HiPhish: Demon Stone gets a lot of undeserved hate for being a brawler instead of an RPG. A lot of the criticism like enemies only dropping health are standard stuff for brawlers. What Demon Stone should be getting is deserved criticism for being an awful brawler!
First off, if you don't have a gamepad don't even bother, this is a straight-up console port. It can be played with mouse and keyboard, but it's really awkward, while the gamepad works perfectly fine. Demon Stone is not horrible in the sense that at least it works as intended, but at the same time there is not a good thing I can say about it either. It's just awful at being a brawler and the link to the thread above explains it in more detail. If you get it as part of a bundle you wanted to buy anyway chances are you'll like the mindless slaughter of the first few levels, but the frustration settles in very quickly.
You know what? I wouldn't give a damn if the game was a rhythm game ala Guitar Hero. It isn't part of a series where consumers have certain expectations. It is not called Baldur's Gate 3 or Planescape: Torment 2.
My main beef with this game is that even compared to other brawlers, it's not satisfying and it's frustrating. At the very least, when you kicked the crap out of enemies with Haggar in Final Fight, it felt satisfying. Here, when I would hit enemies, I would feel like gently caressing them, like ticking boxes of the list. I imagine the following conversation taking place:
Player: Hey orc, I hit you 10 times. Time to drop dead.
Orc: OK. "Drops dead."
