1551: Late-Night Dungeon

I’ve been dipping in and out of Demon Gaze since I wrote about it a few days ago, and while it has a few issues here and there — the discussion of which I’ll save until my review on USgamer, coming next week — I’ve been really rather impressed with this game.

In fact, that’s a bit of an understatement; on more than one occasion now the game has kept me up until well past 3 in the morning after I thought I’d just flip the Vita on for a “quick” game in bed before I went to sleep. (Granted, the last occasion this happened — last night — I had had far too much caffeine throughout the course of the day and was consequently finding it very difficult to sleep, but I could have done anything else with that time, and I chose to spend it lying in bed playing Demon Gaze.)

I’ve been trying to pin down what’s so enjoyable about it and it’s honestly quite difficult. It’s not that there’s no obvious good features about it; it’s that they blend together somewhat, and different aspects of the game appeal in different ways according to the conditions under which you’re playing.

Playing late at night, as I was, I was particularly enjoying the dungeon-crawling aspect of it. It’s not quite as hardcore as the 3DS series it’s taking pot-shots at, Etrian Odyssey in that you don’t have to map the damn thing by hand, but it’s still a game that, from the very outset, doesn’t hold you by the hand and expects you not only to work things out for yourself but also to experiment with the mechanics just to see what happens.

The core game structure is based around capturing demons. In order to do this, you must explore the dungeon that is the demon’s domain and capture all of the “circles” throughout by tossing a gem into them and then fighting the slobbering monsters that come out. Win, and you’ll capture the circle as well as receive an item according to the gem you tossed. Lose, and, well, you’re dead and better hope you had a recent save.

For the most part, this isn’t an issue. The monsters that come out of the cirlces are usually the same monsters you get in the rest of the dungeon, though sometimes in considerably larger numbers. As such, if your party is well-equipped to batter its way through the monsters in the dungeon, they can probably deal with the groups that come out of the circles.

Until the demon master of the dungeon shows their face unexpectedly, that is. You’re set up to believe they won’t turn up until you’ve captured all the circles and found the boss fight location, but in actuality what happens is some time around when you capture about half of the circles in the dungeon, the next one you try for will summon the demon. And it’s entirely possible they will smash your face in and then wear your buttocks as a hat, particularly in the first dungeon where your characters likely still aren’t all that powerful or well-geared.

The first time this happened, I thought I’d done something horribly wrong. Surely the game balance couldn’t be that broken? I experimented a bit; did the demon only come out of one circle, or all of them? (All of them.) Was it every time? (No, but seemingly most of the time.) Did using special abilities help? (A little.) Did levelling up help? (A lot.) Did better equipment help? (Also a lot.) By the time I’d reached my own conclusions — I should have just run away the first time I encountered Mars, then come back better-equipped and better-trained a little later, and probably with a healer in tow — it felt enormously satisfying to take the demon down and effectively clear the dungeon.

There are more subtle things, too. Occasionally you’ll find “Loot Maps” as random treasures in battle, for example, and these will give an area name, an X and Y map reference and the name of the “power” you need to reveal the hidden treasure at that location. Trouble is, the area name never matches the actual area names — “Garden of Thorns” becomes “The Vine-y Land” — so you have to use a bit of your own brainpower and deduction to figure out what it’s referring to. (Pro-tip: if the grid reference the map is pointing to appears to be a solid wall miles away from anything, you’re probably looking at the wrong area.) You also have to figure out which of the demons the “power” names refer to — rather than saying “you need Comet, Mars or Chronos” it’ll say something like “requires Dragon power” or the like. Again, there’s a wonderful feeling of smug satisfaction when you successfully decipher a map and uncover the treasure hidden in the location — particularly when the treasure in question is something that you’ve been searching for for hours for a quest.

Demon Gaze doesn’t give up its secrets easily, then, but for me, this is proving to be one of the best things about it as it makes your victories feel like genuine accomplishments. I’m looking forward to working my way through the rest of the game not only to see how the interesting story proceeds, but also for more sweet old-school grid-based exploration and treasure-hunting.

It’s bringing back fond memories of old titles like Lands of Lore, it of the Patrick Stewart-voiced intro fame, and will be a solid investment for any Vita-toting players who have a penchant for traditional dungeon-crawling. Watch out for it — and my full review — this week.