Demon Gaze Review

The Vita is completely full of JRPGs. So many that discerning between the good and the bad can become a real task. Many great JRPGs such as Person 4 Golden, YS: Memories of Celceta, and Disgaea grace our Vitas. However they are accompanied by many "wastes of money" and overall bad gaming experiences. When it comes to JRPGs fans are looking for stories that draw players in and gaming experiences that stick to the JRPG fundamentals, but offer unique and sometimes never before seen gaming experiences.

Demon Gaze manages to pull off all of this, and officially place itself in the list of good JRPGs on the Vita. The game is not without its faults, however the experience Demon Gaze offers is unique and captivating. Demon Gaze does takes the JRPG experience and morphs it just enough to create a "different" experience while keeping JRPG fanatics happy.

Gameplay 9/10- Demon Gaze's gameplay is partially where the game truly shines. Demon Gaze is a dungeon crawler at heart. Most of the games fun is spent roaming through dungeons, gaining new hidden items and equipment, while building up your party.

While most of the game is spent dungeon crawling there is still a lot to do outside of the dungeon. When not in the dungeon you will spend most of your time at the Dragon Princess Inn. Like most RPGs the Inn provides everything a player needs to prepare to enter into battle again. The Dragon Princess Inn consists of four floors, each of which has a certain task that you can complete. While not every feature is initially available eventually while you are in the Inn you will be able to shop for new weapons and armor, change difficulty settings, revive dead players, upgrade weapons, decorate rooms, and so much more.

The craziest thing about Dragon Princess Inn is that the player will be charged rent to stay there. Initially the rent is low and as you progresss the rent becomes much higher. You also have to pay rent each and every day. The "paying rent feature" is in no way a bad feature. It is a very fun and welcome feature that takes the traditional JRPG and adds a little flavor to it. It is amazing how something so simple as charging rent in a JRPG is so innovative. It is just so refreshing to see different features in a JRPG that most games do not have.

Fighting in dungeons is very similar to any other dungeon crawler. You will fight demons, rinse and repeat. However the game gets more interesting than that, because of various features put into the game. You will be able to defeat demons and then capture them to use in another battle. This amazing feature definitely adds to the experience. The demons are AI and will choose to either attack your enemies or help heal you.

Overall the gameplay in Demon Gaze is very amazing. The ability to summon demons, and oddly enough even the feature of having to pay rent adds some flavor to the game that sets it apart from just being another JRPG. The game has at least a good 40+ hours of gameplay, and from the gameplay alone is a great reason to buy the game.

Story 8/10- The story of Demon Gaze is pretty good as well. You take on the role of Oz, a young man that has a special eye capable of allowing him to capture the souls of enemies he defeats, hints why you can use demons that you have defeated in battles.

Oz is in the kingdom of Mislid, which has been overrun by demons. Oz then decides that because he owes the Inn owner a favor he will set out to capture the monsters and demons. He then becomes a mercenary for the Inn.

The story is not necessarily anything extremely special, you will not get attatched to the characters at all. However I do not believe that is what the developers had in mind anyways. As with most NIS America games you can expect a lot of humor infused into the storyline. I personally love the humor, however the game often contains a lot of crude humor and suggestive content.

Overall the story is your general story from a JRPG. It does not really have anything that is extremely special or that pops out. The humor is definitely a plus and adds a bit of light to a fairly dark game. However the sexual dialogue can be a bit much for many gamers.

Replay 7/10- Every game has some replay value to an extent. Most of the time the replay value being the option to go back and platinum the game. Demon Gaze has fairly decent replay value, however it truly depends on whether or not you are a big fan of JRPG games.

Other than gaining trophies there is no real reason to go back and play this game again. Demon Gaze is an amazing game to playthrough, however I believe that there is not a whole lot of reason to play through the game twice. Once again though it obviously just depends on whether you are a big JRPG fan or not.

Graphics/Sound 9/10- The artstyle of Demon Gaze gets a lot of criticism for being pre-rendered, and apparently a lot of people dislike the first-person aspect of the game. I personally did not have a huge problem with any of this.

The arstyle is actually very great in Demon Gaze. The colors pop and the artstyly is a perfect match for the style of game that Demon Gaze is. I also should add that I never ran into in lags or slow downs during the games cutscenes or gameplay in general. The sound here is perfectly fine as well. Not a whole lot to talk about involving the sound. The hardest part is getting used to the way the artstyle looks when playing from a first person perspective.


Overall Demon Gaze is a truly fun game. It has various issues that are not necessarily issues. All of the problems with the game are not even truly issues, they are just gamers personal preferences. Whether it be the crude humor or the slightly odd first person gameplay, each issue that I have with the game are just personal problems. Other than those few issues the game is a truly must have. The games story won't wrap you up but the games story is meant to humorous not captivating. Demon Gaze truly deserves to be considered one of the better JRPGs on the Vita.

Gameplay- 9/10

Story-  8/10

Replay- 7/10

Graphics/Sound- 9/10

Overall

9/10

Friday, May 09, 2014