Also on: PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Publisher: Cowcat
Developer: Cowcat
Medium: Digital
Players: 1
Online: No
ESRB: E10+
Iโve got to hand it to Cowcat. Demonโs Tier+ is the fourth game from the French developer, and, as someone whoโs suffered through each of the previous three games, itโs nice to see that theyโre slowly but surely improving. They started out with an entirely forgettable adventure game, followed that with a hideously ugly platformer, and their last outing was a middling twin-stick shooter. Demonโs Tier+ is easily better than all of them.
Obviously, thatโs not a high bar to clear, but Iโm really not trying to damn the game with faint praise. Itโs got a couple of minor hiccups here and there, but on the whole, itโs a fairly enjoyable twin-stick shooter.
What makes it work so much better than its predecessor โ which, as I noted above, was also a twin-stick shooter โ is that Demonโs Tier+ has things like a story and a personality. I mean, the story is your basic ?heroes save the world from monstersโ kind of thing, but thatโs a vast improvement over the last outing. Likewise, the game โ which takes place mostly underground in a series of caves โ looks kind of cool, as you scour each dimly-lit floor for monsters and treasure by floating candlelight. That means you can never quite see what lies beyond the edge of your vision, which is normally something that bugs me, but Demonโs Tier+ manages to make it work.
In this regard it helps, I suspect, that the gameplay is much more interesting. Thereโs RPG-style skill progression after you clear out each floor, which means you can decide how you want to build up your character. There are different objectives on each floor, which means you never know whether youโre going to have to clear out all the monsters, open all the treasure chests, or whatever other tasks the game sets for you. You have a variety of attacking styles at your disposal, which means you can vary it up if you want to.
I only really have one complaint: much like its predecessor, Demonโs Tier+ has an eyesore of a PlayStation Store icon that in no way reflects how the game actually looks. This may seem like a small thing, but given that the developerโs second game really was an eyesore, you can see why it might be cause for concern.
As problems go, however, thatโs pretty minor, particularly when you contrast it with everything else here. Demonโs Tier+ is a solid twin-stick shooter, and even if I wouldnโt say that itโs elevated Cowcat to the point where you can say that theyโre making essential games, at the very least theyโre making good games.
Cowcat provided us with a Demonโs Tier+ PS Vita code for review purposes.