Today we are going to take a look at Book of Demons. This roguelite hack’n’slash dungeon crawler promises hours of fun gameplay coming from a unique twist in cute graphics while bringing you that nostalgic Diablo-like feeling. Whether it can deliver on these promises is the question we will try to answer today. Book of Demons is available on Steam for 21 Euros and 99 cents or your regional equivalent.

With this review you have a choice of either reading it here in text form or listening to the video review. They both contain the same content.

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Video Review

Text Review

Honestly, when I first saw Book of Demons it didn’t really excite me that much. It just looked like another dungeon crawler with decent looking graphics and it's not like you can’t find plenty of those on the Steam store. But when I looked into it a bit further I realized that I need to put this on my try-out list. And that’s all because of that unique twist.

Gameplay

So, what exactly is that twist? Well, it’s the fact that all the abilities, all your equipment come in form of cards. Now you might say, how does that make any sense. Do you like build a deck and hope to draw the correct ability for that particular fight? Do you get to rearrange the order of cards before a fight or what? Well, none of those are actually true. Honestly, the fact that the equipment and abilities are represented by cards doesn’t really matter at all. If they were represented in a more traditional way it would probably have close to no impact on the gameplay.

But that’s not a bad thing. At least not here in Book of Demons. Because the game tries to bring that feeling you had when you first played a dungeon crawler the fact that the game does feel somewhat traditional in this manner is – at least I’d argue – a good thing. The fact that the abilities and equipment are represented by cards in essence only impacts two things.

The first being the fact that both the equipment and abilities share a resource. You as a player are thus forced to make a decision whether you’d prefer to have more active abilities or the passive bonuses that come along with equipment. And truthfully, this is handled beautifully. All three of the basic ways to play the game – that being full on active abilities, full on equipment or a healthy mix of both are viable options to play the game. Though I’d argue that the passive approach is a bit more stressless.

The second is that fact that both the abilities and equipment can be upgraded and come in different rarities. The rarities are three to be precise – common, magical and legendary – and work exactly as you’d expect them to. Common cards provide you just with the core ability or piece of equipment (and the ability that comes with it) while magical cards give you a bit extra and legendaries provide you with even more cool stuff. Now, please don’t get the impression that you can upgrade card to better rarities – that is simply not the case. So if you wish to truly have the best set of cards, you will have to gather the legendaries themselves – BTW: those you can only by defeating the bosses.

But I didn’t mention upgrading the cards (and subsequently the abilities and equipment) and you can certainly do that. Each of the cards (of all rarities) have three different levels. And again, as you might expect, upgrading them will grant you better abilities and better equipment. The upgrading is done – to probably no one's surprise at this point – using cards. These special cards that are there solely to be used to upgrade cards. They do come in five different variations and you’ll gonna need different types to upgrade different cards.

Man… I spoke a long time about just the little twist Book of Demons. Yet it needed to be said. So, now that we are done with that let's take a look at how exactly you will be playing Book of Demons.

And the more I’m thinking about this, this is gonna be rather quick. You get to play as one of three classes - warrior, rogue and mage – and while they do have some differences, at their core they feel pretty similar. The only real difference comes in what abilities are available to you. But as each of these classes, you get to choose to use either you basic attacks or to use your active abilities.

The basic attacks work just as you’d expect – well maybe with the exception of the warrior that actually doesn’t need to be in melee range for a reason I truly can’t grasp – they do damage. And since the monsters don’t have health bars with numbers, just little hearts each of the attacks does one heart of damage. And the abilities usually do more damage or have some sort of an effect attached to them – like they can stun, do AoE damage etc. etc. The amount of abilities available is pretty decent, though I personally would’ve liked to see a bit more.

Using basic attacks is as simple as clicking. Because that’s literally how you use them – you just click at the enemy you want to attack. The abilities work sort of in two different ways. But both of these ways have one thing in common. First, you have to use them! (who would’ve guessed right?) Well, and some of them are just that – you push a button and something happens. But some of them apply a modifier to your basic attacks, turning them into for example fireballs if you’re playing the mage or lighting your arrow on fire when playing as a rogue.

So… that’s what you get to throw at your foes but not really. Before we talk about the enemies we have to talk about equipment. I gotta, I really loved how the equipment works here. Instead of just being a stat stick, improving your attack or defense in one way or another it actually provides cool bonuses. Yes, they are passive bonuses, but it is still cool to see stuff like an armor that gives you a chance at little health pickup whenever you get damaged a shadow sword that provides your basic attack with the ability to hit not just one but two enemies at once. Obviously, not all of the equipment is cool but for the most part – yeah, awesome job.

So, it’s now time to talk about the enemies. And God, you’ll be killing a LOT of enemies. There are over 70 different types of enemies. Sort of… well technically there are over 70 different enemies but in reality, a lot of them feel pretty much the same. Often they are just more powerful versions of the ones you encountered earlier or just like an elemental version of the same thing. But, I will give the game this, they do have a ton of different abilities but over time… yeah.. .they’re gonna feel pretty repetitive.

Apart from the hordes of minions, you’re gonna fight bosses. Tons of bosses. Well, tons of mini-bosses to be more specific. And a few actual bosses. But first, the mini-bosses. These appear, well, in almost every single level. Occasionally, you’re gonna get a level that doesn’t have one or you’ll be too lazy to explore it fully so you don’t encounter one, but for the most part, you are going to see at least one all the time. And, they’re okay. They’re aren’t anything special, but they do fulfill that role of special enemies that you have to focus on rather well.

And last, of all, we have the full-fledged bosses. Sadly, there’s only three of them. I really feel like, at least for but five or even six would’ve fitted the game’s story length much better. But they are legitimately fun. They have a lot of phases, different abilities and even each of their levels has a different mechanic attached to it. I was just taken aback by the level design for the second boss. I never expected that the devs would even attempt something like that (and I know, I’m not telling you what it is, because it would just be a huge spoiler for something I found really enjoyable).

Now, you might think that I’ve already talked about everything relating to the gameplay that would be important, but you are mistaken. There is one more thing and probably the best thing that I really really want to see in more games in the future that I have to talk about. The Flexiscope system. You might be asking, what exactly is the Flexiscope system. It’s a tool that gives you the option to set the length of levels to what exactly you feel like at the moment. And holy mother of God why has nobody came up with this sooner. You got ten minutes before you need to leave for work? No problem! You want something middle the line, like 20 minutes? No problem! Or do you want to spend 40 minutes clearing that one level? All of this is possible! The Flexiscope has five different settings and truly, I hope this finds its way into more and more games! Because, yeah, it’s great.

Story

Okay, that’s enough about the gameplay, let’s take a look at the rest of Book of Demons starting with the story. And if there ever was a more archetypal fantasy dungeon crawler story than what you can find in Book of Demons I would be rather surprised. You’re a hero returning to his small village after traveling the world only to find it has been infested by hoards of monsters. Not much more to it really.

But I should mention that the devs – in their quest for nostalgia – managed to put in a ton of great easter eggs. Some of them are quite obvious, some of them you’ll need to search for and some our there only for those would explore. And yes, some of them are not that funny, but others are great.

Graphics

Graphically Book of Demons is… well... okay. It’s not the most flashy game ever but it does look decent and has an art style that I think will actually age rather well. It’s sort of like if everything was made from paper.

So… if you’re looking for a game with amazing visuals, Book of Demons might not be the thing you are looking for. But on the other hand, if you’re looking for a game that will look good even a few years from now and you won’t feel like puking when playing it, then Book of Demons will fill that role rather well.

Music

And as we are slowly bringing this review towards its inevitable end we also have to take a look at the music. Which is the most unexceptional thing about Book of Demons. It’s not bad, not by any means. Just… bland. It works, but it doesn’t stand out at all. Nor do the sounds the game provides you with. It’s just… average.

Performance

And lastly, performance. No problems here. Which is obviously good. No crashes, the game works well, runs well and that stuff that should be the norm.

Conclusion

So… in conclusion: Book of Demons is really good dungeon crawler and I’m surprised that it isn’t talked about more, to be honest. It’s an homage to the great dungeon crawlers of old and it should be taken as exactly that. Don’t expect anything really new from the gameplay but you will get hours and hours of fun. And I again have to stress out how great the Flexiscope system is. It just gives you as the player so much control over how much time you want to spend on Book of Demons and that’s something that really shouldn’t be undervalued. I can give my recommendation to buy Book of Demons with a clear conscience and hope you enjoy as much as I did. I’m sure gonna keep it installed for those moments when I feel like crawling in a dungeon.

So, that’s it for today guys. Hope you like the review and if you did, please consider upvoting the review and following my blog. And comment, if you have something you would like to add. See you guys later with more gaming content.

Disclaimer: All the images have been taken directly from the Steam game page