Review - Labyrinth of the Demon King

Genre: Dungeon Crawler, Horror

Original Release: May 13, 2025

Developer: J. R. Hudepohl

Publisher: Top Hat Studios, Inc.

Platforms: PC (Steam, GOG), Nintendo Switch (US, UK and EU coming soon), PS4 & PS5, Xbox One (coming soon), Xbox Series X (coming soon)

Played on: PC (Steam)

The atmosphere of this shot alone is so oppressive. I love it.

I've never really been one for dungeon crawlers. If you asked me how many of them I've played, I could probably count them on one hand... come to think of it, this may be my first dungeon crawler ever.

With that possibility in mind, what do I think of it?

I can't bury the lede in a review, I love Labyrinth of the Demon King. It's horror (which I love), it's set in feudal Japan (which I also love), and it's got that chunky late PS1/early PS2 aesthetic. It's like J. R. Hudepohl and the team made it with me as the target audience. Or we have very similar tastes and it's an incredible coincidence.

That said, I try to be a bit more comprehensive with these reviews than just saying "I love it, here's a paragraph explaining why," so I want to go more in-depth now that I've have some time away from the game to really digest my experiences with it.

The premise is fairly straightforward: It is the latter age of the Dharma. You are an Ashigaru in the service of one Lord Takeda Nobumitsu. Your lord has struck a deal with the titular Demon King, but was betrayed and subsequently killed alongside everyone who served with him, with the exception of you. The game starts after these events, with you swearing vengeance on the Demon King. You, a lone peasant foot soldier, against the fiend responsible for the death of your Lord and comrades. This can only end well.

This will happen a lot.

I joke, at least partially. The controls and gameplay will probably take some getting used to if my own experiences are an indicator. Fortunately, the game is pretty forgiving if memory serves me right. You'll die, but it's not a game over. Instead, you're revived wherever you last saved. Any items used in between that save and your time of death aren't replenished, but you'll find a lot over the course of the game. I ran low at one point, admittedly, and struggled as a result. However, that was entirely on me. In addition to various items and ammo, you'll also find talismans that you can use with the T key by default. These are consumable, of course, and you can only equip one at a time, but they're very handy, as I learned on a subsequent run.

Now, I struggled to get a feel for the game during the tutorial. It felt clunky, figuring out when to guard was tricky, and kicking seemed excessive. But a short way into the first section of the game, I had something of a revelation: The combat feels a lot like Condemned: Criminal Origins if you're familiar with that one. Enemies will approach you and try to strike, occasionally faking you out to waste some energy, or guarding when you try to strike. The most effective way to handle an attacker is to block their attack, which will leave them open to a hit or two before they recover. You can also dodge backward, or kick them. Every one of your options will consume a bit of stamina, but it's manageable.

The baddies you run into are so grotesque. I love them. Note the HP and Stamina meters in the top left. I was very aggressive during my first foray.

One thing that really grabbed me from the outset was how compartmentalized all of the puzzles are in the game. If you find a puzzle item in a specific wing of the Demon King's castle, the spot for that item is located within that same wing. There is one exception to this, however it's not something that locks you out of progressing through the adventure. Rather, it makes your exploration of the castle significantly less harrowing. Everything that moves the story forward or opens new areas though? That's all in its respective wing. I can't tell you how happy I was to learn that I wasn't going to lose my mind searching for a specific item like I did when I played Silent Hill 2 for the first time. I'll write about that eventually, and we'll all have a good laugh.

Anyway, there's a lot to like here. I didn't even touch on some of the characters you'll meet as you play the game, or the environmental design and how that pulls me in while making me feel deeply uncomfortable. Horror games just call to me in a way that others don't always manage.

Having said that, I know that folks have some gripes worth going over. Mainly the way that enemies respawn, how a certain element changes the flow of the game, and some unexplained bits of trivia. So let's talk about them.

Apparently one of the folks who wrote a guide for the game called this dude "Fat Larry" and I can't help but laugh. Dude's scary as all get-out, but that name just makes him sound like a regular fixture in the neighborhood. Steam's a weird place, but I can dig the tonal dissonance. Shout-out to An Actual Skeleton for that one.

Concerning the respawning enemies: I get how that can be frustrating. Depending on how much you struggle in one spot or another, catching your breath or just backtracking without having to worry about any sort of nuisances is nice. However, the enemies only respawn when you leave the room, and it's not a guarantee, if I remember correctly. Further, some enemies will drop loot when you kill them. That's not a guarantee either, but it can be handy if you're low on sake or a mushroom pouch. Or money. Regardless, going in and out of a room for a chance at some recovery items or upgrade materials is going to get very tedious very quickly. It's up to you, but I didn't find the reappearing monsters to be that much of a bother.

Now with regards to a particular element changing how the game flows, I get that one to a degree as well. You'll find a note that warns you not to do a Very Specific Thing™, but you need to do that Very Specific Thing™ at one point in order to move forward with your exploration. Unfortunately, this results in the appearance of that element, which adds a cat and mouse aspect to the game on top of your usual exploration and puzzle solving. It can be annoying, but you'll get a feel for when you need to run and when you can wander freely. If you're feeling saucy, you can try tackling it head-on, but it's generally better to put some distance between yourself and that particular hazard. I'm being vague in the interest of spoiling as little as I can here. Half the fun of a game is discovering things for yourself!

Which brings us to the last issue I saw mentioned a lot while browsing the Steam forums: Unexplained elements of the game, like the player's possession of a key item, or a puzzle that has no related items to be found anywhere in the game.

During my first playthrough, I didn't really think about these factors. Sure, I found it a bit weird that a specific key item was already in my inventory, but I took that to mean that I just picked it up earlier and missed the message. It wasn't until I started looking through the forums to see what other people thought of the game that I realized these details were more than a bit of flavor. As it turns out, there are plans for a New Game+ mode in the works, which will also incorporate some items for the aforementioned puzzle. I suppose that's one of the joys as well as the drawbacks of modern games: patches can add or adjust content as necessary, rather than leaving the player to grin and bear a mystery with no clear answers.

Now don't take that as my saying that I hate modern gaming. Some of my favorite titles have come out in recent years, and some of them get frequent updates. Rather, I view patches as a tool in any developer's toolbox. And like any tool, knowing when to use it is just as important as knowing how to use it.

Anyway, that's really all I have to say about Labyrinth of the Demon King. It's a small game, but a lot of fun. I haven't really gotten that absorbed in a game for ages, so I hope it's something you'll consider picking up.

Been a while since I broke this out, feels nice.

If I've managed to make the game sound like something you might be interested in, I hope you'll consider picking it up. The team did some amazing work and that deserves some recognition.