What's Good About Demon Throttle
Today’s entry is going to be a bit more…unconventional. I say this because it’s the first time I’m covering a game that is, supposedly, physical only. That game is Demon Throttle, a game that's as old-school as it gets, and I’m not just talking about its business model.
But before I can talk about the game itself, I have to talk about the game’s business model. Demon Throttle was sold exclusively as a physical product. And I said “was”, not “is”. This is because there are only 9000 copies of the game in existence, and my brother has one of them, copy 1682 to be exact. He told me that Doinksoft had a pre-order campaign going on a few months ago that was facilitated by Devolver Digital, everyone’s favourite purveyor of fine indie games. In this day and age of what’s looking more and more like an all-digital future, Demon Throttle looks at this and goes “Nah fam, I’m good” and went in the exact opposite direction. I can’t say that I agree with it on the stance that it severely limits the number of people who can actually play it, but I commend it for being a weird collector’s curio that you can point to and go “I was there” for. It’ll at the very least, make for a good conversation piece when showing off the collection. But now that that’s done, let’s get to talking about the actual game.
The basic setup of Demon Throttle is as such: there’s a Gunslinger and a Vampire. They both team up to get revenge on a demon lord for wronging them. The Vampire for being disturbed by her priceless chalices getting snatched and the Gunslinger for the demon lord “kissing” his wife. He thinks. It’s not made clear, nor is it essential. This is the first example of a game that is as evocative of the NES as possible. Aversion to Digital aside. The game itself is a vertical scrolling Shmup (or Shoot-em-up if you’re feeling particularly wordy). It spans four levels and has our intrepid duo going after the Demon Lord’s four similarly demonic generals, as one often does in games like this. This takes you through four levels of increasing difficulty and a final fight with the demon lord himself. The shortness of the game can be excused by it being incredibly difficult. I’ve spent the better part of four days just getting past the first boss.
I’m not exaggerating about the difficulty of this game either. This is a tough one, but that could also be informed by my lack of skill in Shmups, either way, it can hurt. But the mechanics help lessen that to a degree. You can do the entire game in co-op where one player is the Vampire and the other the Gunslinger, or do what I did and control both when playing solo. They have different feeling weapons; the former has a conical crossbow blast and the latter has a four-shot burst that replicates the Gunslinger fanning the hammer of his revolver. They can be augmented by various powerups found on the stages, like increased firing tempo, shields that block one shot, spiked balls that orbit you and more. These also compliment your secondary attacks, which are tracking knives and bundles of dynamite respectively. You will need all of those to get around the levels. The enemy density and placements of said enemies are tough, and will actively get in your way; you gotta duck and weave to get past them and to the bosses. The bosses are multi-stage affairs that can test your wits and reflexes, even if they can be a bit frustrating at times. If there’s one thing I dislike, it’s that when you die, you gotta start the entire game over. And while that seems annoying as hell, I then remember that the game is super short and can stomach it. Wish I didn’t have to, but I do.
As a complete package taking all angles into account, Demon Throttle is a weird one. It's a game sold in a manner that makes no sense and plays by rules that should be frustrating. But somehow, in spite of those things, it manages to compel me. I wish I could recommend it, but the fact that I can’t is probably for the best because I wouldn't be writing about it otherwise. I guess there’s a silver lining there.
