PC Critic Reviews

A masterpiece that will have you soaring like an angel through the depths of hell.

A technical marvel with visuals intended to convey so much information to the player that no amount of gameplay footage will adequately prepare you for them. Hyper Demon is a sequel that expands on and improves a winning formula.

HYPER DEMON is a fabulous evolution over the core concept of Sorath's previous game, but it won't be for everyone. The high level of difficulty and demand for skillful play, in addition to the slightly higher price tag of $15 USD, will keep many players away. Others will balk at a game that has only one singular mode to work through, and no amount of leaderboards, interactive tutorials, or its meaty replay and clip feature are likely to make much of a difference. But for HYPER DEMON's target audience, there's really nothing else out there that scratches the same itch, and it's balanced with every bit of the innovation, artistry, and design - to say nothing of the knife-edge precision - that made Devil Daggers such an underrated classic.

A superbly focused first person shooter that instantly gets to the heart of the genre, while providing plenty of unique twists – especially in terms of its psychedelic visuals.

With its training stages and slew of player replays to help, Hyper Demon feels a lot more approachable than Devil Daggers ever was, despite it being a far more mechanically complex shooter. It's still one that's going to take some time to wrap your head around, and even longer to start mastering, but that path feels far more rewarding when you're working with the knowledge of all its systems and just honing your skill with each new run. It's immensely satisfying to add milliseconds to your best time, enticing run after run to try and nail a new route you've just discovered through the game's rich enemy types. Like Devil Daggers, Hyper Demon is an immensely satisfying distillation of shooter mechanics that is expertly balanced, and it'll be difficult to put down once you get going.

Not for the faint of heart, mind or body, HYPER DEMON builds on the Devil Daggers formula, for whatever that means.

Like Dark Souls and Bloodborne, Devil Daggers and Hyper Demon might look the same at a glance but the differences are enough to make it an exciting new experience.

Compact and terrifying, this score-attack shooter feels like it's come from the future. [Eurogamer Recommended]

It is unlike any game I have ever played, even its predecessor Devil Daggers isn’t…like this. Other score and time attack games don’t do this to me. They do not make me keep coming back over and over again. They do not make me wish I could open my eyes wider and wider until I can eat the world. I am terrified of it.

As indebted as the game might be to the bones and essentials of Devil Daggers, Hyper Demon truly looks and plays like nothing else I’ve encountered in 2022. In a year with no shortage of twitch shooters like Neon White and Metal: Hellsinger, Hyper Demon reigns supreme as a bullet-hell shooter par excellence. [Polygon Recommends]