Devil Daggers

Like another three-star review before mine, I also feel giving it three stars is a bit unfair. In terms of visuals and sound - straight As. It looks and feels like a 90s FPS. Sound is very good, my only minor gripe would be that the rapid fire sound is very flat and weak compared to the shotgun's assertive boom. Otherwise, looks and atmosphere: top marks. The gameplay is wonderful, you have two modes of fire (rapid fire and spread shotgun fire), basic movement and bunnyhopping a la Quake. You're in a dark room on a platform and you get swarmed by demonic, wonderfully designed Lovecraftian atrocities. You shoot them, they touch you, you die, rinse and repeat. It really is one of those things that you'll either get bored with after a few tries (kind of like I did) or get completely hooked on and try and master it. I feel like some achievements or at least one other game mode would be enough to add some much needed depth, but what's there is good. There's just not a lot of it. I got it on sale for 2.49€ and it's well worth that, heck, I'd even say it's worth 5€ for what it is. Just don't expect too much.

If you're looking for a pure arcade experience in the vein of 90s FPS (including the low-res-look), this is it. The premise is basically you're on a flat platform on which enemies spawn that you must kill before they touch you. You have two modes of fire, machine gun and shotgun blast. You can collect 'gems' from the devil daggers (the enemy spawners) and as well as harder enemies, which serve to increase the stats of your gun. When you collect multiples of gems gives you an extra performance boost. That's it - kill and avoid. The magic comes from managing the swarms of enemies after you by learning the movement patterns of the swarming enemies, all of which have neat fluid-inspired movements. Sound is a big aspect of the game, and you can recognise different enemies and their locations outside of your vision by their signature hums and screeches. The art is also great, very grungey death-metal-cover type stuff. But if you don't like the low-res look/visible pixels you may be put off. There's a massive leaderboard which you'll slowly climb. Please note this game DOES connect with your GOG galaxy account for score submission, or if you prefer you can create an account with the devs, or play OFFLINE. Already my 'bad-run' scores are increasing inbetween my PBs, which is proof I'm building skills for the game - so there's definitely depth here. Not for everyone but if you're into this niche it'll scratch the itch good.

This game is a must play shooter! Simple, fast, deep and addictive. It's hard to master but it will generate pure satisfaction. You will play, have fun and also improve your skills with mouse and keyboard. Only few titles are perfect like this one. There is no game like Devil Daggers.

I own this game on Steam and I think it's one of the best games of all time. I love it's minimalistic approach to mechanics which manages to feel complete even with a single dual-mode weapon. It's a skill-based game for high score junkies, so some people might find it repetitive and difficult. Graphics are superb and emulate Quake's software renderer style nicely, although I wish there was a way to change resolution, especially to change pixel aspect ratio and possibly run it at era-accurate resolutions like 320x200. The developer is supposedly trying to add in ability to play offline, so GOG release should be functional without having to log in anywhere soon, and I'm preemptively giving a positive review because of that. I hope this game shows up on GOG connect.

Even though I suck at this game, this game feels right, the graphics, the sound, the movement, it's a highly addictive game, the difficulty is very high, so be warned