Devil Jam Review – Survivors of Hades? – WGB

Spend less time connected to a PC, Devil Jam officially hit consoles. The game is a mix of Hades and Vampire Survivors, or more specifically, art Hades and the game of Vampire Survivorswithout the same level of depth and content as any game. But at just £6.29, is that really a problem?

You start out as Falco, the lead guitarist of a band just starting to make it big when Death (note the capital D) sues them, sending their souls to hell where an impeccably dressed emperor awaits. The Devil recruits Falco and eventually his two colleagues to help stop Death, who the Devil sees as something of a business rival, by fighting their way through a 20-minute run, leading to a battle with the Reaper.

There isn’t much of a story going on, and what little there is comes later in the game after defeating Death a few times. The three band members will give a little glimpse into their lives, motivations, and why Hell might be the best place for them as they talk to the Devil. To put it another way, Devil Jam it may look like Hades, but it certainly isn’t when it comes to storytelling.

But that looks really amazing. Bold lines, bold colors, high contrast. There is no obvious rotation Hades influence, especially when Sins appear to give you their power. When the action is on, it looks great, although I noticed a few visual issues, mainly that some abilities have a rotating box. It’s like seeing hitboxes.

Outside the battlefield, Devil Jam it’s about that Vampire Survivors style, one where almost all of your skills and attacks are disabled automatically. I say probably because there’s an option to manually aim your main attack, if you like, but other than that your controls are just running and doing dashes while hundreds of on-screen enemies try to turn you into a regular old jam instead of a devil type.

As you take on several villains at once against a population of hell, there’s a nice if forgettable selection of classic rock tunes in the background to keep your foot tapping. In a game about a team that makes deals with the Devil, I hope for cute songs, but what we get is fair enough for the action.

Stabbing enemies results in XP crystals, and once you have enough to level up, one of the sins will give you a few bonuses to choose from. These range from summoning weird jelly creatures to shooting love bombs to hailing ice shards, or you might get a chance to upgrade one of your existing skills.

Also, to compare with Hades‘ Gods, Sins don’t have much depth to them because you don’t gradually get to know more about them, but their visual designs and the gifts they give at least give some personality.

At the bottom of the screen is a 4×4 grid that looks like a guitar. Here, you place the abilities gifted to Sins every time you level up. The main gimmick is that the grid is basically in 4/4 time, meaning that at each point you fire your main weapon, as well as any abilities in the same column. If you are not musically inclined, just think of it this way: every second, the column ignites, unleashing all the power and weapon within it.

It’s a gimmick because it’s a great way to show off power, but it’s also a nice touch in a game that doesn’t do much with its music. It would be nice if that sense of rhythm was somehow tied into the gameplay.

But there is one interesting mechanic tied to the grid. Abilities are also given to Sins, and these empower (or “amplify”, as the game likes to say) other spaces on the grid. These buffs can also stack, so with a little consideration you can charge more attacks and effects. Note that I spoke in advance, however, because there is no way to deal with putting after your first decision. It’s a double-edged sword: being able to swap things would probably lead to a better design, but by making you guess as you go, the game injects some tension into the proceedings.

At best, Devil Jam it delivers exactly what’s easy to love about this genre: chaos. There is a lot. All over the screen. As you level up skills, increase difficulty, and want to kick Death’s ass again, the screen is bombarded with explosions, beams of light, puddles of goo, runes, and frost. It’s very satisfying to watch the chaos erupt across the screen like a fireworks display.

Whether you die or defeat Death, you head back to the Devil’s office where there are a few things to consider. First off, Devil has something in the area of ​​150 quests on offer, most of which are about killing X amount of enemies, upgrading bonuses to their highest Demon level during the run, or doing a few other character-based things. These applications offer currency rewards, new perks that you can buy from the merchant to unlock, and more.

Progress, then, is a mixture of things. Mainly, it’s handled by kicking Death’s ass, but it can also be linked to the quest system. For example, this console release offers one new platform to fight in, but unlocking it is buried within the quest system, meaning I didn’t notice it until I was pretty much done with the game.

I talked about sellers. Those are important because they provide the main source of power. There are different item bottles that you can collect on the battlefield and buy with Hellions, which can also be given permanent stat buffs. There are also options to unlock new boons that will appear during the run, and natural objects that can be attached to them to improve them during the run.

Really, the game’s biggest flaw is the lack of content, though that’s easy to overlook given how cheap it is. There are just three basic battlegrounds with little changes to enemy structures and a few simple modifiers, and they all look pretty boring. The variety of enemies is very limited, so after a few runs you’ve seen them all, and there are only three bosses besides Death to fight, all three of which you’ll see in every single run.

The game tries to throw in a few extra things. Difficulty levels scale all the way up to 20 and change the number of enemies you face, health, damage, XP amounts, and more. And there are several challenging areas, such as fighting enemies in the dark or trying to survive for a long time without being able to attack. But these disable the application’s progress and don’t count towards anything, so there’s not much reason to do them on a regular run.

The point is, Devil Jam you run out of steam quickly. The only fun of watching the screen turn into a bunch of particle effects keeps you going, and the enjoyment of that will depend largely on your tolerance for repetition.

The going is slow, too. After I hit Death for the first time, which only took a couple of runs, the game gets a bit stale because it doesn’t give you direction. The Devil finds out that he signed a new contract to help beat Death Co a little and gives a vague explanation not to hit him more than 10 or so times. But I did that, and there doesn’t seem to be any continuation of the story. And on top of that, The Last Sin took ages to unlock because, like that bonus level, he was locked behind a random quest among 149 other bad things.

Finally, performance. The game runs fine on PS5. No frame rate drops, no crashes. Nothing. Well, almost nothing. I’ve run into a weird issue where moving around Devil HQ between missions causes my PS5 to start making a sound somewhere between a whine and a buzz. It is limited to this game and this game only. I’m of the opinion that somehow these sections increase the heat output, causing the fan to go crazy. Maybe the frame rate is not limited or something. But that’s speculation on my part. All I know is that no other game in my library does this.

Devil Jam it’s one of those games that’s so easy to enjoy for a few hours, and just as easy to leave alone. The core loop works, the chaos is undeniably satisfying, and everything Hades-meet-The Vampire–The survivors the voice is strong enough to carry it for a while. But it never builds on that foundation in any meaningful way, leaving you with a game that feels more like a solid idea than a complete body.

For such a cheap price, there’s an argument to be made here. You’ll have fun with it, you’ll probably beat Death a few times, and you can even try a few builds along the way. Don’t expect it to sink its hooks for long. Between the lack of variety, slow pacing, and progression that feels too scattered for your own good, Devil Jam ultimately struggling to keep the momentum going.

It’s not bad by any means—just a little thin. And who wants a little jam?