I hate admitting that I haven’t heard of a game before, but I can’t claim to have known of King of Demons (known as Majyūō in its homeland). To be fair, it was previously only released in Japan on the Super Famicom, and now commands a hefty price tag on the collector’s market.

As part of their recent reissue of the game, Retro-bit went to the work of translating it, which makes it more accessible than ever before here in the West. Actually, no they didn’t. The translator they contracted allegedly turned in someone else’s work without Retro-Bit’s knowledge, so the translation is actually a slightly edited version of the one by Aeon Genesis. So, I guess we can only thank Retro-Bit for putting it on a cartridge and making me aware of it. That’s cool. It’s a really nice cartridge.

Anyway, as it turns out, King of Demons is so damned rad.

SACRIFICE MITTENS

You play as Abel, whose wife, daughter, and cat were abducted. He goes to save them wearing only a sleeveless white shirt, jeans, and headband, and discovers that they’re being used as sacrifices to resurrect the titular King of Demons. Next, he discovers that a sleeveless white shirt and jeans are poor choices of armour, and is quickly killed. He’s brought back by the memories of his lost loved ones, which also provide him with the ability to kick ass. Apparently, his daughter is still alive, though, so he’s on a quest to get her back. The status of the cat is unknown.

The first level has you playing as Captain Casual wielding a pistol. It’s an awesome introduction. It takes you through a dungeon, there’s a sub-boss on an elevator, a giant worm chases you, and a winged lady with her tits out rides a legged cacodemon.

At the end of the level, the boss drops a gem. It fades between three colours, red, green, and blue. Grabbing it on one of those colours changes you to a corresponding form. You can be a Wyvern, a thing, or a different thing. They all handle very similarly, with a double-jump, dash, downward kick, and charge attack. At the same time, they’re very different when it comes to all those things. Some of their abilities are better for certain situations, but you won’t know until they happen, so just go with it.

You can actually play the whole game as Mr. Muscles by ignoring the gem, if you really want. It’s basically hard mode, but you don’t get a special ending for pulling it off. 

In a way, it’s too bad. King of Demons has a lot of hellish horror stylings, and some of the creepy atmosphere gets sponged away when you’re a dragon. Being some poorly dressed dude fighting demons feels more vulnerable and thus relatable. Obviously, being a green laser thing is cool, but not as effective from an atmospheric perspective. Although, thinking about it further, there aren’t enough games where you play as a dragon or two other things.

RADICAL

The levels, on the other hand, work well on their own. There’s a ruined city, a hellish death-train going through a weird graveyard, an ice castle, a volcano. Some of the backgrounds look like they could have been ripped from Demon’s Crest. Each level has its own enemies and bosses, as well. Rad.

It’s a short game, but it’s also clunky enough to make things difficult. What I mean to say is that it often required a couple attempts to get through some of the levels. I still think it only took me maybe two hours to get through the whole package.

You level up as you gain points. Passing certain score milestones extends your health bar and provides you with extra lives, but if you lose all your lives and have to continue, your health bar is reduced, and you need to level up from scratch again. It doesn’t take long to rack up the points, but it does mean you’re pretty vulnerable until you do. And, sometimes, you may have to find tricks to inflate your score a bit.

Actually, this isn’t the first time I played through it. On my first attempt, I made the “mistake” of taking the same colour of jewel at the end of each level. I mean, it’s technically not a mistake because each time you pick the same jewel, it levels that form up, so it’s a completely valid way of advancing. But if you read the instruction manual, you learn that choosing a different colour each time unlocks a special form for the last level. It also gives you a better ending, so that’s something. I played through it again, picking different gems, and that took up more of my afternoon. Oh, yeah, that was a good afternoon.

SNES GORE SNES TITS

That covers about everything, honestly. King of Demons isn’t tippy-top shelf in terms of design or even graphics, but it has a really infectious sort of attitude. Despite feeling a bit clunky, it still brings the fun by staying consistent, and there’s enough variety to keep it feeling worthwhile. Plus, there’s a small amount of replay value if you change up your transformations with each playthrough.

It’s just worth checking out, even if it doesn’t feel like the best thing to play. Its identity should be experienced. Dragons. Laser-shooting things. SNES gore. SNES tits. King of Demons isn’t just rad; it’s important.

7/10

This review was conducted on an SNES using a reproduction cartridge version of the game. It was provided by Retro-Bit.