Demon's Crest

Giving one of the mightier enemies from Ghosts N’ Goblins their own game is bizarre enough. Extending that game to a full-blown trilogy that spans across three different consoles is something to behold. That is what became of Capcom’s menacing, flying devil Firebrand as the Gargoyle’s Quest trilogy closed out with Demon’s Crest on the SNES in 1994. Demon’s Crest is by and large considered to be the best installment of this trilogy. With the added flair of being featured on the graphically superior SNES, this common assessment is understandable. While this game garnered more praise than its predecessors, Demon’s Crest still flew under the radar throughout the SNES’s lifespan, giving a “hidden gem” kind of reputation. This could be attributed to the fact that Demon’s Crest doesn’t bear the same namesake of the previous games, but it’s not as if the previous two entries are highly regarded either. Demon’s Crest is merely the most shining example to those few who have played this franchise. It’s a shame really because Demon’s Crest holds so many exemplary features to just be confined to cult status.

The narrative of Demon’s Crest is a simple enough premise that establishes the lore of the game. In the Demon Realm that makes up the setting, six crests with different elemental properties are scattered across the land. If combined, the six crests accumulate enough power for someone to conquer entire worlds like the Chaos Emeralds. Firebrand has all of the crests at the beginning, but the crests are stolen by another demon named Phalanx. Firebrand must adventure across the land of Demons to recover the six crests and defeat Phalanx before he harnesses their power and takes over the realm.

For being condemned to relative obscurity, Demon’s Crest blows many other SNES titles out of the water in many aspects. For one, the presentation here is fantastic. The grandiose fantasy world of Demon’s Crest is depicted with a range of lurid colors with an impressive amount of detail. As early as the first level, the misty water surrounding the dark bog with leafless trees evokes a spooky atmosphere. Skeletons can also be found entombed in dirt casings to give off the impression that this is an ancient land with a horrific history behind it. One section of a level has Firebrand soar over a platformless sky and the color scheme between the layers of clouds with the sun setting over them is utterly sublime. The submerged ruins consist of towering columns with gothic gargoyles pouring green water from the tops of them, flooding the ruins all the while with the remains of a city in the background. These are a few major examples, but every level of this game has the same consistent, A-grade attention to detail and graphical output. The gothic spectacle presented here makes the one in Super Castlevania IV look half-assed and amateurish by comparison. It’s a high compliment considering Super Castlevania IV is one of my favorite games on the SNES. The character animations also uphold the same impressive attention to detail as one can hardly detect the 16-bit pixels behind the animated sprites. One example is the dragon boss that chases Firebrand at the very beginning. It’s a marvel of detailed animation. The player can discern every fissure of flesh deteriorating from its bones.

Playing as Firebrand is also quite the spectacle. He’s a muscular demon that can fly and shoot fire from his mouth, so I can’t imagine anyone wouldn’t want to play as him. Those few who might have some discrepancies might feel like playing as an imposing beast wouldn’t offer the player any challenge. He’s a big red pain in the ass in the Ghost’s N’ Goblins series, so one might assume that he’s overpowered, resulting in a facile experience. Admittedly, Demon’s Crest is not as hard as Ghosts N’ Goblins, but what is? It’s not as if Firebrand is continually perched in the sky breathing fire down at knights that take a mere two hits to die. He’s in the demon realm now, and an even more hostile place that Arthur probably couldn’t endure for more than two seconds. The environment has been upscaled to appropriately fit Firebrand’s stature. His standard offensive power is shooting fire from his mouth. While it’s fairly effective against enemies, the player has to be somewhat accurate with their shots due to the less-than-firepower speed of flaming spurts. Firebrand also has a headbutt move, but it’s only used to destroy objects in the immediate background. Firebrand can also hover in the air after jumping for as long as the player desires. In the previous games, the ability to hover was finite making platforming challenges perilous in some cases. One could argue that being able to hover in the air forever may make the game easier, but the game opts for something else completely. Instead of platforming challenges, the game tries to overwhelm the player with enemies from all angles. Firebrand’s hovering will often be interrupted by things like flying enemies careening towards him or an ax that was lobbed at him from below. Firebrand can only also hover over heights that he can jump which isn’t far off the ground.

As his base level, Firebrand still has one of the most versatile movesets of the 16-bit era. The main objective of finding the crests even increases Firebrand’s versatility even further. With each crest obtained, Firebrand gains another form that coincides with the element it’s named after. The earth crest form allows him to break large obstacles by charging into them and spit a wave of energy that ripples on the ground. The air crest allows him to fly upward. One would think this would complete Firebrand’s range of flight making him unstoppable, but the air form only flies upward incrementally instead of continually making it somewhat awkward. The water crest allows Firebrand to swim. It’s the lamest crest in terms of offense but considering all other forms take damage from water, it’s made incredibly useful. The one crest that does complete Firebrand’s move set is the time crest. The form is essentially a stronger base Firebrand rendering the initial Firebrand form obsolete. Once I received this form, the game did start to feel much easier. The challenging boss battles that were once tests of endurance went down in seconds thanks to this form, and I’m not sure that I benefited from this.

Each of the crests in this game are retrieved from thoroughly exploring each level. This is also how the player finds health upgrades, urns to carry potions in, and talismans that give Firebrand specific perks. With all of this exploration-intensive progression, Demon’s Crest should’ve been a Metroidvania game. Sure, Demon's Crest came out in 1994. Super Metroid hadn’t laid the foundation for the genre yet and Symphony of the Night hadn’t popularized the genre. However, there were already games before Demon’s Crest that had a vague understanding of seamless world design and a Metroidvania-esque sense of progression (Ufouria: The Saga, Wonder Kid), so I can surmise that possibility for Demon’s Crest appropriately. I don’t expect the developers of Demon’s Crest to be visionaries. All the same, I wish they had done something different with the overall cohesion between levels because what they came up with isn’t great. The previous game opted for a traversable hubworld for Firebrand to walk around in with the sublevels scattered around. It kind of came across like the towns from Zelda II. The main map in Demon’s Crest is a tiny mode 7 map that Firebrand flies around in, swooping down to start the levels. The world map is easily the least attractive part of the game and controlling Firebrand here is nauseating. He mostly misses the marked areas and directing him back to the areas feels like using tank controls. A seamless design between these levels would’ve been a giant improvement. Considering the game already has the player backtracking between them to uncover items and crests they couldn’t get to before, a Metroidvania styled world would’ve fit this game like a glove.

The world map also makes progression confusing to follow. The player can access the first four levels of this game at any time, so it gives the illusion that they can be completed in any order like in Mega Man. The game does not make it clear that while this is true, each level has different paths that need to be searched in order to progress through the game. I had gone through the first four levels thinking that I had beat them, but I still felt like something was wrong and I wasn’t ready to fight Phalanx yet. Upon discovering that sometimes crests and essential items were found off the beaten path in each level, more levels were unlocked giving me the impression that I was finally on the right track. How was I supposed to know this without a map or any direction from the game? The progression in this game isn’t free-flowing and non-linear as it seems, it’s actually obtuse and sloppy. Fighting Phalanx is also available right from the start and defeating him without receiving all the crests will prematurely end the game, also giving the player the “bad ending”. Let me ask you this: if Dr. Wily’s castle was available from the start and the player was able to defeat him, why would the player be punished for doing this when the game gives them a chance to? It’s like putting a steak in front of a dog and batting them with a newspaper when they start to eat it. The dog will be upset and confused like any player of this game. It’s not like the directive to not do this was at all apparent.

Demon’s Crest is a prime example of a hidden gem in the SNES library. It may not be as readily recognized or lauded like Super Mario World, A Link to the Past, or Chrono Trigger, but it’s a game that’s worth the effort to uncover and play. However, does it deserve to be ranked among the greatest of the system despite its lack of notoriety? Sadly, no. The strengths of this game cannot be overstated. It’s a gorgeous 16-bit platformer that offers a lot with it’s short playtime. Plus, Firebrand is a delightful character to play as due to his eclectic moveset. However, I cannot excuse the progression of this game as I find it unfair to the player. The world here had a potential that the developers were too near-sighted to see. As a result, Demon’s Crest had the potential to be one of the greatest games on the SNES, but falters due to it’s shortcomings. Maybe this game is best suited as a suitable alternative to play when they get tired of Mario and Zelda. I do however think this game should at least have more acclaim than it’s parent franchise, Ghosts N’ Goblins.

This game is easily the best of the Gargoyle trilogy, and all 3 games were on different consoles. This is actually an overlooked gem, it controls very well, it is difficult but fair, the bosses are fun, and its long enough without being too drawn out, and it has a good amount of secrets. I did find the Overworld for this game to be a bit odd, it wasn't quite as dull as the one of the previous games, but it felt like the Overworld view from the airship in the Final Fantasy games. There are also some odd mini games in this that are a bit difficult. There aren't as many cheap moments in this than the previous Gargoyle games. Now my real complaints of this come from the final boss and the true final boss. This game has 2 endings, one normal one, and one for getting all the collectibles. The first final boss is just annoying and launches projectiles constantly at you while you have to platform and can only hurt the boss by hitting one spot. This boss is a major bullet sponge and tedious and I just hated, but to be honest, compared to the true final boss, I can actually forgive this. The true final boss, may be the hardest, most bullshit boss I ever fought in any video game series, and that includes Ninja Gaiden, Sekiro, Contra, and Devil May Cry. This boss is one you can only hurt while flying and he slowly turns the entire arena into spikes so you're force to fly the whole battle. And on top of that he's constantly throwing powerful projectiles at you that are super difficult to dodge. And on top of that he takes a ton of damage and takes forever to kill. I could maybe forgive this boss if each hit only takes out one dot of your health, but it doesn't and this boss can kill you in a matter of seconds since he's constantly spamming attacks at you, and also since you're forced to fly in this fight. This fight is just utter bullshit and unfair and without save states I don't even know how this is possible without 100 hours of trial and error and luck. Honestly, if it weren't for these 2 bosses, this game would have hardly any issues, but these 2 bosses drag this game down a bit. But for what it's worth, this game is still pretty good and has good controls and design and is easily one of my favorite SNES games. Its a shame this game didn't get more attention, I love the design and atmosphere of this and its easily the strongest of the Gargoyle games. It improves so much on the previous 2 games, and if it weren't for the final bosses, this game would be an absolute gem.