Labyrinth of the Demon King Review
Labyrinth of the Demon King completely hooked me with its atmosphere and its 32-bit PlayStation horror vibes.
Labyrinth of the Demon King. Jacob R. Hudepohl / Top Hat Studios
Labyrinth of the Demon King is a horror dungeon crawler masterpiece from solo developer Jacob R. Hudepohl, published by Top Hat Studios. I had heard good things about the game ahead of playing it but was totally not prepared for how great it is. This is a tense, genuinely spooky game that’s challenging but never unfair.
In a mythical feudal Japan, you are an Ashigaru—a peasant foot soldier—in the service of Lord Takeda Nobumitsu. The Demon King baits your lord into leading his army into an ambush, and you are the only survivor. Because your lord sacrificed himself to save you, you vow to track down and destroy the Demon King, which leads you to the gates of his domain.
Labyrinth of the Demon King. Jacob R. Hudepohl / Top Hat Studios
Players explore three towers in the castle before climbing the final tower to reach the Demon King. The level design is true to the game’s title. Each tower is a tangled maze you must solve, opening locked or blocked doors to create shortcuts; you’ll find yourself taking winding paths through cramped hallways, climbing up and down each maze’s several floors. Maps aren’t always available as you reach later areas in the game. I had a lot of fun carefully exploring the castle and solving its puzzles.
Labyrinth of the Demon King. Jacob R. Hudepohl / Top Hat Studios
The first-person gameplay makes for an especially tense experience because it’s easy to be surprised by the creatures that are out to kill you. The combat is close-quarters melee, with the exception of a musket and a bow that I rarely used. The game features a variety of weapons of different weights, from katanas to naginatas to a satisfyingly crunchy hammer. Combat is about managing your stamina, a precious resource, while reading enemy movement to strike, kick, dodge, or parry. It’s unforgiving until you get better at the rhythms of the combat, then it feels great to obliterate enemies; you’ll also learn the best way to outrun and dodge enemies, a particularly useful skill for when you need to escape from a Nemesis-like, relentless, invincible Yōkai that will randomly haunt you for a large chunk of the game. The bosses and mini-bosses are brutally difficult until you discover the right strategy to win, then they become easy to defeat.
When you die, you respawn at the last shrine save point you used with full health. Enemies will respawn and won’t always be exactly where you last encountered them, because they wander. You don’t lose anything you picked up, but any consumables you used will remain gone. Those resources are limited and precious, though not critically, because enemies will drop them with limited frequency.
Labyrinth of the Demon King’s graphics feel authentically 32-bit, faithfully replicating a PlayStation experience. The low-poly characters, enemies, and environments are dressed in blocky, low-resolution textures. Cutscenes, including door opening animations in between areas loading, are pre-rendered in blocky, heavily compressed video. Every detail, down to the hideous UI and 4:3 aspect ratio, made me feel like I was playing a game released in 1995.
Labyrinth of the Demon King. Jacob R. Hudepohl / Top Hat Studios
Even with the lo-fi presentation, the game is genuinely scary. It’s as if it were Silent Hill in feudal Japan. Unsettling outdoor fog. Dilapidated, filthy interiors. Blood trails and strange growths. Eyeless, speechless abominations. The relentless, shrieking—or completely silent—enemies induced a panic in me during the game’s first hours. Excellent sound design goes a long way in creating immersion, especially the ambient soundscape. I also loved the music, when it was there; I won’t soon forget the Noh theater-inspired track that plays during a dramatic chase near the end of the game. Wear headphones for the best experience.
Labyrinth of the Demon King. Jacob R. Hudepohl / Top Hat Studios
Labyrinth of the Demon King is a truly unforgettable game, one of my favorites in recent memory. I only reluctantly stopped playing to be able to sleep during the 11 hours it took me to finish it with all achievements unlocked. I want a sequel immediately.
Labyrinth of the Demon King is available now on Steam, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One / Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.
Overall Score: 10/10
Played on: Steam Deck
