Video Game Review: Demon’s Tier+

Demon’s Tier+

Diabolical Mind

Top-Down Shooter

Nintendo Switch

Ahh… another week, another roguelite. This week’s menu is Demon’s Tier+ from Diabolical Mind, a developer previously known for neat little pixel art action games Xenon Valkyrie and Riddled Corpses. Where Xenon Valkyrie is a space fantasy title and Riddled Corpses is zombie-flavored, Demon’s Tier+ is classic sword-and-sorcery, complete with all the standard classes one would expect of the genre. The player starts the game out only having access to The Knight, but over time can unlock a Wizard, Archer, Cleric, Berserker, and Assassin. There’s not actually a whole lot of difference between these classes – each has their own unique skill to activate, but their basic attacks are all just shooting monsters and they start with slightly different base stats.

The lack of character variety doesn’t mean the game isn’t fun though. The excuse plot tells you that an ancient evil has risen again after 1200 years and you need to enter its underground lair and kill it, fighting through hordes of monsters and big ugly bosses on the way. There are fifteen levels per run, with each non-boss level having an objective that needs to be completed to open the path to the next floor, ranging from opening every chest to killing every monster to finding a key and opening a special big chest. In between floors you get the opportunity to upgrade your character’s stats, spending gold towards health, armor, attack range, attack power, movement speed, special skill recharge rate, and d-token multiplier (which are used to unlock things between runs). Gold is generous enough that any character can easily be upgraded into an unstoppable engine of destruction regardless of their starting stats, which is honestly pretty fun even if it does mean the game is very easy overall.

Though it doesn’t happen often, dying sends you back to town without any of the d-tokens you’ve collected and, as is the custom with roguelites, having to start from the first level the next time you enter the dungeons. There’s a souls-like mechanic wherein you get one chance to retrieve your d-tokens from the level you last died on, but it honestly doesn’t matter much because again, death is rare. Completing the game rewards you with another “Tier” of difficulty as well as a new character, and completing Tier 2 unlocks the last difficulty level and the last character. Each Tier also comes with its own unique ending scene, giving the game slightly more longevity. Even then, there’s not a whole lot to see to Demon’s Tier+, and a dedicated player could definitely see it all in one sitting were they so inclined.

The graphics are good as far as pixel art goes, with the designs being clear and easily distinguishable despite the small space they occupy, and the music is toe-tappingly catchy, which does help to set it apart from other, more forgettable smaller-time roguelikes. Given the cheap price tag and short playtime any given run takes, it’s not a bad choice when you’re waiting for something and want to just blast some pixel-y skeletons and spiders.