It’s been a long time since I made a post about video games on this blog, and the ones I did have have mostly been purged when I did a redesign to focus on music. Now that I’m gradually trying to do more than music on this blog, I figured why not give my thoughts on some demos I checked out. This is only part one, as I did not really have the to check out as many as I wanted to last week. So I’ll continue to check out more demos from Next Fest and post at least one more part of quick thoughts.
AI disclosure: I personally do not like the use of AI, and I do my best not to support media that utilizes it. I checked every game’s description looking for a disclosure , and did not play any demos that did disclose AI usage at the time of this writing. Some may be using AI and not disclosing it, so there isn’t much I can do on that front. I try my hardest to weed those games out.
Bubsy 4D
Solid platformer, and honestly way better than I expected given how Bubsy has been known for some really bad games. The tutorial level is pretty bare bones, but that’s to be expected. Not really hyped for this at launch, but could see myself giving this a shot on a good enough sale.
Kioku: Last Summer
Unfortunately there was no way for me to play this game comfortably. Could not find anything in the settings to invert Y-Axis controls, and I’m not going to troubleshoot further for a demo. Sucks because I was hyped to try this one. Hopefully this gets resolved in the full release.
Alabaster Dawn
Oh damn did this game look and feel great. This game brings about the action RPG vibes that make me fondly remember Secret of Mana days. I had so much fun with this one that I decided not to finish the demo, just so I could fully enjoy the full game upon release. If I have one gripe, it is extremely minor. After playing the intro fighting sequence, the game decided to once again tell me how to basic attack was hilarious. I get it was setting up for more attacks, but they could have just picked up from where the intro left off.
Constance
This was a very pretty Metroidvania demo that looked like Hollow Knight, but with lively colors. I thought it had some fun mechanics, and liked how it utilized the paintings and art through the demo. I’m not sure how the difficulty will spike once the main game comes out, but I didn’t find it too frustrating for me in this demo. Not sure if this will be an immediate pickup for me with my current backlog, but I’ll be keeping my eye on it for sure.
Don’t Stop Girlypop!
Sadly this game suffers the same fate as Kioku, and has no inverted controls. For a game that has an accessibility section in the settings menu, this is super disappointing. Another one that I hope resolves this issue upon launch.
GODBREAKERS
I only played this one as a single player experience for the demo. The controls feel really good, and the game is vibrant. I found the voice acting started to get a tad annoying the more I played though. While the gameplay for fighting is good, there isn’t too much else at least available in this demo. It’s really just traversing between small arena fights as you run through an area. There seems to be more you can explore and decode, but a lot was not available at least in this demo. If some friends snag this game I might be inclined to pick it up, but as a solo experience I’ll probably pass.
Hell Maiden
I’ll be honest, I have not played Vampire Survivors, or many other similar games that have come out since, but I had a lot of fun with this demo. The aesthetics are so damn good, and I love the artwork so damn much. I made it to about character level 29 on my first run before I finally got overrun. I’ll definitely be checking this one out upon release.