I've been without internet, my modem got damaged and I haven't had internet for almost a week and I'm currently connected to a wifi network that is not very good (although my normal internet hasn't been very good either), luckily I already had some games downloaded and although not all of them are good enough to make a review, I found a pretty good one, with a gameplay similar to Castlevania, but with a plot even darker than the famous Vampire game. It's a fairly unknown game, I've seen very few people talking about it, but to my surprise, I found a pretty good and entertaining videogame.
King of Demons or also known as Majyuuou is a game with a very interesting story, a rescue mission in which we must go to hell itself. In the game we will control Abel, who has been betrayed by his best friend, Bayer, who has murdered Abel's wife and kidnapped his daughter, to use her in a sacrificial ritual so that in this way he can revive King of Demons. Abel in search of revenge confronts Bayer, but Abel is easily defeated, however, thanks to the soul of his wife, Maria was able to revive him, and now she was transformed into a fairy, which will accompany Abel in his mission to rescue his daughter who is in the depths of hell, specifically the 7 levels of hell. This is a rather bizarre game, with dark moments and with a plot a little more "adult" than other games of the same genre, so it is not surprising that this game has not left Japan, and that to play it in English, you have to install a translation patch.
As for the graphical aspect King of Demons is quite good despite its obvious graphical limitations. Since it is able to show scenarios that recreate in a "successful" way hell, with all its creatures, monsters, demons and weird and grotesque things. King of Demons is a game with a lot of violence, a lot of blood and a lot of darkness, something completely logical since we are on a rescue mission in hell, so it was to be expected this kind of panorama, but despite the pixels, you can perceive very well all these elements and the truth is that they look pretty good on screen.
The art in the scenarios in this game is spectacular, and they are quite large compared to the sprite of our character and some enemies. The scenarios manage to represent in a very correct way all the floors of hell, each one of them with different elements that differentiate them from each other.
The creatures that we are going to meet, as expected, are very grotesque, dark and horrible. They are faithful representatives of being beings from hell and that impose terror to their opponents or their victims. Although these much more grotesque designs can be seen in the final bosses, as well as our main character, Abel, the common enemies, present quite small sprites compared to certain enemies, especially the final bosses and the scenery itself, but they look good, they fulfill their purpose. Besides that in terms of animation is quite successful.
Undoubtedly the sound section of this game is the one that has the least work, that is, it is not a bad soundtrack, but I think it is very simple for a game where we will face demons from hell and creatures of different types, of course, there are some melodies that are pretty good, but in terms generables is "simple", in addition, some of them are repeated enough throughout the game. The sound effects are okay, they are normal and fulfill their purpose in the game very well.
You could say that in terms of gameplay it is "similar" to Castlevania, but instead of a whip, Abel will use a gun to kill all the threats he encounters in hell. It's very badass to go to hell alone with a gun. You could say it's a "Run and Gun", but with a movement speed quite inferior to the games of this genre. King of Demons has a fairly easy gameplay, as it basically consists of advancing through the scenarios and go defeating enemies until you reach the end and face the typical boss at the end of phase, has certain elements of platforming but quite simple.
The control is quite basic and intuitive, so in terms of mechanics it is not a game that has innovated in anything, but because it kept that kind of simple but entertaining mechanics, it makes it a fun video game. The truth is that this is a pretty fun game, it has a certain degree of difficulty but it is not too difficult, I would say that it has a fairly tight difficulty curve, so we will not get frustrated when playing it.
Abal's wife, Maria, who has been transformed into a fairy, will be our support, she can also attack enemies and when Abel dies she can revive him. We will also find the classic items to recover the life of our character. When we defeat the final bosses, they will give us orbs which will grant Abel different transformations, each of them with different abilities and mechanics. Depending on how we use the orbs we get, we can unlock different endings, in total there are 2 endings depending on what we do, the typical "bad" ending and the "good" ending. At first I didn't know this, I discovered this later.
In short, King of Demons or Majyuuou is a very good game, entertaining, visually quite successful and with simple but effective mechanics, and although it has obvious limitations, it is still a highly recommended title.
