Demon’s Crystals is a twin stick shooter in which you control one of four characters going from level to level fighting off hordes of demons and collecting crystals while upgrading your character in the process.
General Gameplay
This is a 4-player co-op that is both competitive and co-op both via online and offline. The main objective is to fight off hordes of enemies in waves or collect crystals that are scattered around the level and each level consist of 2 to 3 waves that have different objectives to finish. The Game Visuals are very vibrant for the game. Lots of bright colors fill the screen as well details to both your character as well enemies. The game objects are easy to see but when action gets heavy on the screen it gets harder to see what is going on (more on this in our Family Friendly Section) In the colors on the screen, so of our gamers had a hard time seeing the red and green colors but again with some adjustments of the monitor this was easily fixed. As the game is presented in a top down view it is very easy to see where you are going and what you are doing. The game does have some more of the Japanese infusion of girls holding guns and more of the outfits are a little revealing, so parents that have younger children, you may want to use caution on having them view this, again it is cartoon revealing but still but better to err of the side of caution. Also, this was a minor issue as in the gameplay itself you do not see this as much, so still use your best judgement. The Audio of the game is in more of an anime flare of its background music. The sound effects are mostly sounds of the monsters from growls, grunts, and howls, and weapons firing from the weapons itself. There is no spoken dialog so there is no need to worry about something off color being said. In our playtesting, we did not run into any issues of any offensive language or any dialogue that would be offensive to younger gamers, if anything it is everything that you would expect in a shooter. The Controls for Demon’s Crystal are very easy to play. As the left thumb stick controls the player, the right one is used aim and fire the weapon in the game. This is one of the easiest controller setups that we have seen in a long time and it makes it very easy for any gamer, young to old to pick up the game and play. As the game is a shooter, there is no need for a special controller to play the game. In our playtesting we did not run into any issues with the controller setup and all that tested the game felt that it was very easy to play the game.
“As with any frantic shooter, Demon’s Crystals offers lots of things to shoot, problem is that its gets boring after a while to shoot the same things repeatedly”
Family Friendly
This was an interesting title to review as we had twin stick shooter and non-twin stick shooter fans alike come to the same conclusion about this game, but we will cover this in a moment. The game is very clear cut in its design, control a player, gain experience to make your character stronger, pick up power ups that have a timer of use, shoot enemies and repeat the process over and over again till you reach a boss level in which you do the same, shoot, gain experience, get power up, then shoot again. Some of our shooter fans really liked the game as well non-shooter fans but all of them after a while got bored of the gameplay. Another issue, but more of a general issue is that when 4 players are playing on the screen it does become harder to keep track of where your character is. Again, this is a general issue with 4 players on the same screen on most games but because of the vibrant colors it made it harder to keep track for some of our gamers when testing. The good thing that this game has is different variations of gameplay from the standard arcade mode, survival mode, and even some multiplayer modes that keep the game fresh, however trying to find gamers online to play with it is a lot harder that it sounds. Another issue is that there is no explanation of what to do in the game or even an area to adjust your controller settings, now as the game controls are very easy to use, it is still weird that currently, there is no tutorial to explain how to play the game. As we were playing the game, we did not even know what to do with the crystals that were collected in the level. Do we use them to buy power up, or add one, again no explanation caused some frustration in some gamers and lead to an unenjoyable experience? Now to say that this is a bad game, well no, it is more of an acquired taste in this style of game. I personally when testing the game enjoyed the game a lot, but another tester that is also a twin stick shooter fan did not as much and stopped playing the game after an hour. This is one of those games that is best to either watch gameplay footage online or if you can try the demo. The good news is that because the cost of the game is so cheap and if you have a shooter fan in your gaming family the investment into Demon’s Crystals is not bad. In our special needs game testing, outside of the color issue with the red and green on the screen, we did not meet any issues with the graphics, sound, or even controls.
Closing
Demon’s Crystals is a run of the mill shooter. With limited power ups, enemies and unique level design it is for only the hard core shooter fans in your gaming family.
