Super Turbo Demon Busters! (PC) Review

By Eric Ace 07.12.2017

Review for Super Turbo Demon Busters! on PC

Roguelike games are seeing their time in the sun after many years of languishing during the PS1-PS3 era, as there were only a few games that followed the random dungeon formula. Super Turbo Demon Busters is like many indie games that have popped up in the last couple of years, resurrecting this genre with variations from platforming, to straight RPG grinds. This game has the player take the role of a space marine on a hostile planet, clicking their way through various levels to advance.

Playing Super Turbo Demon Busters is a weird experience, whereby players are thrown straight into the game with little story and direction. There is a learning curve, confusion, and an attempt to understand what is happening. Then the flow gets going and the fun ramps up, but at the edges of the experience, bad thoughts creep in, such as "Is this all this game is?" It then starts to dawn that this game is actually very, very simple, but it remains oddly fun, yet in the end leaves the player wanting so much more.

Super Turbo Demon Busters can be explained very simply. The player goes to from stage to stage and is presented a room, which can contain either a monster or a treasure. Completing this opens up random rooms. Continue this until the exit. Rinse and repeat.

Screenshot for Super Turbo Demon Busters! on PC

Fights likewise are very simple and more like a RPG from the 80s. There are no special attacks, no items, no omnislashes, no nothing. You merely click and do damage as the foes likewise inflict the same. It is a true slugfest until one side dies.

As the game goes on, more characters join the team, and new weapons can be found. They slightly change things up, such as hitting multiple enemies, or doing more damage, but need to be reloaded more. Characters have a preferred weapon for bonus damage and a single special move (such as healing, or more money).

Screenshot for Super Turbo Demon Busters! on PC

The pace early on is great, with new characters joining and new weapons being found. It feels like a pretty deep and enjoyable game. Around the two-hour mark, though, cracks start to appear. The reality is characters are not that different, the weapons generally are not any different beyond whatever currently has the highest damage, and each level is exactly the same.

These are the realities, but despite this, Super Turbo Demon Busters still remains engaging in a weird way. The action quickly devolves to just spamming the space bar (attack) and healing when necessary, yet the characters are very fun to watch in their short banter. There is better characterization in these few lines than some modern RPGs.

While there are legitimate issues, such as room design being unclear about whether there is a door in it or not (why not just have the room dark, instead of seeing a wall until the player goes into it?), or some classes being blatantly better than others, the real problem holding it back is that it presents the awesome game and then fails to live up to its own potential.

Screenshot for Super Turbo Demon Busters! on PC

The idea of a sci-fi roguelike is great. It's got RPG trappings, a simple treasure system, and more. With only some minor tweaks, this could easily be an addictive, 9/10 kind of game. Playing it, you so badly wish the classes actually had different skills, wish the weapons actually did something different, and wish the grind wasn't the same level after level.

Playing through a single time, there is little reason to go back, as everything will have been seen the first trip. It's a fun romp, but will likely be forgotten except for the awesome potential it had. Some mods perhaps could bring it up to the greatness it could be, but as it is now, it'd be a fun afternoon game at best.

Screenshot for Super Turbo Demon Busters! on PC

Cubed3 Rating

6/10
Rated 6 out of 10

Good

Super Turbo Demon Busters rides a very strange line. On paper, the action and gameplay is woefully simple and repetitive, but actually playing it, the player is drawn in by the heart and old-school charm it possesses. The largest issue preventing a much more favourable verdict is the more you play, the more you wish the systems found in here were much more fleshed out, such as a deeper RPG system, a deeper skill system, a treasure system, anything, since the base is so solid, but leaves so much more to be desired. Rarely is a game like this passable, yet hints at such greatness that could have been.

Developer

HeroCraft

Publisher

HeroCraft

Genre

Adventure

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  6/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date None   Australian release date Out now   

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