In my last review I described that creating a 3D platformer, especially in today’s market, is really difficult for a couple of reasons. One of those reasons was that your platformer needs to stand out. It’s not that you have to be innovative or set a new standard, but at least have your own personality. Have a selection of characters and unique setting that allows your 3D platformer to not feel like an imitator of what possibly came before.
In my previous review I also mentioned a 3D platformer called Demon Turf, and a lot of you are probably wondering what it is. Well guess what we’re here to talk about today buckos!? We’re here to discuss another indie 3D platformer, and since it deals with demons and a spooktacular setting I thought it would fit the theme of October. You can’t escape the season of costumes, candy, possibly getting your house egged, and dealing with the leaves and mess on your lawn when it’s all over. Demon Turf was developed by independent studio Fabraz. Otherwise entirely by Fabian Rasotrfer and a couple of their friends. Their last project was a 2D platformer by the name of Slime-San, and the team felt like it didn’t perform as well as they intended. It’s not that the game was bad, but much like any other platformer they failed to stand out from the crowd. They needed to aim for more ambitious goals with the second game, but Fabian told them not to do another 2D platformer. Obviously that wasn’t going to work agian, so instead they would go to a 2.5D realm, but midway through development they realized it wasn’t enough and decided to convert over to 3D.
They would make a full fledged 3D platformer, and that was going to be hard due to the fundings and small team they had. They also planned to make an entirely new IP as using Slime-San again wasn’t going to work. Eventually they got a working build of the game running in Unity, and it showed a hand drawn character platforming around obstacles. They showcased their game during a game show and soon revealed the title of their new project, Demon Turf. A game with personality, character, sass, and aimed to recapture the feeling of old school 3D platformers. I mean A Hat In Time and Yooka-Laylee already did it, but hey another contender. Demon Turf was an ambitious game and when it finally came out in 2021, reception was good enough. There were a couple of critics who despised the rough edges of the game, but overall players loved it. They enjoyed collecting things, the art direction, and the main character and her friends.
I finally sat down to play the game myself and what I can say is this. I respect Demon Turf. I think this is a game a lot of people are going to enjoy and there’s enough content to justify each dollar and cent you put into it. However, there are a couple problems that make this a flawed and hard to recommend experience. My appreciation for the game went down as the runtime dragged out longer than it should have, and I started thinking about other 3D platformers which did what this game did but better and with solid design. I’m not saying this game is bad or has been changed so it can appeal to people like me. The reason why I review games to begin with is to offer an opinion. Not to shove “facts” down your throat and say you should agree with me. If I don’t fully enjoy a game that’s fine and the developers shouldn’t have to bend their knees and change it because one person had a negative point. I’ll just say Demon Turf is a good game and today’s review will cover what I liked and disliked.
Story
The game takes place in The Demon World, a realm full of monsters and demons. It’s as simple as it gets. A majority of demons live in peace, but there are those with greater desires. Those who wish to have all the power they can. Stronger demons tend to be the rulers of their domain due to their strength and ferocity. No one has dared to dethrone them from their positions, but amongst all the demon rulers there is none quite like the dastardly Demon King. He has control over all the regions of the Demon World and keeps the ruler of each sector in check. The Demon King is basically the governor and what he says shall stand. The Demon King has been in charge for a long time, and change has never been seen ever since he came into rule. There has to be change at some point, and that’s what today’s adventure followers.
We follow Beebz, a sassy demon girl who has the ability to morph into all kinds of creatures and hangs around with her two best friends. Luci, another sassy demon girl who likes to hang out with Beebz, and Midgi, a weird green bird-thing that wears a barrel full of water and just likes to tag along on Beebz’s adventures. Beebz one day has a dream where she is confronted by the Demon King, and rather than bend to his command she instead tells him that she’ll rise against his rule. She will overthrow the rulers of each domain, climb up to the king’s tower, dethrone him, and become the new Queen of The Demon World. The Demon King laughs her statement off and soon Beebz awakens from slumber. She tells her friends of her almighty plan and their reactions are varied. Luci believes she’s just joking and that Beebz will never acquire such a feat. However, Midgi is willing to support Beebz on her adventure. There are four tyrants and each of them hold batteries which fuel their zones. Steal their batteries, provoke them, beat them in a fight, and eventually you'll attract the Demo King. Beat him and you'll become the Demon Queen. It's now all up to Beebz.
Gameplay
Demon Turf is more atone to the linear design and mission based progression of 3D platformers such as Super Mario Galaxy or Super Mario 3D World… you have to remember this is a genre mainly dominated by the Super Mario series. Each world has its own theme and through the hub world you select which level you want to go through next. Every stage has a battery lying at the end and along the way you can collect desserts. One thing I really like is that after you beat the first stage of a world you can tackle the next six stages in any order you like. So if one stage is too challenging you can try out another one and come back when you think you are ready.
You have a nice selection of moves to navigate each level and platform around each hazard. Beebz can jump, double jump in midair, perform this spin to either knock enemies away or glide in midair for a short period of time, the spin jump which can launch her across a long distance, the triple jump, the wall jump, the one jump where you snap the controller back and flip, and… wait a minute this is literally a copy of the moveset from Super Mario 64. Unfortunately, yes, but Demon Turf does a good job at replicating Mario’s moveset. You can chain together moves and get really crazy with how you get to your goal. Like instead of taking the long way around I could just wall jump, double jump and spin onto a platform the developers obviously didn’t intend for me to get on top of. Beebz also has this projectile attack, which doesn’t hurt enemies but can stun them and push them back. She can also charge the projectile to unleash a powerful palm that pushes enemies further. Great for knocking them into spikes.
One unique mechanic that Beebz has tucked up her sleeve is the ability to set down a flag. Doing this will not only mark the area as your territory, but serve as a checkpoint. If Beebz dies she won’t be knocked back to the beginning of the stage, but instead respawn at the last flag she set down. You can set up to three flags and warp between if you feel like you missed an item earlier in the stage. Beebz also has up to four unique powers to use while in the field, and they are used to either reach areas she normally can’t get to or just solve a problem blocking the way forward. There’s a grappling hook to zip across gaps, and pull objects such as levers or blocks to weigh down buttons. The rollout allows Beebz to traverse across long distances within a short period of time or go up slopes that usually slide her downward. The owl transforms to glide across long distances and go upward using fans. Finally the time slows where Beebz shoots a projectile and it slows down the object it makes contact with. There are even a couple of occasions where quick reaction and power switching is required of the player.
Collect all the batteries within a zone and you’ll aggravate the tyrant of the zone to fight you. Here you enter a three phase boss fight where you dodge their attacks, and figure out how to use the new power you obtained. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention you obtain new powers every time you face off against a new boss. These tyrants are gigantic, will throw numerous attacks at you, and sometimes spawn in minions to harass you. Just stay calm, familiarize yourself with their attack patterns, and eventually you will bring these baddies to the ground. Once you defeat the tyrant you complete the zone, but you are offered two choices. The first is to return to the hub world and move onto the next zone. The second is to revisit the levels you already completed, because once you defeat the tyrant the zone absolutely changes. The way you navigated levels and their hazards will change, and you offered the chance to earn more batteries. Do this, because you have to reach a certain amount to face off against the final boss. Besides that there really isn’t much else to say about the gameplay. It works well enough, but we’ll dive more into my problems during the final section.
Thoughts
As I said earlier, “ I respect Demon Turf.” As a video game itself it’s fun and challenges the player to overcome the many obstacles in their path. There is a bit this game does right. the checkpoint system and how you establish where they are placed in a stage. You can choose to set checkpoints after going through long stretches of the level or going through a hard area. Cutting down backtracking and eliminating frustration. The only game I know which has a mechanic like this would be the Ori series. I also liked how you could tackle any of the six levels in any order creating a sense of forging your own difficulty. Desserts are optional collectibles, but there’s an ability that allows you to pinpoint what direction they lie in next. Giving you a clue of where to go and where they may be hiding. Meaning you aren’t running around trying to find them.
Beebz has a great moveset and each one is performed satisfyingly besides a small handful, which we’ll address later. I’m not a huge fan of the graphical style, but I will say it’s unique. Every character is animated while the entire world is made up of polygonal models. Resemblant of the minimalist design and architecture of Super Mario 64. The story isn’t much, but the amount of personality given to the cast of characters. Beebz is just being this sassy punk who reflects style and whim. Willing to go against the higher ups of the world and establish her place in the world. jEtting through obstacles and stages can be fun, and there’s a trophy system that rewards players for going through levels in the shortest time possible. It’s a speedrunner’s dream! Demon Turf is a good video game, but I wish I could have enjoyed it as much as those who love it.
The game suffers from quite a few problems and some of these are crippling design choices. One of the smaller problems that’s big to me are the controls. Beebz has a great moveset, but the controls do feel good to handle. The way Beebz runs, turns around, and makes turns feels really stiff. Now stiff controls aren’t always a bad thing. Psychonauts 2 hada somewhat stiff controls for a lot of players, but I liked it because it allowed Raz to tightly navigate around obstacles and the levels were designed in a way where you made slow and precise precisions. Demon Turf doesn’t exactly do that. There are a lot of cases later on where you have to react quickly and make tight turns. What also adds to this problem of control is how sloppy midair movement can be. Jumping and double jumping is fine, but it’s more like the inconveniences. You don’t have ledge grab meaning if you just about miss a jump you bounce off the platform and plummet to your doom. The hover spin is good for short range jumps, because your movement slows down when you use it in midair. You may say that’s so the player doesn’t abuse this ability. Listen here, if I can’t make the jump distance because my character slowed down midway through the air then that’s not a good feeling. Especially when, remember, you have to make precise precisions.
The powers besides the grappling really suck. It’s the way they function and connecting back to how they control. The rollout is quick, but you can control the speed of it and how wide it drifts. There’s this one left that requires you to drift around a curve and Beebz kept rolling off the track because she was moving too fast and I couldn’t control how far she was drifting to the side. There was nothing wrong with my controller. This was entirely the game’s fault. If I can’t control the speed of the wheel power then sections like these will get annoying, because it’s either I’m going too fast or I couldn’t build up enough speed in time. The owl really blows, because while it traverses long distances it mainly moves down. Of course that makes sense, but the only way to go up is to fly above a fan. This does create a problem though, because sometimes I may fly above a fan but it’s not within range and I just glide over it. Missing the propelling air needed to launch me higher and keep me in the air longer. That and if you collide with an object you get knocked out of owl form. The time slow power is the worst one, because not only is it introduced late into the game, but it’s a slow moving projectile that creates a field. Meaning it might not affect the objects you want it too. Psychonauts 2 figured this out perfectly by just highlighting the object you want to slow down and zapping it. Here they really needed a targeting system.
Speaking of targeting systems and projectiles, the combat blows. The game doesn’t prioritize combat, but when it’s required to move forward I despise it. Half the time combat is literally just charge your palm attack, aim towards the target, and hope they slide into a spike. Do this over and over and hope you clear the combat section to move forward. It’s not that combat is too hard, but it doesn’t feel good. Your charged palm feels delayed, slow, and satisfying. You can’t target enemies and what makes this worse is that if you double jump or get hit by a bounce projectile your charge palm projectile cancels. Meaning you have to charge it again. Boss fights also really blow. As I said earlier the game usually likes to unroll new powers during these moments, and the boss helps you test new powers. This is both a good and bad thing. Good because you learn how the power works. Bad because you are trying to understand the boss’ ability and if you screw up possibly because you are still trying to comprehend the new power and how it works then you have to start the phase again. Bosses get really annoying with how much they mess with you, and the dragon was a fight I won by chance.
My final complaint is probably the biggest flaw with Demon Turf. It’s the game’s length and the quality of content. World 3, otherwise the city levels, is where the level quality really starts to dip down. You either get these jumbled messes of obstacles, or big levels that are bigger and longer than they really need to be. These are five to nine minute stages that can drag out to either ten plus minutes. Some stages even took me nearly twenty to beat. You also have weird gimmicks thrown in like collecting the keys across the sprawling map, shooting a ball into a goal even though the physics suck, and of course race challenges using those powers which suck. I really hated the last few levels and by the end of the fourth world I was ready for the game to be over.
Nope, that’s not what happened. Turns out you need fifty batteries to unlock the final level, and if you mainly do the main levels you’ll have twenty nine. Meaning the other thirty-one have to be obtained through the stage revisits. Trust me when I say the changes to past levels really aren't that significant besides how you traverse them. What makes this worse is that there are a combined twenty eight levels with batteries in this game. Meaning you have to do basically almost every level to beat the game. It’s not terrible, but it really feels like the game should have ended after the fourth world. It just dragged out longer than it should have and by the end I was just annoyed and ready for the game to be done with. My appreciation for Demon Turf started out strong, and just went down as the developers tried to pad out the experience..
Final final complaint is that there are a couple of performance issues, and while the personality of the main character is great she can get annoying at times. Like every time she enters and exits through a gate she does the “da-dada-da-dada-dah!” line and it gets infuriating around the tenth time. Dear lord, I was ready to scream after a certain point. Demon Turf is a game I didn’t really like. In fact, it made me appreciate another indie 3D platformer I played called A Hat In Time more. How great the character controlled, the setting, the variety in level ideas, and keeping a well paced journey. Demon Turf just has a lot of rough edges, but I think it’s still a good game. If you were to ask if I recommend it to a casual gamer I would say, “Yeah, I do.” It’s just if you have the option to play something like Psychonauts 2, Banjo-Kazooie, or A Hat In Time instead then maybe play those because they are more fun. That concludes the 2nd October review. In the end I am going to give Demon Turf a 7.5/10 for being okay.
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