DEMON TURF
We control Bibz, a demon girl who wants to become the queen of the underworld. She is hindered by the demon king (his name is Demon King) and his four minions, who control different regions of hell. To defeat them and deprive the king of protection, you need to go through test levels, then defeat the boss and gain access to the next pack of entertainment.
The formula is familiar, and the Demon Turf developers don’t try to hide their inspiration. There is even a semblance of a triple jump, just like in Super Mario. At the same time, the game does not copy the original source, but uses its best features, the main of which is the variety of situations.
The characters are adorable.
Levels rarely resemble each other in terms of mechanics: sometimes you meet platforms that disappear or appear when you make a jump, then you jump along overturning walls, then you jump through hoops in time trials, then you swim from one island to another and collect keys by solving puzzles. The most important thing in such platformers is unpredictability, and in Demon Turf it is impossible to predict what awaits you in the next location. Because the game is not boring and often surprises.
From the very beginning, the heroine knows a lot – the training level seems overloaded with information about management, but you quickly understand everything. With one button, the heroine turns into a flying imp, the other jumps once or twice. If you transform after jumping, you will fall more slowly. And if you jump once, turn and then jump again, you get an analogue of Mario’s triple jump, only here it can be performed in the air.
But these platforms are still sinking!
As you progress through, you unlock new abilities – for example, turning into an ouroboros, thanks to which you move faster around the location. Or a cat hook – you can use it to grab onto some objects. An already good set of skills is getting richer, and at the same time you are faced with more and more interesting challenges. Even the first world is fascinating, although in it the character uses only standard skills, to say nothing of the rest.
Long way to the throne
In each of the four regions, it is proposed to go through seven levels – for them you get batteries that open the gates to the boss. But to meet the king, you need to save up as many as fifty batteries. It turns out that after completely clearing an area, alternative versions of the levels become available – they look similar, but they have more severe obstacles, most often associated with the skills received for defeating the bosses. So the content in Demon Turf is twice as much as it seems at first glance.
In fights with bosses, skills will have to be used especially often.
On more complicated versions of old locations, you begin to appreciate even more an interesting feature of the local control point system. Instead of placing checkpoints on their own, the authors shift the responsibility to the player – he is given three flags, which he is free to put anywhere. This leads to the fact that sometimes you completely forget about this option, but this system has much more advantages, especially in locations with several difficult sections. Whether you want to keep your progress after the first series of trials, or save money and wait for the second so as not to replay it in case of death, it’s up to you.
The best place for a checkpoint.
The only thing that is not implemented in the best way is the combat system. The character is trained in only one technique – he repels opponents with either a weak blow or a strong one, for which the attack button needs to be held down longer. It seems that fights should be fun – when you are locked in an arena with opponents, you can either push them off a cliff or send them towards spiked walls, and you eliminate some enemies by reflecting their own projectiles. But all this works clumsily, and it’s not always possible to shove opponents in the right direction – sometimes you even kill them by accident. This does not cause any particular difficulties even in boss fights, but still such a meager “combat” stands out against the backdrop of inventive and varied levels.
Some enemies require armor to be stripped before attacking.
But this is an insignificant minus. Interestingly, the developers did not limit themselves only to levels and bosses – they added a central location with bonus entertainment to the game. There is a kind of football here, in which you push the ball towards the goal with blows, overcoming an obstacle course with it. Or you can take pictures of the surroundings for a local photo studio, for which they will give awards.
There is also a store of improvements that change the gameplay. These include an extra jump, a bonus flag, and numerous combat skill upgrades. Each modification indicates the number of slots that it occupies in the equipment, and the heroine has only six free slots in total, so they are not allowed to wear everything in a row.
