It’s a samurai themed game, f2p, with some gatcha elements. The gameplay is based a bit on Infinity Blade: you have to swipe and block at the right time to avoid damage. At its core, the game combines both grinding and skills, so it is quite rewarding in the long term. Wrote a little guide for Demon Blade and a review of the game.
Review game
The gatcha elements comes from demons that you can use to infuse in your sword, which gives you elemental damages against the corresponding elemental enemies (water demon is strong against fire enemies for instance). All demons also increase you base attack, and some of them provides passives benefits (higher critical chance for instance). You can easily switch demons between battles. In addition to that, with each attacks you do, you build up a gauge that can them be used for a very strong attack (demon release). If you attack while parrying all your enemies attack, you build up a combo and the gauge fills up faster.
The gatcha rates are on par with other games I feel like, but there is a sort of “pity mechanism” implemented, where if you summon 100 times for a specific demon under a specific banner summoning event, you are guaranteed to get it. It really pushes you to save you premium currency (you get quite a lot every day from playing) until you have enough to summon 100 times. Lots of players are very lucky and get the demons in very few summons tho…
Additionally, when you perfect block an enemy, your sword will do a full-counter, which depends on the type of sword. Some will do big damage, others will steal gold from the enemy, others will give you very fast attacks for a short while, etc. You can farm all the swords and gear from the campaign and daily dungeons.
So there is definitely lots of skills involved, and you can compete against high rank players even as a free to play player, if you play smartly and hone your timing. I paid for a few things in game to give back to the devs for all the time spent on the app, but you can easily play as f2p.
Strong points of the game
- Skill based, but also with lots of different play-styles depending on your gear and your sword.
- Very nice Japanese theme, with good music and atmosphere.
- The story is quite interesting, with some twists along the way.
- There is a very active community on discord, and the devs are connected every day. They reply to most messages, and interact with users a lot.
- Lots of events (every two weeks in general), be it solo events, or guild events.
- The game has been continuously improved, with a big update released last week, featuring the 13th act of the story. The devs share a roadmap for the future update of the game, and are listening to all feedback.
Weak points of the game
- It’s a f2p online game with gatcha and energy elements, which might not be everyone’s cup of tea
- The devs are a very small teams, so the updates comes slowly (but steadily!)
- There’s a few typos here and there on the english version (the devs are from Spain)
Earlier this month the devs updated the game with lots of very nice QOL and features changes:
- rework of the entire pvp system (the dojo)
- Introducing french and russian language
- you can now have multiple sets of gear
The dojo, which was a bit aimless before, is now very exciting and with more purpose. You fight against other players (controlled by an AI), which gives you points to climb the ranks. Each fight also rewards you with a form of currency to buy gears that provides bonuses for the dojo, as well as several consumables to improve your gear. You also get, every week, depending on your ranking, lots of premium currency.
Overall I feel like the update really improved the game, and I suggest anyone interested to check the game out:
