Devil Dumper Doris is a 2D Action game in the vein of the classic Castlevania series. It takes place in a world ravaged by the undead, and at their helm is a formerly righteous king turned vampire. His is a tragic tale of duty to his nation and an ultimate betrayal, yet our job is not to ponder the morality of this task. It is to fight through his castle and slay the vampire, as Doris’s bloodline is known for. After the text crawl opening explains the plot, we are given control of our character and find ourselves next to our electric scooter. There is nothing you can do with it, but it is interesting how all of this is set in the modern day, even if it’s the first and last modern tech we’ll be seeing.
Our weapon of choice will be no surprise if you’re familiar with this game’s inspiration. It is a whip. Unlike Castlevania, there are no items to extend its length or increase the damage. What you see is what you get, so luckily, this is a pretty effective whip. You’ll easily be able to stand your ground against most foes and come out unharmed with good timing. Correctly positioning your character is another significant factor, as there are no diagonal or upright strikes. The whip is limited to only striking directly in front or behind you in a horizontal line. This fact makes seeing a flying enemy zooming toward you as you’re near a ledge an anxiety-inducing event.
Most, if not all, of the enemy projectiles can be destroyed by your whip, be it magic or some dude throwing an ax at you. Despite being unable to swing her whip freely, Dorris can spin it all around her to form a pseudo shield to cover every angle. She can do this indefinitely and move around as normal. Jumping at any point terminates this effect, however. It removes much of the challenge, but considering it has a long windup to activate, it is not always your best option at any given moment. This is a perfect time to mention that Devil Dumper Dorris is a relatively easy title. It will take a ton of hits to bring you down, and even if you die, you’ll respawn in that same room until you finally manage to conquer it. That goes for bosses too. Lose, and you’ll simply be put right at the beginning of that fight with full health.
Low difficulty isn’t a bad thing, though I’ll admit to feeling a bit of disappointment that there was no Hard Mode after beating the campaign. An update released around a week after this title debuted added a boss rush mode. Now that adds some replayability as you attempt to take all bosses back to back with a single health bar. As funny as it is that I just called Devil Dumper easy, as of this review, I haven’t managed to beat that boss rush mode. Another thing that was added post-release was a gallery mode. Unlike most titles, it isn’t really for showing off the art but to add some lore to every level you’ve visited. It is a bit odd that they didn’t include these before a level as to add some context of what’s going on in our journey.
No doubt by now you’ve noticed the MS Paint looking graphics. They won’t turn any heads but are serviceable. What I do find strange is that chromatic aberration look. That color bleed and slight blur to some objects is meant to invoke an old CRT feel. This is entirely subjective, yet it is not an effect I feel was pulled off well. Moving on from the more technical aspects, there is a decent amount of variety in both background and enemy sprites. As you traverse through these seven levels, you’ll be met with giant skeletal hands rising from the ground, a living miasma of souls of the damned, and bats. So many bats. If you’re not careful, these accursed winged fiends will easily be the foe that kills you the most, thanks to knockback upon damage and many platforming sections.
In case you’ve been wondering, there is full controller support. Unfortunately, you can not rebind buttons. I’m sure most gamepad users would have preferred the jump button being A and the attack bound to X. It is hardly a big issue. One crucial thing to know is that there is no pause function. If you’re reaching for that escape key, hoping for a breather, know that it will shut down the entire game. This is a common feature in Adult titles, yet this is not one of them, so that surprised me. Devil Dumper saves every time you beat a stage and becomes permanently unlocked on the level-selection screen. You’ll lose all your hearts and sub-weapon. It’s not a significant disadvantage, yet you’ll want to stay away from that escape key if you don’t plan to stop playing.
I’m afraid there is a rather nasty bug toward the end of level 6 and during the final boss fight that resets the game to the start of the campaign. That stage select screen was a lifesaver, yet I’ve played through level 6 various times due to this glitch, and it sadly ruined the ending section as I feared this title’s stability far more than the big baddy at the end. The worst part is that it was a good fight. Devil Dumper starts off incredibly easy but grows to have some bite to it by the end. It’s hard to keep this classic formula down, but the technical issues sure tried. The final flaw comes from the main gimmick of using a defeated enemy’s soul to swing forward. If you’re facing more than one enemy, it is all too easy to accidentally strike the floating soul and swing head-first into your foe. Or into a wall and getting your character permanently stuck, forcing you to restart the entire level.
Hopefully, those last two paragraphs didn’t come off as too judgemental. At the end of the day, its flaws can be summed up to sudden massive technical instability toward the finale and a central feature that is never given a purpose. I ultimately enjoyed this hour-long adventure. It won’t redefine the genre but is a fun little romp through well-known grounds. At 330JPY, which is $2.36 as of this review, Devil Dumper Doris is a decent value. It won’t hurt to try out the demo beforehand if this title sounds interesting to you. Here’s hoping that the developer keeps updating Devil Dumper. As much as I want to flat-out recommend it, it is impossible to do so without massive asterisks in its current state.
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