[PSVITA] Demon Gaze 2 Review

Ever heard of Dungeon-Crawler RPG's? It’s view is in first person mode as well as its battles. Unlike majority of RPG's where there are cutscences, DRPG's is like playing a board game as you rely on the text to get the story and use your imagination. Games like Shin Megami Tensei and Etrian Odyssey to name a few, is popular all over the world especially in Japan. First DRPG game that I've played was Etrian Odyssey way back for Nintendo DS. I enjoyed that game pretty much as it lets you build your own party and draw the dungeon map as you traverse the labyrinths. Demon Gaze is pretty much like that. It sold more than 200k units worldwide to earn a sequel. How addicting DRPG's are? Read the review to find out. 

Demon Gaze II is about a group of Revolutionist Party that fighting for Asteria to overthrow Magnastar. As the Demon Gazer, you have the power to capture Demons and use them fight for Asteria and eventually defeat the evil lord. The story seems generic and on the first few scenarios you won't take this game seriously, but the plot gets interesting as you go deeper to the story. 

Graphics is not something you'd . It uses simple 2D and 3D. Art is quite good except for the Demons who looks like lifeless statues. Dungeons are in 3D and if your familiar with DRPG's then yes, its labyrinth style where you could move up, down, left, right, turn right and left. Yep, that's the only movement you can do here but that's how DRPG's work. You might get dizzy if you are not comfortable with this movement. You can choose what your hero would look like and you can customize the looks of your party members as well and there are a lot to choose from. During battle, you don't see the whole body of your party, just their images. Monsters don't have much animation either they just float around and the only action you see are slashes, hit and magic animations. 

You navigate the town using a simple map, you just select where you'd like to go. Unlike your usual RPG's, all the stuff that you need is available in your home base. Item shops, Revival, Demon customization, etc. They are all inside the Stella's Place. Speaking of Demon Customization, once they level up, you choose the stat you'd like for their builds. You might want to research about it first as you'd not want unbalanced characters. You'd want to stick on their specialties if it's you first time to play DRPG's.

Battles are fast and you can make it faster if your confident with the strength of your party as there's an option to repeat the set of moves you just performed if you feel lazy. You bring five people and plan which are on the front lines and which ones at the back. Front liners must be able to sustain the punishments of the enemies so you may want to put fighters at front while healers and mages at the back. 

You gain Demons after conquering their dungeons. These dungeons differ much from each other, some have traps, some requires you to use certain weapons etc. You'd see skulls in yellow and in red scattered in the map which is aside from random enemy battles are also enemy battles, this time though approaching yellow skulls are weak enemies while red are strong foes. For the Demons to come out, You first need to liberate controlled circles around the dungeon for the boss to get out of his hiding spot and reveal its hideout or what they call in game as Demon Circle. Inside the Demon circles are puzzles and stronger enemies. You may want to save first before fighting the Demons inside the Demon Circle. 

Once you get those Demons, sadly they are all start at Level 1, aside from doing battle to strengthen them, You can date your Demons and if you find their sweet spot, ehem fan-service, you'd gain better stats and experience which is for me a stupid idea that should've been omitted as these Demons looks lifeless anyways. But yeah, it's there to enhance their strengths which is really useful and you need to plan which to level up first as you need maintenance stones to level up their stats by dating. So plan everything carefully.

DRPG's are fun once you learn how to play it. You need to think about your moves here. Think about which Demon to bring, what move to do inside a dungeon, gamble by fighting strong enemies for better rewards, think about character builds, enhance your weapons, grind for money to buy equipment and so on. There are save points inside dungeons and I advise you to save a lot and create multiple saves. You might There are stuff to speed up your gameplay for those who are hardcore and know what they need to do. There's an auto walk and instant travel back to your home base. Demon Gaze II is easier than other DRPG's I've  played but you can adjust the difficulty level of the enemies if you want to punish yourself more.  

There's this satisfying and rewarding feeling once you've master the basics of DRPG's. You make your imagination work here though it showcase very limited resources. Demon Gaze 2 is not just Dungeon crawling but the Developers have made an effort with its rich story. It's one of the must have for hardcore DRPG fans. 

Pros:

• Fast battles
• Rich and Engaging Story
• Plenty of customization to do

Cons:

• Lifeless art for Demons
• Stupid Maintenance mode for Demons 

Overall: 3.5/5

3.5 out of 5 stars Reviewer:JM Nuqui - November 23, 2017