COWCAT and Diabolical Mind's Demon's Tier+ (originally created by Daniel Fernandez Chavez on PC) is the latest dungeon crawler to try to recapture the glory days of old school roguelike titles, featuring 16-bit graphics and a storyline straight out of a classic high fantasy choose-your-own-adventure book. The gameplay is fairly simple yet paired with appropriately semi-complex game mechanics and the dungeons are filled with a variety of enemies that provide a nice little challenge. Everything works together to create an end result that is more than satisfactory for roguelike enthusiasts, but it's not without flaws. The dungeons and their goals for completion are a little too repetitive and there's one major game mechanic that, while necessary to make Demon's Tier+ an easier experience, leads to frustration after so much time in the game.
Demon's Tier+ centers on a group of heroes (or just one at first, if you play the game alone) who adventure into a pit of dungeons to battle against evil creatures who once terrorized the land. Along the way, flashbacks reveal the story of King Thosgar, the cruel ancient ruler who allowed the evil to take over until a brave knight sacrificed himself to destroy said evil. It's all typical epic fantasy affair, but Thosgar's story is an interesting one and incentive enough to keep pushing through the game's seemingly endless levels of dungeons.
The gameplay of Demon's Tier+ plays like a typical twin-stick action game, with players using one stick to move and the other for attacks. Quick movement is key to dodge enemy combatants and both their close and ranged attacks. There are a ton of different enemy types, varying in difficulty degree and the title adds to the difficulty as players get deeper into the game by throwing more and more enemies at them. Along the way are standard boss battles that are still fun and exciting despite their inability to add anything new to the concept. Demon's Tier+ sticks close to its roots of emulating classic dungeon crawler roguelikes and, mechanically speaking, it pulls it off nearly flawlessly.
But there's still that one major game mechanic that, on paper sounds like a much-needed added layer of difficulty, compounds an issue that already exists in the game: repetitiveness. While in a dungeon, players can elect to transport themselves back to town for supplies like new weapons and other companions (especially useful for solo players) assuming they have what basically amounts to an escape rope. The only issue here is that once players use the rope, they must start all over again once they enter the pit again. One could argue that the idea of starting over is just part of the DNA of a roguelike title, but it's too often necessary in Demon's Tier+ to be anything other than at least mildly frustrating.
Completing the game, which can presumably take anywhere from a few hours to about a dozen hours depending on skill playstyle and luck, unlocks a new difficulty tier, but further playthroughs don't amount to much more than more monsters that are more aggressive. For the completionist, this will likely be enough to drive them through every tier of difficulty. For others, the combat and dungeon goals, which range from exploding every bomb to opening every chest, will become far too repetitive after a while. Again, repetition is a real issue in Demon's Tier+ even with the randomly generated dungeons.
But overall, Demon's Tier+ is a solid little throwback, with heart pounding action, fun game mechanics and systems that allow for upgrades to suit the player's style of gaming, and enough intriguing story content to be at least worth one playthrough. There's not enough incentive here to push through later difficulty tiers for anyone but the most ardent of roguelike experts and monotonous gameplay is a big issue that's only amplified by its escape rope system. Still, the core of the game is very good and anyone looking for their next nostalgia trip gaming experience may find themselves satisfied with this old school roguelike.
Demon's Tier+ is available on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Screen rant was provided an Xbox One copy for the purposes of this review.