Layopi Games’ Devil’s Hunt is a strange creature – neither quite fully convincing as a character action game nor as guilty b-movie pleasure. And yet, I had my fun.
Desmond is a rich dude who drives a fast car, has daddy issues, and spends way too much time working out. After losing a brawl and walking in on his girlfriend and his best friend, he kills himself. I’m not sure if that’s an adequate reaction, but well, here we are. In any case, he’s dead now, except… he isn’t?
He ends up in hell, strikes a deal with the devil (nice guy, wears a suit), and gets sent back to the mortal realm. There he spends his time sulking, plotting his revenge on everyone who wronged him, and collecting souls for his new boss.
It gets more convoluted from here. Angels, prophecies, a supervisor who’s called The Saw (not very nice, pretty strong), and other supernatural occurrences happen in the next eight hours or so. Devil’s Hunt spends a lot of time telling its story. Unfortunately, the game just doesn’t have that much to say. It’s a jumbled hodgepodge of Christian mythology in a modern-day suit.
It doesn’t help that Desmond is a pretty unlikeable main character with some lame one-liners and little actual personality. As chosen ones go, he’s a pretty bland one. The supporting cast isn’t any better, and while the game takes itself serious, the writing, with its gruff machismo, is involuntarily funny. Whatever the writers were going for here – they missed their target by a long shot.
So, if the story isn’t the best, surely the fights must be good, right? Well, not really. It’s a fairly straightforward affair. Light and heavy punches, dodges and blocks, and a dozen of unlockable special skills offer different ways to clobber your way through the game.
Still, compared to other games in this genre, fights feel more like a tavern brawl than an intricate ballet of violence. The lack of a lock-on feature has you punching empty space way too often, and the whole thing can feel pretty clunky at times.
Boss fights are similarly unsatisfying and demand little more than perseverance and basic dodging skills. And once you unlock the healing skill, the game becomes a cakewalk – at least on the standard difficulty. Devil May Cry this is not, despite the similar name and genre.
And yet! The thing about b-movies is that they don’t have to be perfect to be fun. Similarly, a “six out of ten” game has its own imperfect charms. And in spite of Devil’s Hunt’s weak story, lame characters, and lackluster combat, it didn’t fail to entertain me for a few hours.
It’s no more than an all-around average game that punches way above its weight, but sometimes it manages to surprise you with some really cool environments or a “so bad it’s good” piece of dialogue that makes you chuckle. This might not be what the developers were aiming for, but ultimately, that’s what you get.
Devil’s Hunt is available now on The Humble Store, GOG, and Steam.
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nice post.thank you.