As a horror title, Labyrinth features blood, gore, and scenes that many users may find discomforting or gross. All violence is presented in a heavily stylized, pixelated/low-poly format. Enemies can be dismembered additionally.
In an age of indistinguishable AAA sludge made for mass appeal, and indie games mindlessly copying the last big indie hit hoping to ride the trend, it's refreshing to see a game that's not for everyone. You either love it or hate it — and I, for one, love it like hell.
This game is a mix of:
King's Field
Silent Hill 1
Japanese demon lore
PS1 aesthetics
If you like those things — you're gonna love it.
Don't like or care for any of them? Well, it's not for you, my man. It's that simple.
The game could be a bit longer, a bit harder, and the story a bit less obtuse.
Other than that, though — an amazing experience.
Overall, I loved the experience. It was everything I had been hoping for when I had seen the trailers originally.
In terms of the aesthetic, this game is an absoulte 10/10. The sound design of the monsters, environments, ambience and sound track are INCREDIBLE. They build an incredibly tense, oppressive atmosphere that kept me on edge as long as I was in the main dungeons, while having some peaceful short moments in very particular environments to break it up. You can really feel the Silent Hill influence and inspiration especially in the sound design.
The gameplay is servicable. There was far more options in terms of weapons, armours than I was antipicating though I only used a couple, as the boss fights themselves are quite simple and relatively easy to beat especially with ranged weapons.
Navigation in combination with the puzzles was UNRELENTING and at times tedious. I spent A LOT of time not knowing where I was as there's no marker on the map to signal where you are specifically aside from highlighting the room you're in, which wouldn't be so bad if there weren't so many branching corridors. This was something I did get better with and became less of an issue as I got a feel for the dungeoun layouts. I had also spent a lot of time trying to figure out where to go and being very confused only to realize I had missed a single room that held whatever was needed to progress, to then have that item activate something in a completely different area that I then had to somehow located with almost no indication of where it was. Quest items or puzzle locations are not marked on the map at all, so if you weren't paying attention to what corridors and hidden passages lead to which blocked off sections of the map containing the puzzles, you'll spend a lot of time wandering back and forth into locations you've already been to attempting to figure out how you got to another location.
This frustraton is the only reason I'm giving it 4 instead of 5 stars.
While I will start with some cons, I will up front that I do like this game quite a bit and very much recommend it for the atmosphere alone, which I'll get into towards the end.
Issue 1: While you will certainly die quite a bit in this game, I wouldn't exactly call it challenging. Enemies very much can and will sneak up on you if you aren't keeping an ear out, and it's not uncommon for this to occur so close to death; the issue more is that there is no real penalty to dying, and in some cases it may actually be easier to rather die and respawn at a shrine than it is to walk across the level, as you don't lose anything on death. With the exception of the very end as well, while enemies can be challenging bosses by and large are almost too easy, in part because once you've gotten the combat mechanics down they don't have much to trick you up. This lack of challenge does take away a bit from some of the tension in the game once you start to realize it's not all that difficult to get through, with only the very end of the game possibly being where dying can matter.
Issue 2: There is some obtuseness and bloat in the gameplay department primarily when it comes to your equipment. You have a plethora of weapons, all of which can be upgraded, and while you will see the effects of the upgrades they also don't feel like they change combat encounters all that much; damage types seem to matter more than the actual upgrade level of your weapon, but with several weapons to choose from it does feel like many of the options are somewhat redundant. If this was more of an RPG ala Kings Field or Shadow Tower this would make sense, but it is closer to a mix of Silent Hill and Condemned where the motion of combat makes more of a difference than the tools being used. This is especially true with armor where you have several options and can even upgrade your armor but you don't have any visible stats tied to this; there seems to be a scale of speed vs stamina regen vs defense tied to the armor but with no stats to compare to its hard to tell how much difference there really is and whether or not the upgrades make much of a difference.
Issue 3: The game isn't necessarily all that long, I would say first time through could take about 8-10 hours, but perhaps more pressingly is that the game feels most thought out in the first area while the subsequent areas afterward feel a bit rushed and can be played through rather quickly. The level design is good, I just wanted more of it, especially more opportunities for secrets; you are told to keep an eye out for secret passageways but this only really appears in the first area while the areas after don't appear to have any real secrets near as I can tell, even after checking online after beating the game I was surprised to learn that there isn't much else beyond what is already on the beaten path in those levels.
Issue 4: This is less significant and for myself I actually enjoyed this element of it, but I will say upfront that the story is also fairly obtuse in its presentation; it does feel like there are elements that are intentionally being left out to creat that sense of uneaseness, but I think combined with the short runtime could leave a taste of unfinishedness to it.
Now, all this being the case, I really like this game; mechanically its solid and the combat actually controls much better than I thought it would given the intentionally retro style. The atmosphere is where this game absolutely kills it, the sound design and music are perfect at keeping you on edge the entire time, it very much has that Silent Hill 1 vibe specifically with the harsh noise and industrial, but in a way where it sounds more like sounds in the environment which really amp up the tension. Each enemy has some audio cues tied to them, and when you can hear a hint of something around the corner it can immediately put you into a guarded state even if the sound may have just been some abience.
Visually this game is near perfect for me; graphically while I could see the heavy pixelation being annoying, for me it really gives off the feeling that you are playing something that is corrupted or rotten to its core, which ties into the decrepit and almost "crunchy" environements you are wandering around in. The enemy designs also play well into this; they're scary less in a "This looks horrifying" way and more in a way where you can almost recognize where they may have once been human but have been cursed and twisted, the enemies laughing at you actually adds more unease than if they just simply growled or roared, its as if they actually enjoy wanting to hurt you.
While the story can be obtuse, the writing plays well into evoking this feudal era Japanese story that appears to draw more from Budhist themes than Shinto; the idea that each area you are wandering in relates to the concept of the Budhist Hells is an interesting concept you don't see many games go all in on the way this does. The characters that you do meet as well, despite not having that much dialogue, all have very distinct personalities to them, and the notes you find do a fantastic job of helping to establish additional ambiance.
I am looking forward to any additional content that is coming to this game and would definitely be eager to keep an eye out on this developer's next title; while I think there are definitely some gameplay pieces that can be improved upon, I have no doubt that they can nail the overall feel and experience.
The first thing that stands out about Labyrinth of The Demon King is the visual style. It's bold, unsettling, and nails the atmosphere it intends to. The only downside to the visuals is the pop-in whenever you load into an areas. It's visually distracting and takes away from the otherwise flawless execution.
The levels can often involve too much backtracking or fail to adequately signpost paths or objectives. There's a good game here for sure, but you need to be prepared to feel annoyed at times from a lack of guided direction or poorly executed layouts.
I can recommend the game to those who didn't mind rough edges and want to play something that is wholly confident in itself.
Everything about this game has been fantastic so far. Graphics/art style, combat and general gameplay, and environmental storytelling are all great. No bugs or performance issues either. If you're interested in this kind of game then I strongly recommend this.
