The game was provided by SEGA for review. Thank you!
Over the last few years, there have been plenty of anime that have come in and out of my life. One such anime that hasn't, even though I have been interested, is Demon Slayer. I have seen its gorgeous art style and animation, and the story sounds quite interesting. When I was at Summer Game Fest earlier this year, I had the pleasure of trying the second game in the Demon Slayer video game series, and though I hadn't played the first yet, it convinced me to not only start watching the series, but go back and play the original game to be ready for the sequel.
So, I went into it. I had the chance to play Demon Slayer The Hinokami Chronicles and experience the beginning of the story. For the most part, it doesn't disappoint, but some quality of life improvements and a little more to do outside of the story could have elevated it to an even better experience that could have been on par with other fighters.
Before I go into my thoughts on the game, I want to mention again that I have not seen the anime or read the manga. The game's story may be missing some more details that are in the anime or manga. So, I am coming in as a newcomer to the Demon Slayer series.
Demon Slayer The Hinokami Chronicles was developed by CyberConnect2, and if you have played the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm series, the gameplay and story mode will feel very familiar. It almost all clicked as I went into my first fight, even with some of the minor changes to combat overall, and how the story mode is structured. As someone who loves the Ultimate Ninja Storm games, this was a nice return to the mechanics I have come to know and love, but it also brought with it some of the elements I didn't enjoy.
Starting with the story mode, it follows the beginning of the story through the Mugen Train arc, following Tanjiro Kamado's story becoming a Demon Slayer and seeing him start to grow as a fighter. I won't go too much into detail about the specifics, but the story is primarily told in 3D cutscenes, fights, and some exploration. There are also some 2D cutscenes that give a little more exposition to the story than what we experience in the main sections.
I would say, coming from an outside perspective, the story is told nicely. I understood what was going on, and the exposition pieces I found filled in the gaps. It did a great job of making me want to see more, to experience what would come next. The story mode doesn't take long to get through, but the time I spent with it made me keep going and play almost completely without breaks. It also balances some very humorous moments well without detracting from the overarching story. Zenitsu's actions were constantly making me crack up, and that moment where Tanjiro made that disgusted face when stopping Zenitsu from trying to get some random girl to marry him was priceless.
We also have the return of boss battles that have Quick Time Events (QTE) at the end of them. The bosses were generally harder and included their own mechanics that change up the usual normal pace of combat. At the end, we would sometimes get those QTEs where we got to press buttons while our character went in for an epic finisher move. I have always loved these in CyberConnect2's other games, and that feeling carries over here as well.
The biggest issue I have with the story mode is the parts that require running around a closed-off area. Instead of going into back-to-back fights with cutscenes, there will be areas we can freely run around in and find collectibles. These moments were a chore. I don't mind finding collectibles, and this is how we unlocked more exposition pieces, but the areas were too large, and walking around took too long. There was no way to run or jump or interact with the world much. It felt like boring padding, and I would have preferred back-to-back cutscenes and fights over having to run around. It was enough to make me pause for a moment and take breaks, just because getting from point A to point B and collecting everything took so much longer than it should have.
Thankfully, the actual combat, which is the primary gameplay, is as great as I remember. Like the Ultimate Ninja Storm games, we are on a 3D battlefield in a decently sized circular stadium. We can run around freely, while keeping locked onto our enemy, while jumping and dodging as we please. We have a basic attack, which can be comboed and changed a bit depending on whether we hold the joystick up or down, heavy attacks, and skills to utilize.
Demon Slayer's gameplay is a bit basic and can amount to button-mashing at times, but the flashiness is what keeps me coming back for more. The satisfaction of every hit landing, the sparks flying, and the gorgeous cel-shaded effects of skills are as glorious as ever. I enjoy having multiple different skills to use and can just be done with the press of a button. They have their own resource bar that they use, which replenishes over time, and there are three we can use at any given time, depending on the direction we are pressing or if we are in the air.
Each of the 24 characters also has their own ultimate attacks and surges. The Surge bar has multiple levels, and using it at different times has different effects. At level 1, we get a Boost, which refills some of our bars, while waiting until level 2 gets us a Surge, which enhances all of our stats, and we can use skills freely without the bar going down. We can use it for ultimate attacks, or Ultimate Arts, as well, which are cinematic attacks that deal lots of damage. We can also bring in a partner and call upon them to help us out or swap between them mid-battle.
I also want to commend CyberConnect2 for both the variety of Ultimate Arts and the combo system. There are different variations of some of the characters that have their own unique attacks, which I appreciate a lot. I also enjoy the combo system, and it feels like I can chain together attacks and skills to create engaging combos. There is a time limit, which makes sense, but I was able to pull off some satisfying combos like my basic that hits them into the air, then I smack them down, use a skill, and then pull off a basic combo one more time.
However, flashiness wasn't enough to ease over some of the issues that arose. While we can dash into enemies if we are further away, our side-dash, which acts as a dodge, has such a short distance that it was almost useless. This was primarily an issue during boss fights in the story mode that had AoE attacks. There were more times I just couldn't dodge over times where I was able to get away, and it was frustrating. This does happen in regular battles as well, though not as often. Either way, it was aggravating.
Outside of the story mode, we have our general Vs. mode for online, offline, and practice fights, and a Training mode. With the game getting a sequel, finding a good number of fighters online will be more difficult. Offline and practice are nice as well, and the Training mode adds a nice variety with extra fights with their own unique objectives, but it all feels a bit off, knowing the next game, which sounds like it will enhance the gameplay with new features like Dual Ultimate, a Gear System, Training Paths, and Masteries, it's hard to justify spending more time here.
As we play, we get Kimetsu Points that can be used to unlock characters, stages, voices, and more. Most of the characters and stages can be earned through playing the story, but it's a nice option to have to unlock the other characters and stages if we don't want to.
The reason I would recommend getting this is mainly to experience the beginning of the Demon Slayer story. It looks like the second game will have a way to relive/review the previous story by allowing us to fight certain battles, but experiencing the entirety of the chapter in its glory is its own experience.
Overall, Demon Slayer The Hinokami Chronicles is quite playable on the Steam Deck, and the default settings are generally the best way to play. We are locked at 30 FPS, but on mostly high quality settings. This keeps battery drain relatively low throughout the entire game, sticking below 13W generally. Some parts of the story do cause higher battery drain, like running around the areas freely and some boss battles with larger AoE attacks, but it will stay stable.
Trying to play at 60 FPS at these settings does work, and most regular fights will stick to this framerate nicely, but the areas running around and boss battles will drop with large battery drain. We can lower the settings to help, but we would need to go to almost the lowest and it makes the game look way too sharp. Even on the lowest settings, I saw slowdowns at 60 FPS on the character selection menu, but the actual fighting was at a stable 60 in regular fights.
Still, even though it's possible, I preferred playing at 30 FPS on higher settings. Battery drain was lower, framerate was consistent throughout the entire story, and it looks much better. It may be a slight sacrifice, but being able to experience the beginning of the Demon Slayer story on the go is wonderful.
I did notice the tutorial images show keyboard and mouse icons instead of controller, which feels weird, but the rest of the in-game legends show the correct icons.
We can change whether our camera is inverted and modify speed, change some of the HUD, voice language between English and Japanese, turn the volume up or down, and change keybindings.
このゲームは16:10の解像度をサポートしていないが、クラウドセーブとコントローラーをサポートしている。HDR設定はない。
Demon Slayer The Hinokami Chronicles is another great showing from CyberConnect2, with some minor issues that tear me away. Experiencing the beginning of the story is awesome, and the gorgeous art style, cinematic combat, and flashy visuals are a joy to see. I especially like the way humor was balanced here, with there being more hilarious moments than I expected and portrayed very well. There isn't much I feel compelled to do outside of the story mode, and I felt parts of the story were obnoxious and obvious filler, but it was still interesting to see for myself. I still disliked dashing to dodge, even though holding down the B button helped, but I like the combat overall.
The game also plays wonderfully on the Steam Deck at its default settings. We will need 30 FPS for full stability throughout the story, but with high-quality settings, I have no complaints!
このレビューはPC版に基づいています。
このレビューをお楽しみいただけたなら、SteamDeckHQ の他のコンテンツもぜひご覧ください！あなたのゲーム体験に役立つゲームレビューやニュースを幅広く取り揃えています。ニュース、ヒントやチュートリアル、ゲーム設定やレビューをお探しの方も、最新のトレンドを知りたい方も、ぜひご利用ください。
Demon Slayer The Hinokami Chronicles is a great way to experience the beginning of the story, though some flaws stop it from being essential. It's also great on Steam Deck.
