Labyrinth of the Demon King PS5 Review 8/10 “Let’s Horror like its 1996” @jrhudepohl #IndieGame #GameDev

I must admit, when I first started Labyrinth of the Demon King I had a horrible feeling. Upon seeing tons of fog and noticing that, when you saved it flashed red - it dawned on me, “Oh, there are some real Silent Hill influences in the game” which should delight me as the Silent Hill and Resident Evil series of games are two of my favourites, but playing and reviewing horror games has kinda burnt me out on them, so many games are inspired by and take influence from them that it has just lessened the enjoyment. Luckily, within about thirty minutes I realised that, no, this is the good kind of influence - gentle nods but a completely different experience, so I dived in, kept playing and had a wonderful yet brutally awful experience.The story of the game is rather basic, not in a bad way, more a functional way. You are a soldier taking revenge for the death of their lord, which brings you to the Labyrinth of the Demon King, you must now work your way through it - and more importantly, survive. I stepped into said labyrinth, walked about twenty feet, fought my first enemy… and died. So I decided on a new strategy and tried again… 30 seconds later I was dead again, so I looked up the controls, again checked my inventory, marched in… and died. 

At this point I put my controller down, took a deep breath and considered putting my foot through the ps5. I calmed myself down and tried again, this time taking real care and parrying until I finally managed to reign victorious, real joy crept in which didn’t last long as I went into the basement and more bad things happened, but I was fully engaged. I'm not usually into constantly failing and retrying, I’m not a Souls/Borne person, I love its lore and one day I will play Elden Ring, but it takes a lot for me to play a game with constant deaths and restarts, but Labyrinth of the Demon King really got to me, I loved it. 

Combat is a real struggle, it’s a bit clunky at times, and includes a lot of parrying and backing off, you certainly can’t just rush in and hack enemies down, it is tough and a touch unfair, but I was just all in. The game is trying to be like an old PS1 horror dungeon crawler and it succeeds wonderfully, it has such a tense atmosphere, and the colour scheme is so drab and oppressive, just blacks, browns, and greys – it’s like all other colours have been swallowed away and now this bleak colour scheme remains, it’s almost a character in itself. A lot of the time you will feel like you’re wandering around long corridors aimlessly with little to mark where you’re heading, caves will feel like they go on forever, your torch does light the way but it is a struggle to see through the darkness of this world.

The music also adds to the oppressive atmosphere, it can be loud and all-encompassing, but it can also fade away and let the silence add to the tension. It’s very well crafted and any game that can let the silence build the tension gets a huge thumbs up from me. I really loved the PS1 aesthetic and style it really does make me feel it is a game from 1996, Labyrinth of the Demon King has a lot of love poured into it and it really shows.

SUMMARY

After an hour I really felt this just wouldn't be for me, I was angry, frustrated, and just wanted to push through it all, but as I played, the unique charm and experience shone through, the PS1 feel, the drab, mercilessly depressing world, and the clunky combat - which I feel some people may hate but really made me feel like I was playing a title from 1996 - it all just clicked and it went from hate to love.

As Queen sang, “Pain Is So Close To Pleasure”

📈8/10📈

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