Damsel

 Xbox One
Metascore
66

Mixed or average reviews - based on 9 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 9
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 9
  3. Negative: 0 out of 9
  1. Cultured Vultures
    Aug 7, 2019
    80
    Damsel is a fast paced and stylish affair that keeps your heart racing with intense gameplay, despite some eventual repetitiveness.
  2. XGN
    Sep 8, 2019
    70
    Damsel is a fun and chaotic game, where you need to know what to shoot and when to shoot it. The arcade shooter has its fun times, but with the repetitive levels and the sudden changes in difficulty, it is hard to keep on playing Damsel.
  3. XboxAddict
    Aug 26, 2019
    70
    Damsel is absolutely designed for those that either speedrun or want to climb global leaderboards for bragging rights. For the more casual, it might be a little much with its challenging and frantic gameplay, though that’s where the easier difficultly option comes into play. In short bursts, Damsel can be a lot of fun, but play too much in one session and you might start to feel frustrated with the need for perfection and repetitiveness.
  5. Screen Rant
    Aug 7, 2019
    70
    Issues of repetition are mostly overshadowed by the game's incredible premise, map design and overall comic book-like sensibility and style.
  6. Xbox Tavern
    Aug 5, 2019
    70
    Overall this game really does bring back very fond memories of old school platformers, but after completing episode one of the campaign I started episode two and – even though the comic book style story telling gets you into the mission – I found myself doing the same things over again. The daily Damsel Dash missions are where I found most of my fun, trying to score higher than the person above me on the leader board. The art style and audio in this game is what made it for me, and for their debut big screen game I think Screwtape have really done a good job.
  7. ZTGD
    Aug 22, 2019
    65
    Damsel is a solid, if not forgettable title that really stands on its visual presentation and tight game play. I had fun with my time, but never felt the need to boot it back up after a few hours. Still at the low price it is worth checking out if the genre interests you. I certainly had plenty of fun digging into it.
  8. XBLA Fans
    Sep 11, 2019
    60
    I think there’s a lot of room for improvement but it’s still a fun game. As a whole though, I didn’t feel like spending much more than a few hours with it. The design and atmosphere was great, but there were too many things I found to burden the overall experience.
  9. GameSpew
    Aug 12, 2019
    60
    Damsel is far from being a bad game. It looks nice, controls well, and has a decent soundtrack. But its moment-to-moment action grows tiresome when played for a considerable length of time.
  10. TheXboxHub
    Aug 9, 2019
    50
    Between the lacklustre story, the frustrating controls and the non-existent character development, Damsel is just not fun to play.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
4.4

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 5 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 5
  3. Negative: 3 out of 5
  1. Xbox_Alive
    Aug 7, 2019
    7
    Damsel is a comic book speed run shooter. A Vampire corporation is tainting their own product with chemicals designed to control all theDamsel is a comic book speed run shooter. A Vampire corporation is tainting their own product with chemicals designed to control all the Vampires that drink their drink, and Damsel has to get to the bottom of it. With challenging game play, and a humorous edge to the dark world, you set as Damsel to blast Vampires from an evil corporation. Face paced platforming, needing timed shooting with awareness to succeed in Damsel, as you shoot enemies but not hostages. With 75 short levels designed to challenge your reflexes and , this game is a speed-runner's dream. Each stage is timed, and scored, depending on your completion, retries, and time. The game play is good in burst, as it's fairly repetitive, with varying stage designs, and final objectives. Damsel really does feel like your playing a comic book, with the stages feeling little more than 2 pages in size, but not as deep in story. Leader board junkies will have a blast as each stage has a global board to take on. If you're after a game that always demands you get a little better, Damsel is going to make that demand, and keep you killing Vampires in the process.… Full Review »
  2. DreadPurpose
    Aug 11, 2019
    7
    The running and shooting in Damsel is tight and feels great with a controller. The story is just there and not the focus. The running,The running and shooting in Damsel is tight and feels great with a controller. The story is just there and not the focus. The running, jumping, and shooting is the star of the show. I enjoy Buffy and Angel so the quick, smart-mouth girl killing vampires is a great aesthetic to me. There are 75 levels which gives the game a good amount of content for the price.

    This game seems to want you to replay the levels to get both faster times and better scores so that you can move up the leaderboards. The problem is that in Campaign after completing a mission it displays a leaderboard that only shows the top 8 high scores and fastest 8 times in the world. There's no way to see what your previous scores were or if you did better. It doesn't tell you your place on the leaderboards and unless you have one of the top 8 scores or times you get no positive reinforcement. There's no way to compete with your friend's scores. There's no way to try and beat the scores right above yours. There's just those top 8 scores in the world mocking you. That sucks. It's the worst implementation of leaderboard functionality that I've ever seen.

    In the mode Damsel Dash which is a daily run, I'm assuming, because the game doesn't tell you anything about it. You start in a random level and have a set number of lives. Well, the leaderboard for that mode only shows the top 10 scores. There's no way to expand the leaderboard, filter it to just friends scores, or see were your score ranks among everyone else's. It the same as Campaign mode. Not everyone is going to be in contention with a top 10 score, but that doesn't mean people don't want to compare themselves to others or find other gamer's around the same skill level to compete with. The leaderboards are supposedly this games big replayability draw and they've been handled so poorly that I can't really fathom what the developers are thinking. Hopefully this will get patched and we'll get fully fleshed-out leaderboards. If not, I can't see many people playing this game for very long.

    TLDR: The gameplay is fast, fun, and frantic. Tight controls and works great on a controller. Vampire slaying aesthetic is nice and graphics are pleasing to look at. The biggest letdown is the bare-bones leaderboard functionality and not being able to compare scores with your friends or others of the same skill level. Only the top 8 or 10 (depending on mode) scores in the world are able to be seen and that is unacceptable in this day and age.    … Full Review »
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