Demons are usually a vile bunch, fueled by mischief and chaos. Not so here, as he/she/it is actually a good guy. Kinda. Equipped with a magical drum that allows you to control ghosts, your task is simple: find lost souls and carry them to the afterlife. There, they will (hopefully) find peace… or eternal damnation. Either way, they need to be sent packing, so get ready to bang that drum!
To help you carry out this task, you’ll have to blow stuff up, climb walls seemingly impossible to scale, and swim. Oh, guess what? That last bit requires the use of a ghost turtle, because, you know – demons can’t swim (wait, what?). But seriously, your actions in each of the six levels are rather limited. Unless a certain type of ghost is available, you can only run and jump. That’s it. No fancy weaponry or bad-ass mojo.
Traversing the terrain is surprisingly easy: remember to use the right ghost and it’ll be a breeze. These let you blow stuff up, temporarily take flight, and do more fun stuff. The most common ones are those that stick to walls, acting as platforms, which you’ll be using a lot. Each ghost can be called back by banging your drum, provided you’re on solid ground, essentially giving you an unlimited ‘supply’.
Running around, flinging ghosts left and right to collect souls isn’t overly difficult, but the real challenge comes from tracking down every last one. You can always choose to simply open the exit with plenty left behind, instead leaving the rest to those who enjoy a good hunt; something I had to do more than once, after searching for quite a while. Man… poor unfortunate souls.
Unfortunately, given its rather simple design, repetition is a potential issue. Probably a good thing that the game only clocks in at 30-40 minutes then, as this particular demon might have outstayed his welcome otherwise. But as it stands, Demon Drum is a fun experience with a few clever ideas that are bound to entertain. It’sn’t often we get to mess with ghosts and magical drums, after all.
