Review: Demonschool

Developer: Necrosoft Games

Publisher: Ysbryd Games

Platforms: Steam (Reviewed), Switch, Xbox One/S/X, PlayStation 4/5

Code provided by Developer

Demonschool is a new puzzle strategy RPG released back in November for all the major platforms. It’s an awesome mix of Into The Breach, Persona, and a sprinkle of Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes. You play as a group of students that were recently accepted to a prestigious school on an isolated island where nothing is as it seems. Gangs, demons, and rivals classes are all apart of the upcoming Apocalypse happening in 10 weeks. You have to team up with your classmates to complete your school assignments which just so happen to coincide with the necessary steps to destroy this ultimate threat.

At the start of our adventure you have to team up with three other classmates Destin, Knute, and Namako each with their special abilities and uses. Each week you have different tasks and events that you can do to fill your time between completing the steps of your assignment. Everyday you can cook for your friends, sing karaoke, and do minor tasks like tossing a coin into a fountain, cleaning up graves, and completing side quests for random civilians of the island and school. These side activities can net you some rewards like unlocking new abilities for your students, strengthening the relationships between them, and providing you with currency that is used to buy skills and decorations at the shop.

A typical day in the game would turn out to be much like the following example:

1. Visit each location in the island that is accessible by a menu.
2. Complete the activities listed in that area. These include cleaning a grave, petting a dog, donating a coin at a shrine, cooking, karaoke, and fishing to name a few.
3. Side Quests and Relationship Quest battles. These are evenly placed out at different points in the week where a new quest or follow up quest will appear and often end with a battle.
4. Main Quest step. To progress the story after completing as much as you want to do in the day.

After completing the last part of the main quest for the day the cycle repeats and new activities unlock or refresh allowing you to do it again. As you progress you also unlock the new abilities like I mentioned above which you can train student to learn and then they can be equipped to a student at a time to help give them an edge in battle.

Battles are frequent and provide a fun challenge in most cases, however once you really start to pick up your characters strengths the minor fights are pretty quick. Battles are much more puzzle based affairs than I was expecting but not so much in a negative way. Think of each fight as trying to solve the most efficient way. Each battle has a goal of killing a certain amount of demons in around 3-4 turns. 

There are several different types of demons that having varied abilities and health points assigned to them which are countered by different students and skills. There are filler demons which have 1 HP and you try to line up the attacks to take out all at once. Other demons might have 2-3 HP so it can require you to do multiple attacks from 1 or more characters or buffing a character with an damage buff to knock them out in 1 attack or debuff all the enemies instead. There are countless ways to tackle the puzzle of each fight and it’s fun to try and get a perfect grade by completing the goal.

Story wise, Demonschool is pretty interesting and the dialogue is humorous. The different students each have unique personalities and I did actually like the majority of them. The story centers around the main character Faye, who is a Demon Hunter and has knowledge of the impending apocalypse. She first meets Namako on the boat to the island and she senses her abilities as a Demon Hunter as well. Namako isn’t initially taken by the prospect but eventually becomes to value her friendship with Faye. Eventually after sometime a task becomes to find other students to join your School Club and you befriend Destin and Knute. 

These four form your initial club and have their unique roles. Faye and Destin are your attacking roles, they perform offense moves to clear the board of enemies in short order. Knute is your healer and can also buff the damage your characters can do making their jobs even easier. Namako wraps up the original party as your debuffer. She can move past a line of enemies and move them around in her place while also stunning and increasing the damage they take. 

I love figuring out the best ways to use each character and becoming a pro at getting perfect marks every battle. As you progress through the game, other students join your club and can provide even more team combos that help tackle new challenges especially in boss fights. The boss fights are a highlight as they typically involve a central theme and have great animations and music.

Overall, there is a lot to enjoy with Demonschool. I think that most people will enjoy the gameplay elements and story. The music is catchy and the animations are solid and really round out the feel of the combat. I do think that the game is often pretty easy to get perfect marks in battles. The boss fights that do provide the most challenge are about every 2.5-3 hours so it does feel a little too far in between for more challenging battles. It’s hard not to recommend Demonschool to fans of the genre and it’s definitely worth the cost. If you like Into the Breach, Reverie Knight Tactics, and Chroma Squad but want it set in a Persona/Lovecraftian world you can’t go wrong with Demonschool.