Although it was released on PC a while ago, Devil Jam is now available on most modern platforms and acts as one of the survivor titles to be released this week. Although its gimmick of having a Hades-style visual presentation and focus on heavy metal beat-based combat, it didn’t grip me like countless others in this overcrowded genre.
Devil Jam is composed of standard survivors gameplay. Meaning, you are tasked with surviving for as long as possible while your heavy metal band member auto-shoots all the monsters mindlessly charging at you. Defeating foes drops XP. XP is then used to unlock or upgrade abilities. Eventually a boss will spawn and will usually kick your behind because they were designed with cheesy, unfair attack patterns, often causing frustration because you get almost nothing for the 15 minutes you just wasted.
This digital download tries to separate itself by incorporating music directly into combat. As new abilities get unlocked, the player needs to place them on a grid which corresponds to the soundtrack. In other words, when there is a beat, whatever ability that is on that part of the music measure will fire. Adding some depth, buffs can also be placed on the timeline to further enhance certain attacks.
While I appreciate this unique approach, and the soundtrack is quite good, I found myself getting more frustrated than entertained the more I played. The problem with this attack placement gimmick is the lack of adjustment. Once placed, those attacks and buffs cannot be repositioned which makes the experience mostly random… which is goal of any rogue survivors title. Unfortunately, it can be unfair when the game only gives you buffs on a level up, but there is only the one slot in the corner available, and it cannot reach the attack pieces on the grid. The system means well but doesn’t work to the player’s favor over time. Attacks and enemies are typical too. The Kiss impersonator hulks are different but would it hurt to have something other than slimes and bats always swarming the player?
There are permanent unlocks but each one takes a ton of time to earn. New characters and additional abilities can also be unlocked overtime, but again, only if you have the time and tenacity to see it through. Devil Jam on console also suffers from other quirks like having impossibly small font and displaying weird loading screens with repeating loading bars. The hub is also unnecessarily too big, forcing the player to walk through multiple screens when everything could have been much more condensed and quicker to navigate.
Devil Jam isn’t a bad survivors rogue title but it doesn’t have the staying power as others on the market. While the music-based approach to combat is appreciated and respected, I still will go back to Deep Rock Galactic Survivors or Vampire Survivors ahead of this one.
SCORE: 6/10
By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com
X/Twitter: @ZackGaz
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