Revelations: The Demon Slayer (Game Boy Color) review "Take SMT: Nocturne for example: in this game, you're alone. Without your monstrous allies, you'll be quickly overwhelmed. Here, it doesn't take long to gain one HUMAN ally and a second joins shortly after that. The monsters are more of a novelty than a necessity, as I never really needed their help to do anything in this game. And with many of them being more along the lines of "typical RPG beastie" than "SUPER-AWESOME GOD OF THUNDER", I didn't miss their presence."

Revelations: The Demon Slayer is a competent RPG.

If it sounds like I'm damning with faint praise, that's my intention. It's a side-story of Atlus' mega-huge Megami Tensei family of games, but feels more like a decent, but generic clone of Dragon Quest on the Game Boy Color. You control some dude out to save the world from monsters and stuff. During your quest, you'll pick up a pair of allies and, as you might expect from a Megami Tensei game, you'll be able to recruit any number of monsters to provide back-up for your group. It's put together well....but you won't remember a damn thing when you've stopped playing.

If you're a RPG junkie like me, it doesn't take much to keep you entertained. A generic "save the world" quest combined with a bunch of monsters, towns, equipment, etc. is enough to keep me going for however long it takes to beat the game. I could play this one and 20 others just like it back to back to back with the same glazed-over look of satisfaction on my face the entire time. But most people probably aren't like that. They want an actual reason to pick up a game. Demon Slayer doesn't provide that.

The big hook of many Megami Tensei games is the monster-collecting feature. Not only are you able to team up with deities and devils from virtually every religion in our planet's history, but you have a real incentive to convince and bribe them to help you — it's the only way you'll survive. Take SMT: Nocturne for example, where your character's alone. Without gaining monstrous allies, you'll quickly be overwhelmed. Here, it doesn't take long to gain one HUMAN ally and a second joins shortly after that. The monsters are more of a novelty than a necessity, as I never really needed their help to do anything in this game. And with many of them being more along the lines of "typical RPG beastie" than "SUPER-AWESOME GOD OF THUNDER", I didn't miss their presence.

And if you're not constantly recruiting new monsters and combining them to make better ones, it's not really a Megami Tensei game. Demon Slayer offered me a decent amount of entertainment, but nothing I haven't seen countless times before. You'll go to a town to upgrade equipment, then to a dungeon to kill whatever's there. It's a simple and effective formula, but it's hard to get excited about it.

That's Demon Slayer in a nutshell — a simple, effective game that's not exciting. The sort of RPG worth playing if you're like me and have some sick desire to beat more of these games than anyone else who's ever lived. If you're looking for more than just competency, though, there's no real reason to play this one.

Staff review by Rob Hamilton (November 13, 2009) Rob Hamilton is the official drunken master of review writing for Honestgamers.