DEMONS' NIGHT FEVER Game Review

With Sohei Niikawa having dedicated so much of his career to the Disgaea series, it's only natural that he'd want to return to that well in some capacity with a new game. It's what he did with Étrange Overlord, after all. And for folks who miss the madcap dark humor of the Disgaea games, rest assured: DEMONS' NIGHT FEVER has you covered! But the mechanics will take a lot of getting used to.

Playing as the misanthropic Killshiro Katanaka, you're recruited by the depowered demon lord Giga Super Death to run through a simulation of his misdeeds as a Demon Lord—the titular "Demons' Night Fever." Running through various scenarios that recount Giga Super Death's life leading up to his ill-fated battle against God, you claim turf, dominate a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and castrate one million men alongside other vast actions of ill repute. Or rather, that's the story—in practice, you're just fighting in a bunch of strategy battles. Much like Disgaea, players are encouraged to manipulate the game's many systems to their advantage, devil take the consequences. Though instead of just throwing people around, you're actively killing your own party members.

Battles are more like puzzles; players can deploy a selection of Peons, each with unique effects when killed. This can range from dealing damage, pushing enemies away, applying buffs or debuffs, and so on—all with a variety of ranges. While you can buff Killshiro through daily exercises (think Uma Musume: Pretty Derby, of all things), the real damage is in popping your own Peons. Clever positioning and strategically slaughtering your own party members is the name of the game. Killed Peons reincarnate even stronger, so there's no point in playing nice. And you have skills like your handy Teleport skill and others to manipulate them into place. You'll have these mechanics explained to you—to a fault, even. So far, so good.

The problem is that so much of the game is randomized. You have no control over your party members, be it how or where they move or who they target. Apparently, being a demon lord doesn't guarantee loyalty. You have some indirect control over their AI in terms of their priorities, but you cannot in any capacity specify "Go here and attack this." So you'll need to use your Teleport skill to play around with positioning and get the right characters in the right place for massive damage. Worse still: you can't really control the skills each Peon has. They're disposable, so who you earn through "Abduction" is completely random. Maybe it's a Reincarnated Peon with a power boost. Maybe it's a new guy. Maybe their skill has a wide range. Maybe it won't. You have to take what you can get. And forget survivability—your Peons can take a hit, but certain enemies can wipe out a whole group in one fell swoop, and you only have so many ways to prevent that.

Worse still, each chapter has its own "theme," and as such, Peons and even Killshiro himself will have specific abilities that require you to rethink how battles work. One chapter completely removes your Teleport ability and gives Killshiro a huge body, forcing you to consider how your bulk will knock people aside as you walk around. This chapter also gives you a ton of Peons that focus on buffs and debuffs over raw damage, forcing you to rely on your Peons' randomized decision-making to deal with enemies. The intent is clear: you're meant to adopt a different approach each Chapter. But each chapter has a time limit; you only have so many days/actions, whether you're training, abducting Peons, collecting items, or whatever. If you have a bad run of luck in battles, or just can't gel with the intended approach for a chapter, you could end up in a negative feedback loop. And that can spiral even further; you're incentivized to earn Achievements in each chapter by playing well—beating a chapter within a certain time frame, recruiting so many units, killing so many units, and so on. These grant boons that carry over to later chapters. Doing worse means earning fewer Achievements, which means later chapters are that much harder. It's possible to replay earlier chapters—but you start over with the Stats and Peons you had at the end of the previous chapter.

In terms of story, DEMONS' NIGHT FEVER plays to Niikawa's strengths: lovable freaks being terrible to each other. You have a misanthropic hero who resents the world around him for what turns out to be a tragic reason. He tags along and does wild takes when he sees the cartoonish degrees of evil actual demons commit, and he struggles with his morality as his quest brings him into repeated contact with an old friend. The humor is decidedly off-kilter, from our extremely chuuni-protagonist naming himself "Killshiro" to him having a "Kill Note" where he lists the people he feels have slighted him. The chapter set-ups are also fittingly zany, from Killshiro being forcibly feminized into a busty witch (and angsting over his lost genitalia) to becoming an ersatz warlord in a Fist of the North Star-esque setting. Kitschy pop-culture references come at you hard and fast, from Sentai-styled heroes to magical girls to an honest-to-God Bankai as a consumable item. And no joke is too low-brow. Folks who remember Disgaea's infamous Horse Wiener will be happy to know that DEMONS' NIGHT FEVER has no lack of entendres for its crotch-based humor. Though the English performances are uneven in their delivery, sadly.

But true to Sohei Niikawa's style, these games still have a human tone. DEMONS' NIGHT FEVER is a game about "enjoying evil," but as it turns out, being evil weighs upon the soul. It turns out, killing people isn't fun, and Killshiro finds himself having to come to grips with that at numerous points. It's easy to be evil when you have a grudge against the "Stacey" you don't like—but what about when it's to people you don't even know? Or towards people you do know? Does that desire live on after middle school? Can it?

There's a lot to like about DEMONS' NIGHT FEVER; it's a charming game with sharp humor. As much of an edgelord as he is, Killshiro is a charming protagonist, and even Giga Super Death will work his way into your heart. But while the strategy mechanics are creative, they're mired in frustration with punishing consequences. Folks who want a rollicking good time being bad to the bone will find that in DEMONS' NIGHT FEVER, but you will have to work for it.