Overview
A music/rhythm game powered by Unreal Engine 3 (supporting iPhone 4/4S, 4th Gen iPod, iPad 2 and up, and exclusively for Tegra 3 Android devices) Demon's Score sees players tapping and swiping along with on-screen prompts to the beat of various songs from "hit songwriters". On-screen indicators align with enemies and incoming magical projectiles which must first be dealt with through a series of on-rails corridors before confronting a boss character.
Gameplay
Each “stage” in the game is broken into two parts referred to as Tracks. Track 1 is where you tap and swipe your way through “lesser demons” and Track 2 presents a “cinematic rhythm battle against the great demons of the abyss”.
Playing similarly to iNiS' Ouendan series, the circular on-screen indicators must be tapped in time with the music as a dial fills around their perimeter. Some indicators must be tapped and swiped in an indicated direction and others must be held down and swiped to follow a specific path. Some segments require an indicator to be pressed repeatedly as quickly as possible.
A health bar, score display and combo meter encourage players to hit all the indicators as accurately as possible and are graded on a four-point scale from Miss, to Hit, Smash, up to Critical. Experience points are gained based on number of hits and maximum combo which feed into a leveling system and unlock supplementary items can be selected at the end of each stage.
Completing each stage on Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulties will also lead to more unlockable content. Most of the ten stages revolve around a specific demon and feature unique enemies or backgrounds but can be played while Serenity is possessed by any other demon. Her abilities, costume, voice and personality change accordingly encouraging even more repeat plays to see and hear everything the game has to offer. The first stage’s music will also change based on which demon she is possessed by.
Story
In Salem, Massachusetts, “average college girl” Serenity mysteriously loses contact with her father Dr. Aliester. She sets out to find him at the Salem State Hospital & Asylum where he works and is soon confronted by a talking teddy bear named David who claims to have once been human. Suddenly surrounded by demons, Serenity finds that she can take control of any demon who possesses her body thanks to the Demons’ Score app that her father had recently sent to her smartphone. Fighting her way through the twisted worlds that each demon drags her into, she searches for her father and an explanation to these bizarre events.
Music
The hit songwriters, later detailed as “the music world of Japan’s leading musicians” who have contribued music to the game include: Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts), Kohei Tanaka (Sakura Wars), Naoshi Mizuta (Final Fantasy XI), Ryo Yamazaki (Crystal Chronicles), Keiichi Okabe (NiER), Hirokazu Koshio and Shohei Tsuchiya (Zuntata), Hiroki Kikuta (Secret of Mana), Takamichi Yashiki (iNiS/The Black Eyed Peas Experience), Kenji Ito (SaGA series), Hidenori Iwasaki (Front Mission 4 & 5), and Kenichi Maeyamada (Momokurotei Ichimon).
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