Demons With Shotguns is a competitive, and cooperative action platformer in the guise of a religiously themed 2D brawler/shooter. The kind of game that harkens back to Smash Brothers, but with a more mature tone. It features a handful of playable characters to choose from including a gruff cigar smoking angel, a traditional nun, a Satan looking deceiver, Death, a bulky demon, and a worse for wear preacher. Each with the same selection of weapons, and abilities. Including things like a shield for blocking and bashing, a shotgun with limited ammo for shooting, and a holy water bomb for tossing. These base abilities are further enhanced in-game, and within the modes by power-ups that come in the form of symbol marked tarot cards. Cards that can boost speed, and give other religious buffs like the power of Christ shield, the Holy Spirit damage boost, Angelic wings, and the power of Satan bullets. All things that once gathered activate under an announcer's voice that sounds an awfully lot like the honest trailers dude. Overall it's not the most complex game of it's kind, and as such it does have it's limitations in regards to fun value. If you buy into it you'll either be playing locally with friends in a 2-4 player versus mode, or you'll be going solo or locally co-op in a wave based fight for survival known as the "End of Time" against the minions of darkness with one other friend. With the available stages unlocked in order as you complete one of two difficulties per stage.
In the one mode I was able to play due to being limited to singleplayer I found a frustrating experience plagued by stiff character movement, slow actions/reactions, and unbalanced damage. This mode of play was the "End of Time" mode which allows for two player co-op. In it the goal is to complete a set amount of waves. In normal difficulty that's 6 waves, and in hardcore that's 8. The difference between the two difficulties being that one has supposed fair play, and the other more enemies as well as friendly fire to compliment local co-op. The waves consist of a series of spawning enemies of the otherworldly type. Some shooting projectiles, and others charging or flying at you for an instant kill. When you kill them they'll drop a soul orb which you'll need to collect, and take to the stage's center skull. This will spawn tarot power-ups, and ammo refills. Things that will enhance your base abilities. For offense your character has a pump action shotgun, and a limited supply holy water bomb. For defense they have a holy shield that can be used to block projectiles, or charge and bash enemies with. Movement is also a feature tied to the core gameplay loop, and your movement is limited to double jumps and dashes.
Each stage you fight in with the "End of Time" mode is limited by waves, and will require you to beat all the waves to unlock access to the next stage. This is no easy feat in that even with the power-ups the enemies, regardless of difficulty setting, will always be more powerful than your character. They can literally one hit kill you while it takes several shots to kill a single one of them, especially when not powered up. This coupled with the stiff jumping, stiff movement, and stiff actions makes for a frustrating fight. I gave up on the first stage as I realized the damage scaling was balanced more for two players.
In regards to the "Versus" mode it is a 2-4 player experience with a lot more multiplayer features included. Things like classic deathmatch, and capture the flag will have you fighting for other players' souls under different terms and rules. With some of the match types being more team oriented. As with the "End of Time" mode you will have the same abilities, tarot power-ups, and ammo refills to mind. I just wish it were a mode where singleplayer was possible against AI bots. It would have definitely added to the replay value.
The Verdict ...
If I were to be honest, and I am, this game fails to impress. Beyond the cool artistic design, and the interesting religious theme there is nothing really worthwhile to draw in a solo player. While it might be more fun in a party I found the way the game was designed to be too simplistic to really hold anyone's attention for long. It is a novelty game, and one that I believe banks too much on said novelty. For what you get I don't think it's worth buying, especially if you don't have friends to play locally with. It's going to be a pass for me. I had hoped it was actually 1-4 player friendly, but where it was it was very limited, and did not make for a fun time.
In the one mode I was able to play due to being limited to singleplayer I found a frustrating experience plagued by stiff character movement, slow actions/reactions, and unbalanced damage. This mode of play was the "End of Time" mode which allows for two player co-op. In it the goal is to complete a set amount of waves. In normal difficulty that's 6 waves, and in hardcore that's 8. The difference between the two difficulties being that one has supposed fair play, and the other more enemies as well as friendly fire to compliment local co-op. The waves consist of a series of spawning enemies of the otherworldly type. Some shooting projectiles, and others charging or flying at you for an instant kill. When you kill them they'll drop a soul orb which you'll need to collect, and take to the stage's center skull. This will spawn tarot power-ups, and ammo refills. Things that will enhance your base abilities. For offense your character has a pump action shotgun, and a limited supply holy water bomb. For defense they have a holy shield that can be used to block projectiles, or charge and bash enemies with. Movement is also a feature tied to the core gameplay loop, and your movement is limited to double jumps and dashes.
Each stage you fight in with the "End of Time" mode is limited by waves, and will require you to beat all the waves to unlock access to the next stage. This is no easy feat in that even with the power-ups the enemies, regardless of difficulty setting, will always be more powerful than your character. They can literally one hit kill you while it takes several shots to kill a single one of them, especially when not powered up. This coupled with the stiff jumping, stiff movement, and stiff actions makes for a frustrating fight. I gave up on the first stage as I realized the damage scaling was balanced more for two players.
In regards to the "Versus" mode it is a 2-4 player experience with a lot more multiplayer features included. Things like classic deathmatch, and capture the flag will have you fighting for other players' souls under different terms and rules. With some of the match types being more team oriented. As with the "End of Time" mode you will have the same abilities, tarot power-ups, and ammo refills to mind. I just wish it were a mode where singleplayer was possible against AI bots. It would have definitely added to the replay value.
The Verdict ...
If I were to be honest, and I am, this game fails to impress. Beyond the cool artistic design, and the interesting religious theme there is nothing really worthwhile to draw in a solo player. While it might be more fun in a party I found the way the game was designed to be too simplistic to really hold anyone's attention for long. It is a novelty game, and one that I believe banks too much on said novelty. For what you get I don't think it's worth buying, especially if you don't have friends to play locally with. It's going to be a pass for me. I had hoped it was actually 1-4 player friendly, but where it was it was very limited, and did not make for a fun time.
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