Namako explodes into a fountain of blood for what feels like the eighth time, and I open the menu and select Restart Battle. I’m fighting a giant skull and a pair of hands that looks like what I imagine Ocarina of Time’s Bongo Bongo would be if he were a skeleton. Every few turns, his skull splits open and his brain politely drops to the floor of the arena so one of my students can whale on it. It is the only way I can hurt him, and he decides when and how it happens. Our war is one of attrition. That isn’t what’s killing Namako. It’s easy to dodge, as are the bony fingers he stabs into the stone floor of the dank, dusty crypt in which we battle. No, what’s killing her are the little crawly demons his hands place on the floor between turns. He always puts them in random places, so there is no way to prepare for where they’ll be, and Namako, who is particularly susceptible to their attacks, dies in two hits. One bad turn, and she’s little more than a pool of blood traveling the gaps between the stones beneath our feet. Now, I can beat our giant, skeletal foe without Namako. I know because I did it during a PAX demo ages ago. He’s kind enough to open his mind directly to Faye’s feet and Destin’s fists, and even Knute, my healer, and Namako, who normally weakens foes but does not hurt them, can smack him in the grey matter and see results. This isn’t a hard fight if I just want to win. What I want, and why I’ve restarted this boss fight so many times, are top marks, an A grade in demon-slaying, something that in Demonschool is both normal to want and possible to achieve. Most fights are simple enough if you just want to win. But I want a perfect score, and I won’t rest until I get it. That’s Demonschool’s brilliance, really. Making me want to find the perfect series of turns. There’s an intriguing story here, sure, and utterly gorgeous sprite art for the characters and smaller monsters that contrasts beautifully with the massive 3D models that make up the boss fights, and the music is a whole vibe. Every piece of Demonschool is smartly constructed, thoughtful, and builds upon one another. But what keeps me coming back is the search for the perfect turn, the victory snatched from the jaws of defeat, the moment that I realize that if I do the same actions in a different order, I can do better on my demon-slaying report card. Demonschool follows Faye, brash, confident, and a bit of a doofus (endearingly so; I adore Faye) the last descendent of Earth’s final demon-hunting family. She’s been entrusted with a mysterious, largely unclear prophecy relating to the end of the world, and come to a small, strange university on an island to try to avert it. The folks she meets there are capital-C characters: there’s Namako, made of paper, who’s a photography nerd that Faye quickly bullies into being her best friend; Destin, a good guy who believes in his friends with all the power his single brain cell has; and Knute, a lost media enthusiast obsessed with the strange and obscure. And that’s just your starting party. Even the jocks, who seem to spend all their time in the gym, and your professor, who quite literally doesn’t know anything that isn’t on his clipboard, are kooky. Faye and her friends are quickly singled out for demon-hunting duty. Other students get essays for homework; our crew has to destroy haunted video tapes that kill you if you watch them and paintbrushes made of demon hair. Oh, and if you don’t complete you assignments on time, you go to prison. Talk about academic probation. So Faye and her friends put together the Black Magic Club to get to the bottom of things. Faye’s journey is appropriately fairly lighthearted, but there are moments of poignance, as when Namako admits she got into photography because her parents, themselves painters, called it the lowest form of art. She finds beauty in the perfect shot of a rare bird, of capturing moments in time. And she is grateful for Faye’s friendship, even if our girl can sometimes be a little much. Then there are moments where Knute will convince you to interrogate someone who may have information on demonic activity because Knute lent them his Gunsmith Cats tapes and he wants them back. Knute may be a little weird, but he has good taste. Demonschool, and its characters, contain multitudes. Demonschool is a found family story, and it’s definitely horror, but it’s a comedy, too, and it never forgets that. These characters have lives outside of the classroom. And then there’s the more sinister goings on; nobody else seems to notice the bodies falling from the ceiling or the gangsters kidnapping what appear be to zombified students or even the events of the previous day. One father on the island will tell you how much he loves all of his children, but their number steadily decreases. No one remarks on any of this. Sounds like a job for the Black Magic Club. Each week, you get an assignment to complete, but there isn’t much in the way of class-going in Demonschool except for some pop quizzes. Instead, you’ll wander the island, chat with the locals, fish for demon fish (what else?), offer coins to shrines that will respond when you thank them for giving you, and play a cursed karaoke minigame where you have to work a word into each line. There are also sidequests you can complete, which can range from tracking down a rare video to summoning a demon. Sometimes, you can chat with the other characters to raise Faye’s bond with them, and you can ask their opinions (or side with them) during conversations to boost your “They really like me!” meter. Will asking Destin how to summon Bloody Mary get you an actionable, well-thought-out answer? No. But it’ll make him happy. When you do summon Bloody Mary, though, things go down, and the demon hunting (and gangster fighting? There sure are a lot of gangsters) is where Demonschool sings. Demonschool is all about planning; fights take place on grids, and each character can sidestep and move a certain number of spaces (and attack) in any direction. The trick is that actions cost action points, and the more you use a character, the most using that character costs. Using Faye to knock out a basic demon costs one point. Using her a second time costs two, and so on. Not everyone is cut out for combat: Knute’s a healer, and he has to be next to another character to do it. Ending a fight means vanquishing a certain number of foes and then performing a sealing ritual with a character standing on the demon’s side of the arena. You might know the right moves, but putting them in the right order to squeeze one extra action out of a turn is the trick, especially when you’re hoping to beat the fight’s suggested turn limit for a higher score. Demonschool’s depth is impressive. You’re always making choices: do I use Faye to knock this demon into that demon to deal damage to them both, or do I try to have Namako pass through them to weaken them first? Should I use Knute to overheal Destin, increasing his damage, or top off a dinged up Namako? Should I prioritize a tougher, scarier demon this turn, or take out the small fry and get my kill count up while there are fewer enemies on the board and it’s easier? Demonschool is simple on the surface, but the combat is never less than compelling. Sandwiching an enemy between two of your characters leads to an incredibly damaging combo attack. And each character has a special attack they can charge by doing their thing. Killing something with Faye’s means she doesn’t spend however many points it would normally take to attack, and the cost of her next action doesn’t increase. It’s a gamechanger in the right moments, as is Destin’s ability to attack an entire row, or Namako’s massive, three-by-three flood of water. As you gain resources and new members join the club, you can buy and acquire access to abilities. Once two characters have spent some time researching them (complete with what is often very funny flavor text), you can equip them for extra flavor. Knute’s healing abilities also charging your special gauge? A godsend, as is making Faye immune to enemies tethering her. It would be easy for these abilities to feel extraneous, but Demonschool makes them feel essential to how you play. And then there are Aspect Shifts that can completely change the rules of battle. One early one allows your characters to teleport to the other side of the map once they reach the edge, completely flipping your strategic options on their head. When these all come together in boss fights, like the one I mentioned at the outset, Demonschool rocks like an Iron Maiden song, operatic vocals and all. If Demonschool has any flaws, it’s that there might be too much combat. Sometimes you’ll be in a really compelling story sequence with some great narrative momentum and it will be stopped cold because it’s been a couple minutes since you fought any demons or gangsters and it feels like maybe you should. Demonschool also excels at managing tone, but there are some awkward moments that feel perhaps too referential or wink wink nudge nudge say no more, say no more. But these are practically the definition of first-world problems. “Oh, no,” I say as the battle screen flashes up because Faye decides the best solution is always violence, “I have to go do another combat encounter using this battle system I really like! The horror!” Demonschool does have some bugs the most notable one involved a demon spawning on the same tile as one of my characters. My character could move; the demon could not. I was kicked to the title screen shortly thereafter but in my experience, they’re minor, and I barely remembered them enough to include them in this review. Developer Necrosoft Games has already patched Demonschool multiple times during the extended review period (Demonschool was delayed to avoid releasing alongside Hollow Knight: Silksong), so when they say fixes are inbound, I believe them. What I’ll remember about Demonschool are the little things: the jokes, the quiet character moments, when a fight clicks and what had seemed impossible becomes routine, the bliss of a plan well-executed. When I beat ol’ skeleton face from the opening paragraph, he and his minions barely touched me. Namako survived the whole thing with barely a scratch, and my whole team ended the fight feeling like they could lasso the moon. I came, I saw, I conquered. And you’d best believe I got that A rank. And then we did some karaoke. It was a good day. This review was based on a PC code provided by the publisher. Demonschool releases on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X |S on November 19th.
https://www.shacknews.com/article/146863/demonschool-review-top-of-the-class
