Devil Jam Review

Two of the most popular games in recent years, strictly in terms of their presence in the gaming space, are Hades and Vampire Survivors. Hades is almost everyone’s (not mine, but I have my reasons) favorite roguelite, and Vampire Survivors completely reinvigorated the survivor-like genre. It is about time someone pulled from both of these games and created something unique. The question is, can it live up to the high bar both of these games have set?

Developed and published by Rogueside, Devil Jam is an action roguelite, survivor game. The Devil and Death are in a bit of a tiff right now. Death is a metal singer, and the Devil thinks that is absolutely ridiculous. You just sold your soul to rock for eternity, but are immediately thrust into this conflict. How bad could it be?

You begin the game as Falco, lead guitarist. Shortly thereafter, you unlock both Amy, a singer, and Lydia, the bassist. As the run starts, the hordes will swarm. Your weapon is your music, so just aim in the direction of enemies and fire away. Attacking is completely automatic, so you just need to move and aim (there is an option to auto-aim in the menus if you choose to go in that direction). At the 10 and 20 minute marks, a mini-boss will spawn. Three possible mini-bosses can be fought, and it appears randomized which two you will get each run. If you do make it to the 30-minute mark, Death will arrive and is looking for a fight.

En route to the 10/20/30 minute part of the run, you have to deal with the angry hordes bearing down on you. Defeating enemies causes them to drop experience and possibly upgrade items used outside of the run. Collect enough experience and you level up, at which time, one of the Seven Deadly Sins makes an appearance. This part of the game gives off Hades vibes as they are unique takes on known entities, plus they are fully voice-acted. Wrath serves as security, Gluttony is a three-headed dog that is in charge of catering, Lust handles talent acquisition, and Envy is your marketing agent.

Each one presents you with three choices: ability, passive, or weapon. Passives are just selected and you get back to the fight. These can include Pheromones, which leave a trail of pheromones wherever you move that applies vulnerable to enemies, or Keep Your Distance, which will periodically knock back enemies. Abilities and weapons, when selected, are placed on a 4x3 grid. Abilities are presented as patterns that can be placed and affect nearby grid spaces.

Weapons, on the other hand, only take up one space. As you play, you will notice the beat goes through the grid space. Each column is activated every fourth beat. A weapon will trigger every fourth beat, so its placement does not matter unless it is being affected by an ability buff. Essentially, the system is a glorified visual for weapon cooldown. Repeat selection of the same passive, ability, or weapon will improve its quality. Most will start at common or uncommon, but can reach all the way to Demonic. In a perfect scenario, you would be able to select an ability the first time you level up and then place weapons on subsequent level-ups. Due to the nature of the game, RNG is not really on your side. You do have a limited number of re-rolls, but what if the choices are ones you want? Do you risk re-rolling for a particular buff ability and skipping quality choices? Unless you can remember the placement of the ability buffs, you have to hope you do not place a weapon in the wrong spot. Abilities can still be placed where the pattern does not completely fit. It works the same but with less effectiveness. Hell (pun not intended), one ability is actually larger than the grid space, so it would not fit even if it were the first thing you selected. Now, if you could reorganize as you went, it would be a different story. You cannot, so you are stuck with this unique system that seemed great but was not fully thought out. I play enough of this genre to know that RNG is a factor that can make or break a run (which can be very exciting at times), but when you add in elements that actively work against RNG, it makes little sense.

Now, whether you win or lose, you end up back in the club in front of The Devil. The Devil himself will offer you a variety of quests that can be completed in any order you choose. In fact, you can preemptively complete a quest before the parameters are even revealed, and you get credit. Perhaps the Devil is getting soft in his old age. Quests can vary from surviving a certain amount of time, having a set number of kills with a weapon, or leveling up weapons to a certain rank. Rewards for the quests are money or new purchasable unlocks. To spend your money, you need to speak to Poppy, the merchant, and Lars, the broker.

Poppy can upgrade your stats or sell you new passives, abilities, and weapons to appear in future runs, and new environmental items that can be interacted with for temporary buffs during a run. Poppy requires a specific type of material for all of her wares, which can be found during a run or purchased with coins from Lars. Lars will also buy unwanted materials and even sell bulk items for a discounted price. The entire system works perfectly fine, except that it's entirely too easy to become overpowered very early in the game. After my run, post-tutorial, I had completed 11 different quests. This enabled me to reach Rank 2 on almost all the upgrades, as well as purchase several new level-up choices. This continued on the next few runs until I “beat” the game on my 5th try. Anyone who has played Vampire Survivors knows that you really do not become a force to reckon with until you near that 20-minute mark in a run and abilities start to evolve. In Devil Jam, I could fill the entire grid up before the first boss even spawned. Like I said, the upgrade system works fine, but it needs to be toned back to increase the game's longevity and replayability.

ACCESSIBILITY

Settings here are broken up into Gameplay, Controls, Sound, and Graphics categories.

Under Gameplay, there are 14 language options. Players can toggle the following: Damage Numbers, Healing Numbers, Pickup Numbers, HUD Near Players, Mouse Aim Indicator, and Auto-aim. There is also a slider for screen-shake intensity.

Players can completely remap all of the controls, whether you are playing on a controller or with a keyboard and mouse.

Sound options include sliders for Master Volume, Music Volume, Effects Volume, and UI Volume.

Within the Graphics settings, Vsync can be toggled on and off; there are several resolution options depending on your specific system, and Screenmode options. These include Exclusive Fullscreen, Borderless Fullscreen, Windowed Maximized, and Windowed.

FINAL THOUGHTS

On paper (those are dreaded words, aren’t they?), Devil Jam would seem to have all the ingredients for a great survivor-like. It has the Hades-style art with full voice acting, the Vampire Survivors game loop, and a “Deep Inventory Strategy: A unique 12-slot gear system where positioning matters and synergies reign (Steam).” So the Hades comparison does hold up and it is probably the one bright spot. The voice acting is phenomenal and a great touch to the uniqueness of each of the Sins. The basics of a Vampire Survivors-like game is there (30-minute runs plus RNG abilities to choose from) but, one level and 4 bosses? Once you beat the game, the only way to go any further is to increase the difficulty. This seems like a band-aid, though as it becomes available way too easily. Personally, I love end-game modifiers that challenge you on runs after beating the game to add to the replayability, but I also know plenty of people who are much less sadistic and would prefer just to play the game. I even completed difficulty +1 and +2 on the first try. Something seems off here, and it is not me being unbelievably good at these types of games. The most disappointing thing about Devil Jam was the total letdown of the “unique ability system.” The uniqueness stops at its description. It is completely at the mercy of RNG and needs a complete makeover. As with most Faustian deals, only the Devil benefits here. I will not outright say not to buy this game, but I would wait for a decent sale or follow it on Steam and see if updates change anything.