Hell is Other Demons

With a name like Hell is Other Demons what would you expect? If your answer is a retro bullet hell game set in hell with gorgeous colour schemes, then you are right! Shoot hordes of enemies in this demonic realm while listening to a heavy synthwave soundtrack! Blast them! Shoot them! Jump on them! Zap, Slash… KILL THEM! Hell is Other Demons comes out on the Nintendo Switch on the 18th of April, but while you wait, you can read this review!

Otherworldly adventure

Fast-paced, bullet hell and with otherworldly vibes? SIGN ME IN! Hell is Other Demons has all of that, and even more! While this game has a “plot” (two demon factions don’t like each other and decided to end things with a carnage), you are not going to care about that. What you are actually going to care about is exploring hell, dashing through it.
There are two modes: the main campaign and the arcade mode. The main campaign consists of beating a bunch of level and bosses until you reach the ending, blasting enemies and collecting gems that are used to buy new weapons and upgrades. Arcade mode is a bit different though: you fight endless hordes of enemies. You can find new weapons by killing them. Doing that will also make your character level up so that you can upgrade your character.

One of the game’s shop.

Dashing in hell

The gameplay is fairly simple and fun: it’s a retro bullet hell game with confined levels. You annihilate other demons with anything you have: guns, boomerangs, miniguns or you can stomp them like you’re Super Mario. You can also dash through walls, lasers, enemies and bullets.  The controls are done exactly right so that when you die it’s (mostly) your fault. You can upgrade your character however you want, you just need the gems dropped by enemies.
The game is not too hard, and I never felt frustrated whenever I died: I wanted to keep trying until I beat those beasts. Cuddle Monster Games managed to create a pleasant game while still maintaining all the action. Kudos on that!
My only complaint? I noticed a few slowdowns when there was too much on the screen. Precision is essential in this kind of games and those slowdowns may endanger the player.

A stylish underworld

This game looks gorgeous: the retro style is very well done and the character design is both cute and somewhat peculiar, while some of the bosses are exactly what you’d expect to find in hell. The levels are very well done and never feel repetitive. The best thing though, in my opinion, is the colours: throughout the game, we will collect and unlock various colour schemes that look GORGEOUS. My favourite ones are MINT and MIDNIGHT! It makes the game have a unique feel to it.
The soundtrack is also very well done: the synthwave style really fits the overall retro-arcade aesthetics of the game and, most importantly, it sounds both good and somewhat pleasant to the ears, even with the somewhat dark tone.

You can’t tell me this doesn’t look cool.

Nearly Infinite Replayability

The game is always offering you a challenge: you can try to unlock everything in the shops, beat the levels without using your weapons (in fact, you could potentially beat them by only stomping on enemies!) and more! To add to that, you can also play the endless levels that will grant you even more gems. Arcade mode will also give you more: with new characters, colour schemes and an online leaderboard, there are a lot of things to accomplish.

Zap ’em!

Verdict

What more can I say? The game is gorgeous, the soundtrack works very well and it’s just so fun! For the low (LOW) price of 9.99$, I really can’t say “Don’t buy this game” to anyone. I had a blast with it and I will surely keep playing it whenever I want some simple, mindless fun.

Highly Recommended

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