Devil Blood – Demo Impressions

Devil Blood is a horror-based first-person shooter adventure game developed by Thelostone as a standalone game on Xbox Live or XBLIG for short. The beginning of Devil Blood actually explains the history and lore of the game quite decently. Nazratu is an evil force and horror from Nethermorne. The protagonist is the hero who ventures into the Nethermorne realm of horror in hopes of killing the evil Nazratu. Getting to Nazratu won’t be easy as you have to venture through many levels to get to Den of Evil, which is where he lives.

Controls (Xbox 360): D-pad-select spell, RS-aim, x-reload, A-select, B-map / cancel, Y-Inventory, RB-switch guns, RT-fire gun, LT-fire spell , LB cycle spells, LS Movement. For a real indie game and fps to boot, Devil Blood’s controls aren’t that bad. Aiming, shooting and detecting hits are tough, but I can say that for mega million dollar Call of Duty games as well. Considering that this game could have been created by a few people or even one person, it’s not bad from a controls perspective.

I’ve already gone over how souls are the currency and focus of the Devil Blood game. However, there are more than Souls. Enemies drop not only souls, but runes as well. You can turn Runes into Souls if you wish. I personally used some of the runes I collected to modify my Bane Rife and Hellfire weapons. Runes give different powerful effects to weapons depending on which ones are thrown by enemies. I picked up the Rune of Devour, the Rune of Tranquility, and the Rune of the Assassin. To get from level to level in Devil Blood you can use Soul Beacons and transport portals. You can’t miss them, they are glowing mirrors on the walls.

You start the trial at level 1 (playable level only) which is Dark Caverns. Progress from there to The Relics, The Abyss, The Tomb of Despair, The Citadel, The Halls of the Damned, The Crypt, The Lost Caverns, The Last Stand, and The Den of Evil. Each map appears to be a decent size. In the game, you can check your location on the map by pressing the B button. Just an estimate, I think Devil Blood should give you a good few hours of gameplay by the looks of it. Note that I only played the quiz that doesn’t even last 15 minutes, so take it with a grain of salt.

I have a few complaints regarding this XBLIG. The level I played at was extremely red and pedantic. All the enemies I fought looked like floating skulls with horns on their heads. But red, it was a lot of red on the screen. The gun, the walls, and the enemies, everything looked so red. I hope it’s just that level, in which case it would be totally fine. Otherwise, there would be no way I could play a game for a few hours with so much red on the screen. The skull enemies made grunting sounds, but otherwise I don’t remember much music or sound effects in Devil Blood.

Devil Blood does a couple of things that I most notably enjoyed playing the Souls game, looting and improving your skills. I also liked the sense of horror and pessimism he’s trying to give off. I did not like the level design with so much red. Thank you for reading.

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