![]() At times it seems as though you're playing under about three feet of water, lending a dreamlike quality to the menacing cacophony. The sound design in Devil Daggers, while we're at it, really is something special. The rough and ready visuals, for one thing, are really nice. For instance, I didn't realise you can jump for almost an hour even now, I still don't feel like I know why jumping is important.īut while Devil Daggers is like that snot-nosed kid from school, it also does a tremendous job of making you want to be its friend. It takes time to figure out what your strategy is, how the different enemies behave, even what you yourself can do. In your first game of Devil Daggers, your reflexes might carry you through an admirable 40 seconds, but make no mistake: you are very much a babe in the woods. It's a game that plays its cards very close to its chest, forcing you to work things out for yourself while trying its best to kill you before you get the chance. See, Devil Daggers is like that one snot-nosed kid you knew at school - it's deliberately obscure and very hard to get on with. While not my best work, it's a fairly good example of the kind of treatment you can expect while learning the ropes. If you can't watch a video right now, here's what happened: it started fine, I panicked, I died - all in less than a minute. Here's a gameplay clip - sans swearing - to give you an idea of how a typical game goes. You achieve this simple goal by firing the eponymous Devil Daggers from your fingers, circle strafing for your life, and (in all probability) by swearing your head off. Placed on a small stage in the middle of a black abyss, it's your job to fend off innumerable waves of hellspawn for as long as possible. ![]() The basic premise of Devil Daggers is fiendishly simple. Before you know it, you're flinching your way through now familiar waves of hellspawn, your ears filling with shrieks and snapping bones. The anaemic glow of your daggers greets you like an old friend. The only logical thing to do, naturally, is to throw yourself back into the hellscape and try again. If anything it only confirms what you already know - that person is an impostor and a charlatan and they don't deserve to be ahead of you. You can download and watch the replay, if you like, but it doesn't make you feel any better. You start to wonder how they managed it - what fiendish pact did they make with Devil Daggers that helped them luck into a score they patently don't deserve? I know this because I spent a good hour getting increasingly resentful of fellow Eurogamer staffer Ian, who was just 0.1501 seconds ahead of my best time. As you pore over the two leaderboards - Steam friends and global - it's difficult not to develop an intense, roiling hatred for the person one step ahead of you. Those four decimal points weren't included for comedic effect, by the way - Devil Daggers really does give you that exact a time at the end of each run, because it knows full well you're doing to end up obsessing over every single millisecond. Reviewing your score at the end of a run is like coming back from another dimension in which time runs at a different pace - was that really just 58.4539 seconds? Devil Daggers As the ceaseless waves of enemies stack, the seconds stretch into weeks each one a living nightmare in which you're only just able to stay ahead of the pack. It's a shame that such an amazing run was cut short by a cheap shot, but if there's anything we've learned from Dark Souls players, it's that most gamers like these are willing to jump right back into the thick of things.Invigorating and infuriating in equal measure, Devil Daggers is a journey of self torment that will do terrible things to your brain.ĭevil Daggers is brutally, gleefully hard. ![]() and it only gets worse and worse as the seconds tick by.ĭespite everything on the screen desperately trying to kill him, DraQu actually manages to survive for 500 seconds - and if he hadn't been hit in the back by an enemy, there's a chance he could have gone on longer. ![]() The entire screen is covered in either demons or blood, and DraQu never stops moving. Sure, it's creepy, but the same enemies appear for the first 35 seconds - how hard could 500 seconds really be?īy the time 60 seconds is up, Devil Daggers is basically a different game. ![]() After a few seconds of nothing, a single spawner appears, and a group of extremely weak enemies appears. Meet DraQu (via Kotaku), YouTuber and apparently godlike gamer: out of everyone who's ever played Devil Daggers, he's the only one to unlock the "Devil Dagger" Achievement.Īt first, it doesn't seem like Devil Daggers is going to put up much of a fight. ![]()
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