. There is nothing superfluous in this game and it works. Everything else is in the head. As a fan of board games, I really liked this project. And a map on a piece of paper, and a separate manual, style, music, darkness. There are even narrative meetings here, I did not count on them. And also this game is good for my initial English learning. The bottom line is that different games are for different players.
This gives me Wizardry vibes.
Good lord, this aesthetic! I absolutely love it. I've played Das Geisterschiff before and it seems the dev improved since then, both on the technical and on the gameplay front, I think I'll give this a shot.
The aesthetic is what reeled me in, but the grind made me stay lol
Das Geisterschiff is now on my radar, thank you for that! DLR deffo seems like a step up from DG but im buying it on sale :D
I feel this game had potential to truly stand out, but the devs clearly had a vision with this and were dead set into not straying from it one bit, to the game's disservice I think.
Its a pretty basic dungeon crawler by modern standards. You cant really customize any of your characters other than choosing who will join the party at the start. There's no equipment system, no real progression system other than grinding battles and randomly unlocking new skills during fights. You dont level up, your characters just gain stats after a fight (you gain more the more "difficult" the fight was, depending on the strenght and number of the monsters killed), but the stat allocation is completely random, so you cant control progression either.
The combat is pretty bare bones even for a game thats trying to copy the early wizardry games. You just choose your moves for the turn and then spam through the dozens of combat notes until the next turn. There's no tactics other than choose your target, trying to inflict status effects, buffing yourself or running away. Basically the only way to heal is by resting on the dungeon, done by pressing a key multiple times and hoping you arent attacked.
You cant see the monsters in the dungeon either, it works like an old jrpg or the early dungeon crawlers, you just get into random encounters as you move/try to rest.
The game has no map, so you have to draw it yourself, so I guess thats something if you're into that, but its actualy more incovenient than entertaining since there's little point in exploring the dungeon, since there's nothing actualy out there of interest other than the exits, traps, chests that only give random status changes, and pentagrams (which are only relevant after you beat the first part of the game). There's no sidequests or alternate routes, and no secrets to find other than one random encounter you can get anywhere in the dungeon, so no need to actualy crawl through the dungeon other than to find exits. The layout isnt randomly generated, so its the same every time you play.
This game is pretty much a modern copy of that one early wizardry game rhat i cant recall, the one in which
(Spoilers)
You get to play the villain after you beat it once. After that you control the villain as he attempts to escape the dungeon, but with even less control since you cant actualy control the monsters you recruit along the way, so the second half of the game has even less gameplay.
To its credit, the game has a pretty cool atmosphere, the few music tracks are cool and the sound effects are ok despite being pretty basic. The art is just pixelated, monocromatic versions of the stuff this one famous japanese game artist's stuff, so its pretty great. The dungeon environment is extremely basic, even early wizardry games had more to show.
So yea, sorry for the rant, but this is the game in a nutshell. I feel there's so much that could have been done with this, the art and mood are great, but there's very little apart from that. In attempting to be "old school" the game just ended up being very bare bones. Unless you arent mapping, you'll likely only get a few hours out of it, and those hours wont be very engaging. You can get way better dungeon crawlers by getting the old wizardry games from GOG while paying less. Other than the art, this game really doesnt have anything else going for it. Feels almost like an asset flip, since the dungeon is extremely basic and the art is just taken from someone's archive.
You need to rant more because that was a great read. While I agree with you in majority of your points, this was my true first experience with this genre- which is why I rated it so highly.
You're onto something, having customization & the sort could've made this game to something much greater. I read a lot of what the dev had to say about Demonlord & it came off to me as if this was gonna be a test to see if he should invest time into making something better- and while I know that comment in itself seems like a bit of a disservice to this game, it was just a breath of fresh air to be told straight up what it was gonna be instead of them promising a No Man's Sky.
If you have any recommendations on something like this but better I'd love to know! ALSO- thank you very much for checking my video out, means a lot more than you'll ever know!
@@MFKraven “Operencia the Stolen Sun” goes on sale for dirt cheap all of the time. Same with “A Bard’s Tale IV”. Both are great
Been playing this game it's fun, yeah it's brutal but I love it so much
truthfully we are masochists because the pain of grinding it out for a few hours to be wrecked in seconds once we get to the second floor? ooft
Lol this looks like a persona 1 or smt 1 dungeons that's so cool I will try it if I get a laptop or maybe on my friend's pc
Cool review.
I'm playing now, and somehow the message scrolling in battle is going too fast now. Do you know how to slow it down?
Hell yeah
Love the art style!
that's exactly what drew me in, glad it did cause I'm having a blast with it.
its all 3rd party assets from a pivix artist
yes, like I mentioned in my Graphics, Sound & Artstyle- from Toriotto's Archive.
The dev has been very open about it.
twitter.com/surt_r/status/1656760071575990312?t=ZPPdxc8KR4C5qWV89xkGPg&s=19
I had never heard of the artist until DLR so I'm just happy to be consuming art here. Thanks for watching, hope you liked the review
I absolutely love the art style, but would this be a good introduction to the genre? I've never played a dungeon crawler or ttrpg.
I'm on the same boat as you, I hadn't really played anything like this prior, & there are times where I feel it's a barebones experience upon reflection. Like I said in the review, there's stuff missing like items Or a map that would greatly help this. It's currently on sale for $4 & that's not a bad entry price to dip your feet into the genre just keep in mind it's 100% a "does not hold your hand" type of game
This was an awesome video. Get this man some subscribers
man, you don't even know how much you made my entire day. thank you so much for those words of encouragement, may the universe bless you with everything you want for being so kind to me
@@MFKraven I believe that credit should always go where it’s due. Your video made me buy the game and I highly enjoy it! Keep up the good work and you’ll have a viewer out of me for life! 💜💜
Nice review man. The aesthetic is undeniably dope
I’m currently playing it, which is how I found this video. It’s good… I do wish it had an item & equipment system. That would have put it over the top
yes! its good for what it is, and from what i understand the dev really just made this game as a sort of feeler to see if anyone would be interested in buying this sort of game. hopefully their next game comes with more mechanics like items & equipment systems, cause man this game is hard lol
How do you play the game on steam deck while drawing the map? I'm really curious. Or you don't draw the map at all? Also, thanks for the review, you gained a new subscriber!
obrigado amigo!
you know you just blew my mind, I never even thought of drawing the map while playing. I more or less just remember where the lower level door is. Like I said in the video, I'm really new to this genre but after reading your comment I went to check out how people map it out. im seeing @smbhax 2000's video on how he does it, I didn't realize it was that complex lol
@@MFKraven Wow, I'll take a look at his video too. I thought about it thinking about Etrian Odyssey. People say that there are also a lot of old school games where you have to draw maps, but I never played them.
The artwork is the only great thing about it,it sounds like from the comments. I'll probably get it anyway. Its on sale for 5.59 on psn right now.5-5-24. Thats top notch character illustration.
This is one of the coolest game I’ve seen in years.
Wizardry Lite?
Yeah essentially that is the general consensus lol
Aren't these character art sprites from Buriedbornes? Very sus...
Yes, like I mentioned in my review- the art is from Toriotto's archive, the artist allowed to use it in other projects, including commercial ones.
www.pixiv.net/en/users/5887541/artworks
mediocre, at best
not a fan? if I may ask, what didn't you like about it?
@@MFKraven I'm 43, I did play games from 30 years ago with more features than this
It has nothing, no map, no inventory
Heck even the character selection has no UI, you have to "scroll" until you find what you want
The main viewport is useless, it shows no monsters, no items, nothing at all
Minimal is a style but this game is not minimal, it's just empty, lacking any interesting feature
Feels like a project assembled in 2 months with "stolen" art just to cash in some money, I expect more seriousness from indie devs these days
completely valid points, this is my first real experience with this genre of dungeon crawlers, admittedly cut some slack for what I thought was an artistic approach. I'd love to play a proper dungeon crawler if you have a recommendation for me.
Thank you for taking the time to comment on my video btw!
@@giampaolomannucci8281 What's the point in saying it uses stolen art when it doesn't? Kinda invalidates anything you have to say about the game/
@@MFKraven If a real one has to have an old release date and a bunch of content, it's Daggerfall. I first played the vanilla version a few months ago and it's still playable today. Actually, the whole skeleton of serial mechanics is here.
From modern dungeons, this is Delver.
But regarding the Demon Lord Reincarnation, I totally disagree with the previous commenter. There is nothing superfluous in this game and it works. Everything else is in the head. As a fan of board games, I really liked this project.
And a map on a piece of paper, and a separate manual, style, music, darkness. There are even narrative meetings here, I did not count on them. And also this game is good for my initial English learning.
The bottom line is that different games are for different players.