Demon Stone doesn’t particularly innovate, but what it does it does well.
The first and most noticeable thing, about Demon Stone is the well done opening cut scene that segues straight into the first stage. You begin controlling Rannek, the moody and brooding fighter. However, after a short time moving through the first stage, you will find yourself shifting control to two other characters; Zhai, a dark elven rogue and Illius, the human sorcerer. Each character has some very unique aspects, both to controlling them and their battle strategies. After this stage completes, the three adventurers will reluctantly join forces and you will have to use these three warriors’ strengths, forcing you to switch between them often. This gimmick works well and it is the crux of the game, differentiating it from The Two Towers and Return of the King.
As you play through the game, and the story unfolds, you will be drawn into the centuries old war between Ygorl, the Slaad King and Cireka, the general of the Githyanki. Your band of misfits will have to pool their abilities to save the world from being destroyed by these two warring factions as well as finding a way to destroy not only the Slaadi and the Githyanki, but their allies as well. During the course of your travels you will watch all of your characters develop as they work to surpass their flaws. You know, the usual way things tend to go in these sorts of games.
The controls in Demon Stone are an improved version of the simplistic, yet effective, controls from The Two Towers. You have two buttons that initiate attacks, one primary weapon based attack and the other does a secondary unarmed attack consisting of punches and kicks. These can be used to form combo’s, which will only get more powerful, but not too complicated to pull off, as the game progresses. In addition, there are buttons to do super attacks, when your hero meter gets full (This bar is filled by doing combos and killing enemies). There are also projectile attacks, such as throwing daggers or ranged magic attacks, finishing hits which are done when an enemy is near death in addition to buttons to do team attacks. Lastly, the directional buttons are used to switch characters much like in the X-Men Legends games.
These team functions are one of the major innovations of this game. The ability to switch characters allows you to use each of the characters strengths to your advantage. If there’s a large horde of monsters, the warrior can lead the charge, but if there are monsters across a large expanse, the sorcerer can shoot them with his magic. The rogue is a special case however, as she is between the other two in terms of both fighting and ranged attacks, however, she has the unique ability to meld into shadows, inflicting lethal blows on her enemies and hiding from their sight. This is used in a few areas of the game to scout ahead, letting your rogue have her moment in the spotlight.
The team attacks are a fairly interesting feature, allowing you to call upon your allies to assist you with the creature you are fighting at the cost of a portion of your hero meter. It is especially useful since when they are computer controlled, your allies cannot be injured by many of the more dangerous attacks, such as being crushed or chewed up by an enemy. If all of your characters have managed to get their hero meters filled up entirely, you can execute the team super attack. This powerful attack knocks all of those in a large radius back, inflicting large amounts of damage to them. This is ideal for handling large amounts of minions, although I’ve found it to be surprisingly ineffective for bosses.
In addition, thanks to gold you may find in levels, you will find your options opening up later on. You can purchase weapons, armor and items from the shop in between missions. These will give expand your combat options, such as weapons that inflict cold or fire damage on enemies or larger quantities of projectile weapons. These don’t really seem to affect much at the beginning of the game, but they become much more useful as you get the better ones, although the most powerful items, you will find in the stages themselves, so you can’t miss the best items even if you don’t get enough gold in the stages to buy them yourself. On the plus side, you can always re-do stages in an effort to collect yet more gold.
It does bear pointing out that the graphics and audio in this game are top notch. The cinemas look and sound incredible, doing their level best to pull you into the story without going on for too long. The game play is much the same, with the sounds of swords and arrows meshing with the sounds of catapults and magic to make for an interesting listen. Overall, this top notch presentation is probably one of this games best assets. My one gripe with the graphics quality however, is that in some areas, when there were many enemies, there was some slow down to be had. It wasn't all that bad, but in a game such as this any little bit can be devastating.
While Demon Stone doesn’t really do anything all that different from Stormfront’s previous works, it is an interesting play with a variety of combat options, fun bosses to slay and enemies to fight. Things never get too dull for too long and the combat usually has some form of goal to be accomplished while killing enemies that prevents things from getting stale. Demon Stone is definitely worth the buy, if for nothing else than to see the interesting turns that this tried but true plot takes. Plus, it’s got actual voice actors! Who doesn’t want to hear Patrick Stewart foretelling doom for the realm and trying to stave it off while Michael Clarke Duncan plots destroying said realm. No dork in their right mind I say to you.
Score: 8