It’s nice to see an independent eShop title take on the real time strategy RPG genre on a small scale and make it seem like a large scale production. The game feels like a big time production, but is priced like a value title.
Demon King Box is very well done and is a well rounded game. From the gameplay, the art in the game as well as the music and audio this game is a solid production.
Demon King Box mixes real-time strategy with classic RPG gameplay. As you play through the game you start off with one hero and a handful of demon pets.
As the game progresses you will slowly gather more demon pets and recruit additional heros, each of whom have different special abilities.
The game has a large number of demon pets to acquire and add to your team, including some which can only be attained by combining several together. You can have five pets on your team at any one time, which can be switched out between battles. Feed your pets food that you acquire after each battle to raise their level and make them more powerful.
The battle system in Demon King Box is comprised of a horizontal field with your hero on the left and your opponent (when you have one) on the right. From the start if the battle you can select your pets from the bottom of the screen with the stylus, dragging them onto the battlefield. Your pets will move towards the right and fight automatically.
Each demon pet takes a set amount of energy in order to summon to the field, energy which slowly charges. Each pet also has a recharge time, which you’ll need to allow to charge before you can call another.
Battles can be won a few different ways, depending on the stipulations set at the start. The most common is to defeat all the enemies thrown at you, but occasionally if you’re facing off with an opponent you’ll need to have your demon pets deplete their life bar.
The game looks great, especially the designs of both the character art and their associated sprites. Also top notch is the music included in the game, which is quite varied for an indie title. A lot of care was clearly put into the game, and it shows.
The only thing that I had any sort of negative issue with was the controls. Overall they are done well, intuitive and make sense. What doesn’t make sense is the transitions between touch screen and button controls.
Certain parts of the game are touch screen only, others are buttons only and some utilize both types of input. My issue comes from the fact that there are times when buttons would be easier to use and other times the exact opposite. Having one or the other only, when both would have been more intuitive was a bit of a pain.
More than once after playing through the touch screen only battles to accidentally skip the story dialogue. The story uses the buttons to advance the dialogue and the touch screen skips the story.
My only other issue was that sometimes the action got so fast and furious that I couldn’t enjoy the action on the top screen. I had to remain focused on sending out my demon pets to counter my opponents.
Overall I really enjoyed this game. Demon King Box is a slick hybrid real-time RPG that looks, sounds and plays great. And for such a tiny cost, you can’t pass this one up.
Hopefully if the developers make a sequel they include even more demon pets, evolutions and combinations. There is a lot that they could do.
