The Dark Eye: Demonicon

 PC
  • Publisher: Kalypso
  • Release Date: Oct 24, 2013
User Score
6.4

Mixed or average reviews- based on 75 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 29 out of 75
  2. Mixed: 31 out of 75
  3. Negative: 15 out of 75

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  1. ravenesse
    Oct 26, 2013
    3
    First of all and what annoys me most is: It's a console game. To me, RPGs and console don't work togeher, but that's personal taste.

    So there's a savepoint system, which means that I'm not able to save when I want. (Seriously?) The gameplay feels like Dragon Age light-and-slow. It's called an 'action RPG', but the combat animations are way too slow to make me feel any action. The    First of all and what annoys me most is: It's a console game. To me, RPGs and console don't work togeher, but that's personal taste.

    So there's a savepoint system, which means that I'm not able to save when I want. (Seriously?)

    The gameplay feels like Dragon Age light-and-slow. It's called an 'action RPG', but the combat animations are way too slow to make me feel any action.
    The whole interface looks exactly like the 'Game of Thrones'-RPG... only without the 'save game' option.

    Also I've got a problem with the resolution adaption. I play on 1920x1080, which is not that unusual, is it?
    The ingame graphics are okay (means: I didn't expect more), but when I need to read something in the inventory, the text is really blurry, which makes me a little dizzy.

    The story... well... maybe I'll find my way into it but I'm not that hooked at the moment. I just don't get in touch with the main character.    … Expand
  2. RagingPanda
    Nov 15, 2013
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Look, I like Germany. Schnitzel, Emmanuel Kant, Wagner's Ring Cycle, Albrecht Durer, Octoberfest, the contributions of the German culture are significant. The Dark Eye: Demonicon however, makes one fact abundantly clear: German RPGs are insane. And I don't mean quirky or bogged down by nuances of culture which fail to translate, but full blown bat straight jacket crazy. I am speaking of the narrative itself, a storyline which consists of a steady stream of atrocities, delivered in narration and dialog which fluctuates between hilarious and horrendous. I am not going to warn you of spoilers, because nothing I could say could conceivably spoil this game further. A short list of the classy content you will be exposed to: incest (multiple counts), necrophilia prostitution, Cannibalism, orphan mutilation, burning children alive, using a woman as rape bait to distract a man you are framing for heretical crimes (who you've never met), and a demonic tree beneath which hookers leave their infants to be tortured by a nightmare demon because it keeps them quiet. I'm not making any of that up.
    In Demonicon, an RPG, you play a set character. You do not create or customize your characters appearance, choose a class, or roll for stats. You are Cairon, Demonicon's Commander Shepard inspired all-purpose, almost hero.The game starts by letting you know two things: Your sister is missing in a dark mountain dungeon and you want to have sex with your sister. Your only choice is how MUCH you want to have sex with your sister., and whether you act on this impulse. Thirty seconds in and the game is slapping you with incest. That is the kind of game Demonicon is. When most games are trying to teach you to use your dodge skill and attack by killing some rats, this game is forcing you to mentally recover from the very clear fact that you want to bone your sibling. The combat by the by, is painfully paced, and stutters and staggers in the graphic engine equivalent of epilepsy. This freak out also occurs when detecting traps, and let me assure you it is not my PC, as I have been running Battlefield 4 on Ultra high settings with no stutter whatsoever. Demonicon is not ugly, but it looks like it came out circa 2006 in terms of texture and lighting, and contains embarrassingly rough set pieces and completely static skies. And if a game is sufficiently ambitious in scope, I can forgive a lack of polish, but this is not the case. There are four locations in the game, none of which are very large: the town of Warrunk, the swamp, the mountain caves and an end game temple. None of the areas are very large, and the game feels incredibly small and confining, exacerbated by the fact that you retread the same maps multiple times, facing exactly the same enemies (I think there are about a dozen enemy types, and I may be over shooting).
    The skills and combat tree system are interesting, interesting enough that I finished an otherwise almost unplayable game. I am earnestly interested in The Dark Eye as an RPG system, and curious what a Skyrim or Neverwinter Nights style game set in its world would be like. Demonicon is tragically lacking in ambition, and comes across as weak storytelling, poorly executed graphics and a clunky combat system. There are shining moments of amusement when Cairon's voice actor says exactly what you are thinking, expressing incredulity, disgust and bemusement at the world around him, but whether or not that warrants playing a game this riddled with failures is up to you.    … Expand
  3. ovrebekk
    Oct 26, 2013
    2
    Needing a quick RPG fix, and finding this on Steam, I automatically assumed this game was a new addition to the TDE: Drakensang series and bought it without checking further. Very stupid move :(

    Expecting something akin to Drakensang starting this game was like getting a punch in the face. The UI is laughable compared to that of the Drakensang games. Whereas the game itself scales to    Needing a quick RPG fix, and finding this on Steam, I automatically assumed this game was a new addition to the TDE: Drakensang series and bought it without checking further. Very stupid move :(

    Expecting something akin to Drakensang starting this game was like getting a punch in the face.

    The UI is laughable compared to that of the Drakensang games. Whereas the game itself scales to any resolution, the UI is really low res. Gone are the nice, efficient inventory system of Drakensang, and instead we get the typical list inventory obligatory for any multi platform game (consoles, apparently, can not render grids). Being able to save manually is obviously not supported, as consoles don't support this either.

    The RPG system has been dumbed down pretty much across the board, and you have less of everything in terms of skills, abilities, spells and item stats.
    The combat and overall gameplay has been dumbed down as well, but to be honest I didn't play it very long so maybe it picks up after a while...

    The graphics are on par with Drakensang at best, but since this was released 4 years later that is not very impressive.

    To summarize, I don't know why they bothered with a PC version at all. They actually did include more than a dozen video options, but that seems to be the only change they made for the PC version aside from reassigning the keys. With all the brilliant RPG's available on PC I simply don't see why anyone would get this game, unless they sink to my level of incompetency and buy it without reading the reviews.

    On a console this game might be a decent effort, and I am sure it compares more favorably to the games available there, but if you are a PC gamer I would much rather get the old Drakensang games, or one of the decent new RPG's like Witcher 2 or Skyrim.    … Expand
  4. Likeyou
    Oct 25, 2013
    3
    The Dark Eye: Demonicon is a bad adapted game. Its textures, the ambience, the characters details and the menues are a bad example for what can happen to a game quickly released on more then 1 plattform. You can feel the deadline, the short time invested for the Pc adaption while playing.
    The story and the decisions you experience are just mediocre.
    The leveldesign is very poor. I have    The Dark Eye: Demonicon is a bad adapted game. Its textures, the ambience, the characters details and the menues are a bad example for what can happen to a game quickly released on more then 1 plattform. You can feel the deadline, the short time invested for the Pc adaption while playing.
    The story and the decisions you experience are just mediocre.
    The leveldesign is very poor. I have seen better ones in Dragon Age Origins or Gothic 2.
    Dont get me wrong. The game is not that bad at all, but it is never worth over 15 dolars. Save your money till there is a good sale at steam.
    The game is very action based. Hardcorefans really shoul wait cuz of that with the purchase too.
    Bad work Kalypso. I am not impressed.    … Expand
  5. femmefatal
    Mar 11, 2014
    1
    For an 8 year old that likes rpg games this might entertain them for the better part of the day, but, you better have something else ready for them to play in the afternoon or be prepared for them entertaining you. lol Bring back the days of Diablo II or Bioware's games. Today's rpgs are just not up to par with the greats of the past.
  6. Sabatasso
    Dec 23, 2013
    3
    This game looked cool and I was excited to try out this one. Normally, expectations is negative because it usually leads to disappointments and this game didn't disappoint in that regard, if you catch my drift.

    Well, the combat was extremely weird.. didn't feel good at all. Slow, sluggish and wasn't particularly well made at all. Enemies seemed rather dull and sluggish as well, as they    This game looked cool and I was excited to try out this one. Normally, expectations is negative because it usually leads to disappointments and this game didn't disappoint in that regard, if you catch my drift.

    Well, the combat was extremely weird.. didn't feel good at all. Slow, sluggish and wasn't particularly well made at all. Enemies seemed rather dull and sluggish as well, as they seemed to wait for your attacks to finish before they tried anything sinister so unless you missed the combat rhythm, you can practically slay an army of dumbly idle and waiting foes.

    The animations are so bad that it's almost comical.. the PC is stiff, rigid and awkward while "exploring" and while it is slightly better during combat it wasn't particularly impressive there either.

    If you are really starved on action RPG's you might wanna give this one a chance but I'd rather spend quality time with a bad friend than trying to carve some enjoyment out of this mess.

    The story is OK so if the combat wasn't so extremely poorly made, I'd suffer through everything else just to see it through.    … Expand
  7. Paulystan
    Jun 2, 2014
    1
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. At best the game play is average. The graphics are okay. The general plot is not bad but underdeveloped. The voice acting is not exactly top notch. All in all just fro that, there are much better games out there that would score higher and this game wouldn't be worth more than $10.

    However, I am extremely sorry that I bought it at all because it is a sick and disturbing game. Incest as a romantic option?!? Sick. Having an option that is basically 1- kill evil murdering guy but condemn people to horrific death or 2- save people from horrific death and let evil murdering guy go to start his evil and murder again, is just plain madness. This game is a desperate attempt to be edgy and mystical dark in a genre of lots of games trying so painfully hard to do the 'every choice counts' thing. The problem is it is just evil and twisted and to use a word 'immoral'. I wish I had not bought it and I think the writer needs to have a mental assessment.    … Expand
  8. PenetratorGod
    Aug 28, 2023
    0
    Probably the game with the worst graphics I've ever seen. Don't be fooled by the fact that the game was released in 2013. Even in the early 2000s, you won't find a game that looks this bad. Gameplay is just as bad as the graphics. Story is incredibly mediocre. It looks like a game that should never have been developed. Even installing it was a waste of time.

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
61

Mixed or average reviews - based on 12 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 12
  3. Negative: 2 out of 12
  1. Hyper Magazine
    Dec 28, 2013
    60
    An engaging story and some good core mechanics hampered by some ugly design and repetitive, simplistic combat. [Jan 2014, p.66]
  2. Riot Pixels
    Dec 13, 2013
    64
    Noumena Studios is very different from Bioware in everything, from scope and budget to storytelling.
    Read full review
  3. RPG Fan
    Nov 26, 2013
    70
    Demonicon is ugly, awkward, and unknown, but it's still an average action RPG.
    Read full review
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