Demon Tides review for PC

The key thing to know about Demon Tides is that there’s a lot of it.

On some level, this should be obvious: it’s an open-world 3D platformer with an enormous map, so it only stands to reason that there’s plenty of game to be played here.

But at the same time, much like its predecessor, Demon Turf, there’s also a lot to take in here. Between the visuals, the music, and the character interactions, you’re constantly being bombarded with more, more, and more. While there’s easily 15+ hours of content to be found, Demon Tides isn’t really a game that goes in ebbs and flows – it moves at one speed, and one speed only.

In this respect, the game feels almost like a spiritual successor to Sonic – nothing specific, mind you, but the general feelings the game evoked back when the series started. The colours are kind of gaudy, mixing in neon everything with purples and greens and pinks and whatever else you can imagine. Where Demon Turf felt gaudy but muted, Demon Tides feels like the full flowering of the artistic vision that animated the first game. It can be a lot to take in.

Likewise, Demon Tides evokes the same feeling that Sonic games do, at least for me – that feeling like they’re meant to be played at full speed. And to this end, the game delivers you plenty of tools to move as fast as you could hope for. While you definitely unlock more skills as the game progresses, you’re still given the basic tools you need to fly through the world as quickly as you could hope for right off the bat. You get double-jumps with an extra boost, you get a snake form that can motor along at top speeds (which is obviously especially helpful for traversing some of the enormous distances that make up the game’s map), and you get unlimited save points. While you can slow down and take things at your own pace, doing so feels like you’re kind of letting the game down. And as someone who always fell firmly on the Mario side of the Mario vs Sonic battle, I’m not totally sure that this style of 3D platformer is quite for me.

Mind you, at the same time I can see why this would appeal to anyone who hews more closely to the Sonic side of the spectrum. Demon Tides is bright and frenetic and brimming with things to do, so if you want a whole world to blast around in while you do your platforming thing, it’s definitely worth investigating.

Fabraz provided us with a Demon Tides PC code for review purposes.