Devil Jam Review (PS5)

Jammin’ out with the Seven Deadly Sins.

Honestly, I’m not too much of a fan of this roguelite subgenre. Good start to this review, I know, but sometimes you do like games in genres (or subgenres) that you normally don’t. I actually did try Vampire Survivors before and it just wasn’t my thing. So, why did I pick this game up? Well, the visuals, theming, and just overall vibe. So did Devil Jam turn out?

Remember how people used to joke about how certain musicians must have sold their soul to the devil for success? Well, it turns out that you actually can! Well, in the world of Devil Jam at least. Starting out with a man named Falco, he finds himself right in front of the Devil himself in his headquarters in Hell. Though, it seems that when Falco first signed away his soul, he didn’t quite believe the Devil. It turns out that sometime in the past Falco and his fellow bandmates signed a contract with the Devil where in exchange of their souls, they’ll get success in their rock band career. However, it seems that Falco died before he was meant to. And it wasn’t the Devil’s fault. You learn that Death runs his own record label, a rival of the Devil’s record label, and Death decided to use a little loophole in the contract to poach Falco.

The Devil isn’t going to let Death get away with this. A new contract is made up on the spot, where Falco (and his other bandmates who will soon be joining him) will be able to gain back his soul if he kills Death. They’ll still have to uphold the first contract, but at least you’ll get help from his staff. Well, *cracks knuckles*, let’s rock.

The story here works as a framing device for the game and it does its job. Like I mentioned before, this was one of the aspects that convinced me to try out this game. I really liked how this game centered Hell around that old saying and all the characters that pop up actually have jobs related to the music industry. The playable characters are all members of the band, the Devil and Death are owners of their own competing record labels, the Seven Deadly Sins all being heads of their respective jobs, and even the bosses you’ll be going up against even alludes to what their job title is in Death’s record label. It was also nice getting snippets about the characters. I also liked their personalities. It certainly made their job title make even more sense as it wasn’t just based on the sin they represent, but also their personality. So yeah, pretty good theming here.

Now onto the gameplay! The game here is centered around you going on multiple runs trying to get further and further until you manage to kill Death. And then once you manage that, go on the higher difficulty levels. You’ll be going up against Death’s army of demons in this huge open space. Enemies will spawn in groups and will progressively spawn in stronger enemies as time goes on; as well as having them come in a pattern and in more quantities to put more pressure on you. Each run will have you there for 20 minutes or until you die, with bosses spawning in every 7 minutes where you’re locked in the battle arena with them. There are also elite versions of enemies, which have massive health and I believe deals more damage, but if you kill them they’ll drop a chest which will either be a random perk upgrade or an item. The first two bosses will randomly be selected from a pool of three and Death will be the last one you’ll be facing.

So how do you defend yourself? Well, first of all, you do have a dodge so you can dodge projectiles or enemies as they do deal contact damage. You do have stamina, though, so you can’t really chain dodges nor dodge a couple seconds afterwards. Luckily, you do also have a basic attack that’s based on that character’s instrument. The main attack automatically goes off with each beat and you can either aim manually or turn on auto-aim at any time with an easy button press. You start with Falco first, a guitarist who sends out a short range attack every time he strums and has more health. His attack range is pretty much in the middle of melee and ranged. As you do more runs and get further in, you do also unlock Amy, who is a ranged singing attack and can get extra projectiles, and Lydia, who is also a melee character who swings her bass but has extra critical chance and damage. Anyway, yeah, your main attack automatically happens at every beat. This beat is visualized on the bottom of the screen, which also houses some more information. All you have to do is weave between enemies, survive as long as you can, kill enemies, and pick up crystals that have a chance at dropping when you do.

Picking up these crystals will grant you experience and filling up the experience bar on top of the beat amp (I call it that cause it kind of looks like an amp). At every level up, one of the Seven Deadly Sins (+Devil) will randomly appear to give you a perk to help you out. You have a choice between three perks: a weapon perk, an ability perk, or a passive perk. A weapon perk basically gives you another damage dealing source and you’ll be able to place this anywhere on the 4×3 beat amp grind. The weapon will then activate whenever you’re on that beat, which is represented by which column you slot it into. Ability perks boost weapons and will have a buff pattern that will buff any weapons that are/were placed in those now buffed slots. And lastly, passive perks are just that, passive. You can have seven at a time, they don’t get placed in the beat amp, and can give you some helpful buffs. You can see all the information of the perk before you choose it, you can reroll the perks or the Sin (if you have reroll tickets) or repick before you place a weapon or ability perk, and you can choose to upgrade a perk if you already have it on a future level up. Every Sin (and the Devil) have their own perk theme that goes along with their sin. You do need to strategize as you go, placing weapons with abilities in mind or deciding whether or not you want to upgrade a perk or pick up a new one.

Other than that, there are breakable objects which will drop money or consumable items like a magnet. Enemies do have a low chance of dropping a health item or items that you use to buy upgrades. There’s also a bunch of environmental interactables which, once you get close enough, can activate to get temporary buffs, a buff in exchange for a debuff, heal you or activate a magnet, or will give you a reroll ticket. All the different interactables have their own design so you can learn which one will do what as you play more, which can be helpful as once you activate it you can’t cancel it. There is a mini-map that can help you know if there’s an item or interactable close to you.

In between runs, you’ll be able to do any pre-run prep at the game’s hub which I’m guessing must be the Devil’s record label headquarters. After every run, you’ll spawn into the Devil’s office right in front of the big man himself. The Devil is where you’ll see the various quests that he has for you. The quests basically just has you do certain things, like getting a perk fully upgraded or killing a high number of enemies, or getting further into a run. Though, the quests are hidden until you complete them unknowingly or complete a quest that’s perpendicular to it. Most of the quest rewards is just getting money, but there are quests that will unlock more things for you. I’m also pretty sure this is where you’ll be able to increase your difficulty. Going into the lobby, this is where you’ll be able to prep for your run. Of course, you have to complete their related quests to unlock them first. Once you unlock Amy, you’ll be able to use the dressing room to switch between playable characters. There’s a compendium where you can look at all the perks the Devil and the Seven Deadly Sins have, as well as ones that are locked. There’s also Lars the Broker and Poppy the Merchant. Lars is where you can go to buy the items you use to purchase things; with him having deals that reset every ten minutes. He will also buy the items from you if you want to sell them. Meanwhile, Poppy is where you’ll use those items to buy things (once you buy everything that you can get with coins). Poppy sells permanent stat upgrades, buy more perks, and buy more environmental interactables. One Sin is also tied to a purchase, which I think is easy to guess. Of course, all but the permanent upgrades and the starter stock do require you to do the quest where it’s the reward.

Once you’re ready, you just have to walk out the front entryway. It’ll automatically go into the run until you unlock another area through a quest. It seems it’s just a palette swap with like one decoration addition to loosely tie it up with the area’s name and I think the enemy spawns are the same, but they do have different bonuses tied to them.

I knew I wasn’t really into what people call bullet heaven and this certainly did not turn me around on them. Though, that doesn’t mean that I can’t recognize that this is pretty decent. The various perks do synergize pretty well and while there will of course be perks that you won’t like, I’d say there’s an equal amount of perks that you will like. There are some pretty good perks here and while I know I probably should pick the others so I can fully upgrade them in a run and thus complete that quest; I can’t help but pick my favorites. I also really love how the perks correspond with the Sin that they correspond with. Though, I have some beef with the Devil’s perks as his is a buff for a debuff perk and it is so annoying when the game decides to screw you over by having him appear multiple times. I just didn’t think the debuff was worth the buff personally. I liked the different main weapons for the three playable characters and they do bring along their own advantages and disadvantages. The enemies are good as well; most of them are just contact damage, but there are some enemies that will attack that are unique to them. The bosses themselves are good too and all have their own unique aspects to them that set them all apart. I will also say that it does feel good when you realize that you might actually win the run and then ending up doing just that.

The progression is decent too and it is pretty challenging. I can see this being easy for those that usually play these type of games until you unlock higher difficulties, but for those that don’t this does provide a good challenge. Hoping the RNG demons smile upon you so you can get enough damage, get health drops, and hopefully be able to dodge attacks. Though, this game can of course get repetitive.

So yeah, all in all decent.

There are a couple negatives that I can think of (aside from risking it feeling repetitive and having to get over the beginning of the run hurdle). First up is that I was pretty surprised that you couldn’t rearrange the perk placement. I’m not asking to let you do it at any time, but it would be nice for it to be an option after a level milestone or maybe being an option when the Devil pops in to give you a level up perk. On that note, I did wish that you could skip getting a perk mainly because of the Devil’s perks. Though, I’d be fine if the Devil had a lower chance of appearing when you level up cause it is not fun getting him four times before the first boss fight. The bosses do also have attacks that are difficult to dodge. The tutorial could tell you more, like I had no idea there were interactables until I looked at the quests and then next run happened to be close enough to one to get the button prompt after weaving through enemies. What’s the point of a 0.1 increase upgrade. That’s like, nothing and doesn’t feel different. Lastly, of course you’re at the mercy of RNG.

Now to write this all up in a nice bow, the visuals and sound. To be honest, the main reason why I picked this up were these two aspects. I really liked the visuals here, in particular the character designs. I really liked the art style and designs of the various characters here, especially the ones representing the Seven Deadly Sins. The game pretty much sold me when Gluttony was pretty much Cerberus and Envy was Medusa. I also liked the designs of the playable characters and the way they were animated. Amy is my favorite out of the three, I just love how her Hell form was designed as she gives off a wraith vibe, but I gotta say I love how Falco’s dodge is him doing a knee slide. Their animation also characterizes them a bit as well as I can imagine that their animations are a more exaggerated form of how they moved on stage when they were alive. The enemy designs are good as well, with the bosses and their animations being standouts. Death also has a pretty cool design.

As for the music, I don’t listen to rock music all that much but I’d say these tracks were pretty good. They’re not too much while also giving some energy to the combat, each boss has their own track, and they are pretty good loops. I have to admit that the main track that plays during a run did get stuck in my head and I caught myself humming it many times. Funnily enough, mainly when I was writing this review. The sound design is also pretty good too and really blends in well with the music. Devil Jam is also partly voice acted, which was a little bit of a disappointment since I was expecting it to be fully voiced. I just really like the voice actors they picked for everyone and they did really well with the lines they were given to voice.

Verdict

Devil Jam ended up being pretty decent. This kind of roguelite is still not really my thing, but the whole theme around selling your soul for musical success, the Devil being a record label owner in competition with Death’s record label, and the Seven Deadly Sins having roles befitting their sin in the Hell musical industry. While there are some negatives here that can bring the game down, I did like the beat amp, there are a lot of good perks, and the perks synergize pretty well. Plus, I liked the music and character designs. This game is also pretty cheap too. I guess you can say Devil Jam wasn’t quite my jam, but it can be for those who are bullet heaven fans.