Demonophobia part 9 – review

Note: due to historic reasons (walkthrough first, review waaaaay later), this review contain spoilers.

Walkthrough is over. Start is here, grand finale here. Before we finish last article in this series to suffer for eternity in Hell, I have few words of commentary.

Beginning of end

Ah, where to begin… Demonophobia is certainly crazy, horrific specimen of game and naturally most popular thing on this blog. One can get impression it was work of rather disturbed individual (info abound on net claims he is actually Korean, not Japanese, but who cares about things like that. Game itself is very Japanese). It was compared to various other infamous horrors, like this neo-nazi propaganda gem. Saw is child playground in comparison, etc. It is so terrible that is actually good – in way probably intended by author: it creeps out player and is playable only with extensive use of Bile Fascination. We do not really want to speculate about other possible reasons to play it.

Game is simple and pretty much straighforward, annoying controls and hard bosses notwithstanding. I got stuck in only one place (area 6 – I did not know that Butcher is supposed to get burned and freezed). This in fact inspired my walkthrough – I googled for one and was surprised that there are NO decent walkthroughs. Nada, nil, none. On Internet, where everything is supposed to be (doubly so for fucked up things)! YouTube walkthroughs in general sucks, by the way. Pretty much there is only one game-related series on YouTube that I ever liked – Blood Let’s play (this particular play vanished somehow, but I found another good one – can you guess why?). But I digress.

It was unbelievable that such den of depravity, deviation, horror and craziness as Internet did not had decent Demonophobia walkthrough yet. So I rectifed this grave oversight and made world a little better place. Or not. Whatever. Considering web hits, statistics and google search leading here, walkthrough fulfills its purpose, informing world about hopeless (I mean, more hopeless than usual) vision of Hell. I do not know if I can be proud of it, heh.

Doomed on arrival

Talking about hopeless… in most games featuring Hell you can win game and defeat Hell in this or other way, beginning from classics like DooM (now I am feeling old). In contrast, Sakuri Kunikai cannot win. She is practically helpless, without any weapons or means to make difference in any significant way. What game have as last cutscene cannot be even called bad ending (not only because there is only one ending). She was doomed from beginning, from before beginning of game, destined to rot forever in Hell. Creator clearly tried to have as worst, hopeless, soul-crushing finale as possible.

Game have few shotouts and designs that are, ahem, “inspired” by other media. Everyone probably noticed similarity of Butcher to Pyramid Head (skinning alive underage girl included in bonus pack) or reentactment of that cute Saw V final scene (crushing ceiling + controllable helplessness).

There are a lot of fan theories about game. For example, Shadows are supposed to be us – players enjoying this game and Sakuri plight. I personally liked very much one certain gimmick revealed only at end – that restarts of game after YASD are in fact part of story, not game mechanic. Only losing in final battle by neccessity is retconned by R like any other game.

Reactions

Special place is deserved for reactions from exposure to this game. They are… interesting.

“Yee gods, that is gross. I don’t feel horrified, I feel ill.”

“This has left a blight on my soul that will take many many glasses of soda (I can’t drink yet, so next best thing.) many hours of therapy, and days of bingeing abridged series archives and shonen anime to heal. ” [this gamer quit as early as Wrath aka Sir Punchalot, mind you]

Well, those are understandable and expected. But don’t worry, we can and will encounter… gems. That fully deserve to be here and now.

“Fuck. Just…fuck. Sometimes I think 2 A-bombs weren’t enough. I am never going to be able to forget this. What is wrong with people? “

I guess there is nothing wrong with people wishing actual nuclear holocaust for hundred thousands of real people, because some foreginer from completely different nation created game where fictional girl dies horribly.

Oh yes, my blog lives for these rare genuine moments, when sanity is indeed very, very overrated.

Conclusion

So… what now? I dunno. We will see – maybe there will be another cool, utterly insane thing with equally grave oversight, causing everyone to go amok and search for it on net in vain… until one certain individual with doubtful state of mind will write about this here.

We can only hope.

Bonus content

Demonophobia inspired a lot of art and even new games, that for some reason seems to have difficulty with actually being done. Ah well.

Now with “speedrun“!

As parting gift, I will leave most horrible fanart here at end.

Future

If you want a picture of the future,
imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.

1984 – Gegorge Orwell

Lets have tea with Nyaruko-san,

…or how I learned to stop worrying and love eldrith abomination.

Hello, nya, nya, nya… Nyarlathotep!

Main character Yasaka Mahiro, your typical highschool guy that was seen already zilion times, is in perilious situation – ambushed by some kind of nasty monster. In last moment he is saved by main heroine of this show… and it all goes downhill from there. As she explains, creatures from Lovecraft lore are actually bland aliens trying either to protect or exploit Earth (we seem to have successful cultural conquest out in galaxy). Nyarlko herself works for some bland planetary defense organization. This was moment when I knew I will not like this show very much.

Anyway, peaceful life of protagonist goes out of window. Monsters attack him, Nyaruko vel Nyarlko freeloads on him and he is forced to accompany her and her cute pet constantly.

Misadventures of eldrith abominations on Earth.

It gets worse. Soon more things join fray – Cthugha and Hastur. First appears as redheaded lesbian otaku agent girl that pester and annoys Nyarlko. Second, shown a little later in series, would be shotacon, if not for fact that it is not human. If that was not enough, Mahiro’s mother is revealed to be part-time monster hunter.

They together fight evil, or more precisely human slave smugglers, game console inventors, Nyaruko’s brother, retarded butler and mind-hijacking horrors. I got impression that their motives was supposed to be funny (putting Mahiro in yaoi movie, really?), but it did not work to me.

Summary.

Haiyore! Nyaruko-san is unfortunately very average romantic comedy with twist that is not enough to make it geniuely interesting. Even extensive references to Cthulhu Mythos are crapped due to lame backstory (just… aliens? meh). It is not very funny, nor scary.

I know everyone like to play up things like this, including myself. But in this case it comes off forced more than usual. Sure, watch it completely seriously after night with Lovecraft. Yeah, they found way to come to Earth before time when stars will come right – as moe girls and underaged boys. Oh, so horrible. Yawn.

In general, I give it 5/10, and that much only because of love for Lovecraft visible in this work of art.

Oh, I left worst news at end: they did second season. Lovercraft probably changes into fan (rolling kind) in his grave.

Bonus content