{"id":98479,"date":"2025-05-13T16:19:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T16:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/98479\/"},"modified":"2025-05-13T16:19:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T16:19:12","slug":"labyrinth-of-the-demon-king-review-switch-switch-eshop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/98479\/","title":{"rendered":"Labyrinth Of The Demon King Review (Switch \/ Switch eShop)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Labyrinth<\/a>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/p>\n

Retro-inspired games have reigned supreme for some time now in the indie scene, but one niche that\u2019s been getting increasingly more attention in recent years is modern projects that aim to replicate the primitive 3D games of the fifth console generation. There\u2019s something distinctly appealing about the roughness of releases from that key transition point in the industry, and few games showcase that appeal better than New Zealand dev J. R. Hudepohl’s Labyrinth Of The Demon King<\/a>. A dim and disturbing dungeon crawler, this fresh release offers up a potent blend of difficulty, action, dread, and intrigue.<\/p>\n

Labyrinth of the Demon King is set in \u201cthe Age of Dharma\u201d, a Feudal Japan-inspired period in which war and famine have utterly ravaged the land and demons torture humanity. You play as a lowly ashigaru foot soldier who\u2019s taken it upon himself to kill the titular ruler following a ruinous battle where the Demon King slaughtered your army and lord in an ambush, leaving you as the sole survivor. Beyond this basic premise, there really isn\u2019t much more plot to speak of, but the labyrinth is full of creepy and dubious figures whose assistance you\u2019ll need to move deeper.<\/p>\n

\"Labyrinth<\/a>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/p>\n

Gameplay feels a bit like a slightly more modern take on FromSoft\u2019s cult classic, King\u2019s Field<\/a>, and we do mean slightly\u2014Labyrinth of the Demon King is the sort of game that just dumps you in and expects you to figure things out with minimal handholding once it\u2019s taught you the basics.<\/p>\n

The main gameplay loop centres on you simply crawling through a few different themed and interconnected dungeons, solving puzzles, bashing baddies, and discovering secrets along the way. It\u2019s slow, brutal, and unforgiving, and if you happen to make a big enough mistake, you\u2019ll be sent straight back to the last shrine you prayed at so you can do it all over again with the freshly (and randomly) respawned enemies.<\/p>\n

When you stumble across a foe, combat plays out in a very measured and simple melee-focused system that stresses the importance of timing and stamina management. It\u2019s not quite full-on \u2018Soulslike<\/a>\u2019 combat, but it has a lot of that energy as you carefully determine from moment to moment whether to push your foe hard or play things safe and hang back. Most enemies can kill you in a matter of a few hits, so learning how to parry and stun to break guards is absolutely critical, and even then, you\u2019re almost sure to accrue some damage even when you perform well in a battle.<\/p>\n

\"Labyrinth<\/a>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld\/Undocked)<\/p>\n

Though we certainly appreciated the weightiness and difficulty of the combat, it does feel like the stamina bar limits combat a bit too much. You can permanently expand stamina via limited pickups found while exploring, but even a fight against one relatively low-level goon will leave your hero absolutely gassed as he leans against a nearby wall to catch his breath. If more than one enemy jumps you, running away and hoping you can kite just one of them is effectively your only viable option because the stamina bar just takes so long to refill.<\/p>\n

Some may enjoy this commitment to uncompromising old-school design, but this is one element that we feel could\u2019ve been a little more forgiving without really taking anything away from the tense nature of encounters.<\/p>\n

Combat aside, this still isn\u2019t an experience for the faint of heart, as a lot of your time will be spent cursing as you try yet another locked or jammed door, wondering how on earth that cryptic key item could possibly be part of progression, and trying not to get lost as you roam yet another floor that you haven\u2019t found the map for yet. It’s clearly designed to be disorienting, anxiety-inducing, and mysterious, and it does a masterful job of doing so in a way that feels fair.<\/p>\n

\"Labyrinth<\/a>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/p>\n

When you finally stumble upon the solution to that puzzle that had you stumped, or find yourself stealing your way down a hidden hall that doesn\u2019t show up on your map, there\u2019s a thrilling rush of dopamine as you feel like you\u2019re maybe just starting to get the hang of this. Then it throws you another curveball with a new enemy type or yet another twisted and unmapped floor that you swear doesn\u2019t have you going in circles.<\/p>\n

If you like to get lost in your games, then Labyrinth of the Demon King is certainly one for you\u2014its simplistic appearance hides a magnificently complex maze that\u2019ll take you a long time to solve if you try to do so without any help.<\/p>\n

As for its visuals, Labyrinth of the Demon King leans hard into the lo-fi PSX aesthetic, which it executes masterfully. The gritty, gloomy design of the labyrinth lends a tremendously oppressive atmosphere, and this is perfectly accentuated by the intentional roughness.<\/p>\n

Between the 4:3 aspect ratio, the simplistic UI, animated FMV door loading screens, and heavy dithering effects, there\u2019s a palpable sense of unease that runs through this experience as you creep your way through the halls and question every movement at the edge of your vision.<\/p>\n

\"Labyrinth<\/a>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/p>\n

Complementing this perfectly is the sound design, which keeps you on the edge of your seat with all its environmental and atmospheric effects. It\u2019s never completely clear whether the footsteps you\u2019re hearing belong to you or an unseen enemy just out of frame, and all sorts of unnatural noises occasionally pierce the silence to remind you that you\u2019re not alone as you shuffle through another bloody corridor.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s admittedly not much of a soundtrack here aside from the assorted strings and bells woven in along with the sound effects, but this works to strengthen the experience by giving the labyrinth halls that extra bit of immersive realism.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/p>\n

Labyrinth of the Demon King does a great job of providing an authentic action-horror, dungeon-crawling experience that feels like it\u2019s straight out of 1997 in all the best ways. The eerie, lo-fi visuals, punishing combat, and disorienting dungeon layouts all combine to make for a maze worth solving. We\u2019d give this one a strong recommendation to any fans of Soulslike games who want to try something with similar traits, but that also feels different in some key ways. This is a great experience if you\u2019re willing to stick it out and learn its intricacies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked) Retro-inspired games have reigned supreme for some time now in the indie scene,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[10281,23787,45758,6082,124,464,615,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-98479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-action","9":"tag-adventure","10":"tag-labyrinth-of-the-demon-king","11":"tag-reviews","12":"tag-rpg","13":"tag-simulation","14":"tag-switch-eshop","15":"tag-technology","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114501436922387105","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}