Demon Tides Review - A Chaotic, Charming 3D Platformer That Won My Heart?

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, which probably explains why 3D platforming with my bad depth perception makes me feel CRAZY, so color me surprised when I find myself bouncing, gliding, and climbing around the world of Demon Tides with a smile on my face (in between shouts of annoyance as I fell). Demon Tides is part of the Demon Turf franchise, a series of platformers that launched in 2020 and 2021 that starred our tiny demon queen Beebz. But does Demon Tides finally give genre fans the 3D platformer they’ve been desperate for, or is it simply another leap and miss?

Following on from the other games in the franchise, our protagonist Beebz has been summoned to a new distant land known as Ragnar’s Rock by the tyrant king of said land, Ragnar, in what she believes is a meeting of royals. However, as her ship is destroyed by an unexpected purple iceberg, she and her pals are scattered to the wind and must regroup, rebuild, and sail on to find out what Ragnar’s whole gosh darn deal is. 

The story isn’t the main appeal of the game, and to be honest, you could go through most of the game without really thinking twice about it, but the colorful world that developer Fabraz has created is still steeped in its own kooky lore, with citizens of each area laboring Beebz with their silly little problems. The colorful world begs for its characters to match its energy, so I don’t mind them being a little silly and goofy. 

Throughout your journey, you’ll zoom around the open ocean in your snake form, exploring an open world made up of 3 unique areas, all with their own challenges, biomes, and bosses to fight. Within each section of the map, there are plenty of different islands to explore with a selection of missions to complete should you choose to accept them, though most of them require you to platform your way through plenty of difficult jumps and races, so it’s nothing unexpected from a platformer.

Speaking of jumping, Beebz’s special skills allow her to traverse the world that little bit easier. Due to her demon inheritance, she has the ability to transform into various forms that allow Beebz to glide further, grapple onto targets, and sprint through time trials. However, here is where I should bring up perhaps my first gripe with the game: once Beebz double jumps, she transforms into a little demon bat, which is great for getting further through areas but does mean that Beebz can no longer wall run, get a glide boost, or use some of her other abilities. This would be fine if the double jump didn’t just happen all the time, even if I had not pressed jump twice. At first, I thought it was a me issue, that my controller was lagging or double pressing for me, but upon switching controllers and trying mouse and keyboard, it continued to happen, which was frustrating. 

Progression-wise, the game opens up early on after the tutorial finishes, and you’re given access to a third of the open world to explore at your own accord. The game highlights certain locations you should search, but you can complete any island at any time, fast traveling between all that you’ve discovered to max out the collectibles and complete any challenges that may need you to have gained new skills to complete. There is, however, no skill tree to unlock, and most boosted abilities are only gained through collecting or buying talismans to equip into your loadout, of which you can equip more as you take out each area’s boss. 

With the game’s open structure, you could end up completing a bunch of the suggested islands before anyone in the game has told you to, which is fine, but my personal suggestion would be to head to the first highlighted island before you really dig deep into the exploration, as there are a few moves, combos, and tutorials that you only find out about once you arrive there. From experience, I’d say it’s worth having those under your belt before you get frustrated trying to yeet yourself across gaps that are slightly too big. 

All the islands have a certain set of collectibles that need to be gathered in order to complete them 100%: demon eyes (which can be used to purchase talismans and cosmetics), chests that contain useful items, and most importantly, golden gears that are essential in progressing through the story. Gears can be collected from chests, minibosses, or by collecting five chunks of gear across an area. The areas range from natural islands to crumbling cities to evil industrial complexes, and due to Ragnar’s disregard for his citizens, they’re all kind of messed up, with gaps in the floor, lethal goo all over the place, and infrastructure that is almost certainly not up to code.

One super helpful addition to the platforming system is the ability to put a checkpoint on any non-moving platform that you can zip back to at any point. So if, like me, you find yourself eating the dirt over and over, you can quickly get back up to where you fell off from. Plus, as you get higher or further along in a level, you can plonk another one down and make your life even easier… or, like me, you’ll forget about that mechanic for the first five hours of gameplay and spend a lot of time faffing about… don’t be like me. 

Another quick gripe I have with the game is some of the ‘consumable’ abilities aren’t obvious in letting you know that you have used said item. My specific issue is with the drill grappling hook, which requires you to pick up drills while airborne but doesn’t let you know if you still have any in your pocket to call upon, so I did find myself tumbling out of the air a lot during my use of that specific ability. 

If the game’s 30-hour runtime still seems too short and you’re wanting a game that can really make you work, then lucky for you, every island has its own time trial leaderboard where you can race against other players to try and hit the top spot. Now, this may come as a surprise to you, but even in the review build, I wasn’t in the top 10 on any leaderboard, and some of these people must be total platformer gods because levels that took me (at best) 5 minutes to get through took some guy a minute and a half… crazy skills on show here… and if you want to see how they did it, you can race off against a ghost version of your competitor and get schooled by the paranormal. 

Alongside challenging the community to time trials, other players can influence your game in another way, by being a bloody yobbo and graffitiing all over the place! You can place predesigned images on any wall or floor you come across, and you can design elaborate collages by stacking and resizing images. You can, of course, report images if they aren’t appropriate, but you can also upvote ones that are either helpful at pointing you towards secrets or just great art. So if you’d like to paint some pretty pictures… or write rude words on the floor, then there is a whole world for you to vandalize!

Speaking of the world, I love the way it looks. It is colorful, cartoony, and full of personality, and even when I was falling face-first off of every island, I couldn’t help but admire the scenery. No two islands feel the same, and every collection of jumps, buildings, and runways feels so purposefully designed that while you may get frustrated at falling off of ledges, it's not the fault of poorly designed levels or frustrating difficulty spikes. 

While it is a gorgeous, vibrant world, my biggest issue with it as a whole was how the islands would abruptly pop in as you reached the threshold for the game to load them. I don’t mind that the entire world isn’t loaded for the entire playtime; what I would like, however, is to not get jump-scared by an iceberg appearing mere meters from my head. I mean, I was in a boat accident at the beginning of the game; I have trauma! Perhaps a little bit of flair would help, a fog lifting, a sun glare revealing the island, or just something a bit more gentle than their arrival from the abyss. 

Perhaps where Demon Tides shines brightest is its sound design, so let's break it down. 

Firstly, the characters aren’t voice-acted, but they do like to just say one word to indicate that they are talking (which is actually one of my favourite tropes in all of indie gaming, by the way), and those little snippets are enough to get the gist of who those characters are and what they sound like. Though Beebz does have a few little quips that she will drop at various times, normally about how great she looks in the new outfit I bought for her, and she is suitably sassy and quirky to fit her personality. 

But the biggest thing about the game’s sound design is that the ambient background music is so perfect for the game’s overall vibe. It’s funky and upbeat when it needs to be, and it finds moments to introduce a more lofi chill music track when you’re in areas that require it. The soundtrack in general is constantly delivering banger after banger, and as I explored (and fell off of) all the locations, I didn’t ever feel the music had become repetitive or bland. Though the standout pieces of music from composers Fat Bard and 2 Mello are for sure the boss fight backers, as I found myself prolonging the fights just so I could keep playing them because they were just such tunes. I hope upon release the soundtrack drops somewhere, as these songs NEED to be on my playlist!

Aside from how much I liked everything else in Demon Tides, I also really respect the accessibility settings that Fabraz has implemented. If you find screen shake difficult to deal with, you can turn it off, switch into first-person mode if you prefer, or turn down the game’s speed, make it easier to see where you’re going to land, or make combat easy by turning on invincibility. There really are lots of ways to make the game just that little bit better for you to play (and if the kids want to give it a go, you can make it a little bit easier for little hands). The game also ran really well on PC with solid framerates across my entire playtime, so hopefully the same can be said for its Steam Deck version and the version that will launch later onto Switch!

Overall, I think Demon Tides is a really fantastic platformer that even I, as a platformer wannabe, enjoyed my time with, and I am sure that bigger fans of the genre will love. There are plenty of ways to push yourself to be the best or quickest, but if you truly just want to bounce and glide around a colourful world with lots of personality, then you can absolutely do so. There are a few teething issues that I think could do with ironing out ASAP, but none of them harboured my enjoyment for more than a few seconds, and you should most certainly give this one a play ahead of Fabraz’s upcoming foray into the Bubsy franchise, because if this is anything to go by, Bubsy 4D will be a lot of fun!

SILVER: GREAT