Demon Skin is a 2D take on the hack n’ slash genre, taking much of its inspiration from hardcore games such as Dark Souls. Combat is stance-based and brutal, exploration and platforming add some variety, and the graphics are relatively pleasing for an Indie title.
Some of the particle effects are particularly impressive. Early on, a blizzard looked especially imposing, however shortly afterwards during a chase sequence, an explosion and smoke effect actually hid the platforms that I was trying to navigate – miss a jump, and you have to do it all again.
Battles consist of choosing a defensive stance, utilising high, middle, and low attacks, various combos, and the ability to step back or roll forward. Movement and combat are clunky, with unresponsive controls, and a stamina bar that forces you to roll about until it replenishes.
Due to the many insta-death platforming sections, you’ll come across the game-over screen frequently, where the game instantly flips to a black “You’re Dead” screen in the blink of an eye. It’s a shame that the previous checkpoint isn’t immediately loaded, as by the time you realise what’s happened, you waste a few seconds before hitting X. Similarly once the checkpoint has reloaded – which isn’t exactly quick – you have to keep an eye out for another prompt to press X again.
I played this on the PS4, and the controls are incredibly unintuitive. In what universe would you expect the RIGHT TRIGGER to drop your weapon? Every single time I wanted to do something with anything in my inventory, I had to stop playing, think about what I wanted to do, think about how that translated to the gamepad, and then perform it. To pick up a better axe? First, hold the LEFT stick button to view the weapon stats, then select the axe to replace using the LEFT pad button – if you go too far down the list, you cannot use the RIGHT pad button to go back up, you have to keep pressing LEFT to roll the list around again. Next, move away from the weapon you want to pick up, press the RIGHT trigger to drop it, move back to the axe you want to pick up, and then press the LEFT trigger. Obviously.
Overall the experience isn’t great and feels like a wasted opportunity. There is stuff to like here, but there is an awful lot that grates. The story is wafer-thin, and If I were to review the game in one word, I’d probably choose Janky. The controls and interfaces do lack polish and could do with an experienced UX developer at the helm.
Demon Skin is available now on Xbox Series, PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.
This looks great, but deffo too hard for me!