Demon Tides (PC) Review

From last week's review of the Zelda-like Under the Island, we're returning to an indie island theme with my review of Demon Tides. Instead of just one island, though, it's an entire archipelago! Let's dive in and explore!

Demon-strably fun platforming ahead

3D platforming fans are eating well in 2026. We've had Big Hops already earlier this year, and just recently we've also seen Mr. Sleepy Head release this month, too. That's not to mention games like Dracamar and Bubsy 4D coming down the platforming pipeline, as well. To say that 2026 is the year of the indie 3D platformer would not be speaking out of turn, methinks! Now, the much anticipated sequel to Demon Turf is here and ready to set sail on the open seas with Demon Tides. With a new, fully 3D look, a much more ambitious take on the genre, and plenty of spunk and charm thrown in for good measure, will Demon Tides be enough to "tide" 3D platforming players like myself over until the next game in the genre from indies arrives?

After becoming the Demon Queen in the previous game, Demon Turf, Beebz receives a letter from her absent father, the king of a massive chain of islands known as Ragnar's Rock. She opts to take her merry--and decidedly quite eccentric--crew of friends to her father's kingdom, where she quickly discovers his "mad king" rule. The denizens are suffering, the islands are in disarray, and Ragnar rules with an iron fist. Beebz decides to join the resistance, offering her expertise in trouble-making and butt-kicking to help put a stop to her father's tyranny, find out why he sent that letter, and discover why he's been absent for so long in Beebz's life.  

The gang (...crew?) is all here!

If I had to describe Demon Tides, it'd be a combination of Super Mario 3D World's Bowser's Fury half and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Our heroine Beebz traverses the wide open seas--well, mostly wide open, as they're divided up into three separate sections--in search of various islands with plenty of platforming to be found. Successful platforming finds Beebz earning new cosmetics, new talismans, and of the utmost importance for her adventure to meet Ragnar, Golden Gears. 45 of these are spread out across Demon Tides' world, and these are essentially the Power Stars of Super Mario 64 in Demon Tides' terms. As Beebz's Golden Gear collection grows, a new third of the overall map opens up for exploration. Of course, before being able to travel to the next section of Ragnar's Rock, one of King Ragnar's three right-hand villains overseeing the havoc caused in that particular region must be routed.  

Feet, don't fail me now!

Earning Golden Gears is accomplished by completing tasks across the dozens upon dozens of island locales in the game, all involving platforming of some sort--as one would expect. These tasks or challenges range from racing through rings and going from point A to point B, doing plenty of jumping, running, climbing, wall-running, wall-jumping, rail-grinding--you name it, to approach the treasure chest where the Golden Gear or other goodie (talisman, cosmetic, or otherwise) lay in wait. Other times a chest will be completely locked, but the nice thing about seeing such a locked treasure chest is that upon examining it, the camera will focus on the character whose problem you must solve in order to have them part with their treasure chest's contents. 

Feel that ocean breeze while grinding on those rails. You'll feel like a new demon!

Beebz has plenty of prowess to perform the platforming required for most of these challenges. Being a demon queen, she has the ability to effortlessly and virtually seamlessly transform into various forms while running and jumping around. A double jump will automatically see her transform into a bat, able to then enter into her spin form to gain some extra distance from said double jump, or perform a cannonball maneuver to get some quick speed and elevation before plopping downward towards the ground. Meanwhile, the snake form grants super speed, though a bit unwieldy to control at first, especially when precision is the aim of the game. I had to learn that movement was dependent on the direction where the camera was facing and make corrections as needed to go where I wanted to without as much frustration. Regardless, this snake form is the best means to jet around the waves, get to destinations in a hurry, and better succeed in the previously mentioned races.

Of course, Beebz could be perfectly fine with just this set of transformations and base abilities, but to better help players, the inclusion of talismans is available in Demon Tides. Talismans are essentially game and moveset modifiers to assist in making the experience easier or more difficult depending on the player's wants and wishes. Some affect Beebz's health, giving her an extra heart (pill capsule) to work with or one less to make the game harder. Some grant boosts to Beebz's wonderfully wide repertoire of moves, from giving Beebz's bat form a triple jump as opposed to just the double jump, to allowing for more time in Beebz's spin form to... well... spin! 

Protip: Red and black goo is bad for Beebz's health.

These talismans are unlocked through normal play, hidden in treasure chests from completing platforming challenges much like the Golden Gears (though talismans aren't progress gates like the Gears are), but they're also available to purchase on the traveling hub ship of Beebz and the gang's. This is done through the collection of floating purple eyes cleverly called Eyetems, the currency and secondary collectible of Demon Tides. The ship also houses a shop for cosmetics, from different hairstyles, to full clothing sets, to color variants for Beebz, as well.

As a collect-a-thon-style 3D platformer, Demon Tides is great for attempting to 100% the entire game through literally 100%-ing each locale in the game. That's collecting all Eyetems at each locale, completing each task, and opening up every treasure chest. Not every locale houses Golden Gears, Eyetems, and such, but each is worthwhile enough to scope out. I often found myself saying, "one more island", "one more discovery" in my head before quitting each gaming session I had with Demon Tides, and of course, that led to three more islands I'd play before actually being done with said session. There is an addicting quality to discovering new islands and locales, as that's a whole new series of potential Eyetems, Golden Gears, talismans, and cosmetics to find.

Levels offer lots of verticality and unlockable shortcuts so you don't have to repeat climbs!

That said, I pretty routinely found myself as well quickly seeing a lot of asset and locale-style reuse. A fair amount of the discoveries are crow's nests, which aren't too terribly exciting--and they're not meant to be--but moreover, the similar discoveries of dilapidated, sinking cities with the same building types to meander over, through, and under got somewhat old relatively fast. Fortunately, the other discoveries of islands were more exciting to find. Though, that isn't to say that the platforming in the sunken city locales weren't enjoyable. It was less that and more that the environmental variety was lacking.

Otherwise, the variety in environments in general is rather pleasing. For one, I had to remember this was an indie effort, and a 3D platformer with a vast world to explore, at that. Expecting each location to be brand-new and wholly original was not realistic. And the locations overall are different enough either in design gameplay or appearance-wise. 

Last game offered the "turf", so it only makes sense that Demon Tides brings the "surf" part.

There is a Mediterranean-style area in the first section of islands where Beebz has to navigate across windy, narrow paths, scurry across walls, slip and slide down a chute of water, and scale up a tower of platforms to reach a broken windmill. Another locale is unassuming at first, but upon venturing underground, there is a vast network of moving mine carts riding over hazardous lava that Beebz has to jump back and forth on to advance. One last highlight to mention--but there are plenty more--is a science base in the arctic area of the game, which features extreme frigid temps. Only through Beebz staying near lit lanterns can she stay warm, otherwise outside of these sparse sections of heat, she'll slowly lose health from the major cold. This is all the while she needing to find and collect five pieces of a broken Golden Gear spread around and across the open area campus.

An island completely frozen in time thankfully makes these mortars safe to jump on and off of.

Less thrilling, but totally optional unless you're aiming for 100%, are the Mr. Mint trial levels. The "loved by me, hated by Beebz" character is hidden away on many islands, and opening up a teleporter for 100 Eyetems sends Beebz to a Super Mario Sunshine-esque challenge stage. These are ones that require total concentration, revolving around different platforming gimmicks seen throughout Beebz's adventure, generally the gimmick of a given Mr. Mint level is similar to the one upon the island where you find his teleporter. At any rate, while these stages could be fun challenges, they're mostly overlong in length, and you get no checkpoints whatsoever. Nothing like making it three-fourths of the way through an otherwise easy four minute stage only to continually mess up in the final fourth, having to redo everything easy leading up to that one, difficult part. 

It doesn't help that oftentimes I found myself fighting the controls and especially the dang camera. Depth perception is a strong issue I had with Demon Tides, particularly a lack of proper awareness to where Beebz was in relation to tiny, narrow platforms. Outside of these challenge stages, I didn't mind so much. You can usually place a really nifty manual checkpoint at pretty much any moment there is a non-moving surface or platform. Perish? You'll wind up back at that checkpoint automatically. Miss a jump, fall, but don't want to redo all of your previous platforming handiwork? Then, you can manually send Beebz back to that checkpoint, too, with a hold of a specific direction on the D-Pad. There are just some occasions a checkpoint is simply not possible to use--Mr. Mint levels being one of those occasions. This makes sense, but because they're so lengthy in duration, that makes for an annoying issue.

Another slightly annoying issue is that of combat. It's just not very good in feel nor in practice. Beebz uses a homing attack sort of similarly to Sonic the Hedgehog's in Sonic Adventure and beyond, but this has about as much consistency as Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). That is to say, it doesn't have much at all. Trying to hit moving targets in the form of fast foes is an effort in minor futility and major frustration. The boss battles fare better, whether they're the main baddies that take up one of the three sections of Demon Tides' world, or the optional Gearserker mini-bosses. Though, the latter suffers from a lack of variety in the encounters. Honestly, I'd have preferred combat be limited to bosses and have little peon enemies not be a thing at all. It doesn't work well in Demon Tides, whose focus is better served on the platforming action.

There are plenty of Gearserkers to battle, but if you've seen one, you've pretty much seen most of what they have to offer.

And when the platforming action works, it works like an absolute dream. There is so much freedom to be found in chaining Beebz's large arsenal of moves, transformations, and jumps together to flow so well and wonderfully. When things like combat, the camera, or sometimes even the controls get in the way, Demon Tides is less of a dream and more of a nightmare.  

Mostly, however, Demon Tides' nightmare moments are fewer and further in between than the dreamlike portions, fortunately. The game all-around took me approximately 18 hours to 100% complete. I am relatively competent at platformers of this style, so that's important to note with regard to completion time. Even with my aggravations, I found the game overall a winner.

Beebz is the captain, now.

That extends to the presentation as well, for the most part. There are some early areas, especially the boss-controlled areas, that are incredibly, ungodly garish in purple and pink colors. It's a sight to make sore eyes, as it's just egregiously bad and a bewildering artistic design decision. Thankfully, an upcoming patch (and it might even be out already before this review's published) plans to mitigate the obtrusive colors on display in these sections. Otherwise, most everything else graphically is rather lovely. Some geometry and graphical glitches are present, though. I noticed on the island with the giant lighthouse that I could go under it in Beebz's snake form because said lighthouse's foundation wasn't entirely grounded. I also saw trees that didn't stick firmly into the ground, only partway, which looked quite off. 

On the sound side, Beebz and the cast sport charming dialogue and partial voice work. I say "partial' because only the really important to accentuate lines of dialogue are spoken out loud. Everything else is silent. Musically, the compositions and tracks are serviceable. They work for Demon Tides in the sense that they fit the areas they play in, but they're also missing that special something and not really anything I'd run to listen to outside of playing the game.

Running off my Steam Deck, Demon Tides mostly held up well, with some frame-rate spikes and dips in later areas.

Demon Tides is a superb and ambitious 3D indie platformer that casts a wide net of adventure. The ability to customize your playing experience through the helpful talisman system is a pleasure to have. It truly assists in making the game more enjoyable and less frustrating when control and camera quibbles try to ruin the fun. While these problems do rock the boat a little bit, making for a non-ideal experience, all in all, Demon Tides offers more of a smooth ride rather than one in abundantly choppy waters. There's more fun than frustration to be found in Demon Tides. And like many of the locales in the game, there are clever level and gameplay concepts and a robust repertoire of moves that are mostly well executed to discover throughout Demon Tides, making it one I recommend 3D platformer fans to play.

[SPC Says: B] 

Slime-san (NS, PC) Review

The reviews on SuperPhillip Central for August continue with Fabraz's Slime-san, now available for the Nintendo Switch. Check out my detailed thoughts on the game with my review!

Goo-ed to the last drop.

Poor slime. Just casually strolling about, doing his own thing, and not causing trouble for anyone when all of a sudden a gigantic worm consumes him from behind, completely whole. Now, our slime-tacular friend is in need of finding his way out of the worm's massive insides by running, jumping, and sliding through 100 levels of twitch-based platforming in Slime-san. Released on Steam and recently the Nintendo Switch eShop, Slime-san is a terrific take on games like Super Meat Boy and N++ that does enough to separate itself from the competition and in general just be uproariously good time.

Slime-san's 100 levels are split up between five worlds of 20 levels each. Most levels feature four rooms to them, and completing each room serves as a checkpoint, which is a godsend--or in this case, slime-send-- as it's one hit and your slime is no more. And you will be dying a lot. Thankfully, being brought back to try the current room again is a swift process. Rooms have a set way to move through them, but speedrunners and genre experts can use high risk, high reward shortcuts to slice off sizable chunks of time. It feels so very good to go off the beaten path from the way Slime-san intends for starting players to go through levels and get rewarded for it.

It's not a hop, skip, and a jump to finish levels in Slime-san. It's more of needing a wing and a prayer.

A strict color palette of only five colors is not only an artistic choice in Slime-san, but it is also prominent for gameplay reasons as well. White walls and ceilings are safe to the touch while anything red is generally instant death upon touching it. Meanwhile, our slime hero has the ability to switch between a solid form and a transparent form with the press of the left shoulder button. This allows him to pass through green blocks and walls when transparent. Quite quickly in Slime-san, levels require shifting between solid and transparent forms in succession with great precision to survive.

A general lesson of Slime-san: Red is bad; Green is good.
There are also color blind options, if you have problems distinguishing between colors.

Levels in Slime-san constantly introduce new mechanics, obstacles, and challenges into the fray to keep things fresh, even towards the final levels of the game. From blocks and walls that disappear when in transparent mode and reappear when the slime is solid to gravity segments that flip the slime from running on the floor to skimming along the ceiling, to color-coded key-like doors that unlock gates to vines that allow Slime-san to swing across chasms and up to higher areas, this game is not shy about bringing a lot of variety when it comes to new mechanics to be taught to the player and for the player to overcome them.

Slime-san controls well. One button is there to jump, one to become solid and transparent, and one to dash, either on ground or in midair. Sadly, this is where Slime-san can become a little confusing to play. The neat thing about Super Meat Boy is that the controls are simple; one has but a small amount of things to worry about while playing: running and jumping (the latter in both normal jump and wall jump forms). Slime-san makes it so you have to concern yourself with multiple moves at once. Many times it felt like I was attempting to pat my head while rubbing my tummy. Okay, well, doing those two things isn't exactly tough, but you get my point with the reference there. It can become difficult to do a series of required movements with all of the options available to you, merely complicating the platforming and causing more deaths than I would have liked because of it. Mind you, you'll die a lot even when you have become accustomed to all the maneuvers in Slime-san's repertoire, but being flabbergasted by the controls at moments is annoying all the same.

This early level features boxes to dash into to create platforms to safely cross this hazardous pink goo.

If you wish to run through each level of Slime-san to reach the end of the game, your playtime might last about eight hours or so. For those that desire the most bang for their buck, there are a lot of side content to sink your teeth into. For one, each level, outside of boss battles that conclude each of the five sets of 20 levels, has four apples to collect, one in each room of a level. Not only do these serve as nice collectibles, but they're placed in some pretty crafty locations. I don't mean cleverly hidden or anything like that. Instead, they are situated in precarious spots. Sometimes you'll need to do some dangerous, risky jumping to reach them, others will require you to take the long way or more so, a detour to nab them. While this might not seem so bad, each room in the game has a timer of sorts that when it reaches zero, pink acid starts to move through the room from a predetermined side. Touching it like any hazard in Slime-san results in a swift and slimy death. Also, some levels in particular feature hidden areas that lead to NPCs within, and Slime-san can invite them to the town within the worm.

Yep, there is a town within Slime-san (talking about the game here) that serves as a special site where Slime-san (talking about the character now) can visit to accomplish a number of tasks and see all the sights that the city has to offer. He can use his bravely collected apples to trade with NPCs to do things like buy new costumes and accessories, new slime types that deliver positive and negative powers depending on the one purchased and equipped (such as higher jumping prowess but slower speed, for instance), and much more. The town in question, Slumptown is a happening place where you speak to the townspeople, including the NPCs you rescued from the bowels of the worm beast.

This leads me to talk about what further content is available in Slime-san. There are your standard time trials to earn trophies for beating the record time in each level, of course, but there is also post-game content as well! After beating the initial 100 levels, you can play a New Game+ mode that alters the enemy and obstacle placement of the original levels. Additionally, a Boss Rush option opens, and these boss fights are quite clever, because Slime-san can't actually attack any enemy, he has to use obstacles and other means to bring these baddie bosses down. They're action-packed fights that lean heavily on puzzle-like approaches.

Boss battles require quick thinking, quick platforming, and quick reloading for when you die many times trying to figure out what to do to beat these big, bad bosses!

To me, Slime-san has a polarizing graphic style to it. Obviously it's retro-focused, but looking at the game in screenshot form, the look is a bit too rough on my eyes and almost gives me a headache on the closer-in shots. The more zoomed out ones are much more pleasant to look at. Regardless, Slime-san looks much better in motion, but you really need to appreciate old school styles to get the most out of it. For a further, more authentic retro experience, Slime-san brings with it several visual filters that you can add to the game by purchasing them in Slumptown, whether VHS-styled, CRT-styled, and even a shout-out to the doomed Virtual Boy, an all red aesthetic headache in the making. While Slime-san generally performs well with regards to its frame-rate, on more than one occasion have I died to the FPS plummeting into the single digits. With a patch on the way according to the developers, though, this shouldn't be an issue on the Nintendo Switch version very soon.

You can purchase borders to line the sides of the play field as well from a shop in Slumptown.

Slime-san is a much welcomed addition to the Nintendo Switch's arsenal of indie games. Bursting to the seams with content, packing in 100 levels in both classic and remixed modes, levels themselves consistently providing new hooks and additions to the gameplay, creative boss battles, a hefty challenge, and 5-bit visual delight, Slime-san presented me with a slimy and sticky situation that I didn't mind being stuck in at all.

[SPC Says: B+]

Review code provided by Headup Games.