Bony pillars burp swarms of little skulls, skeletal snakes squirm and charge you before retreating into defensive coils, wyrms drift through the skies, greedy big beasties suck power-up gems towards their many maws, and so on. Hyper Demon has the same setup as our favourite game of 2016: you're standing atop a barren plane in a void where hovering skulls and other skeletal horrors will spawn to getcha, a broad range of beasties with different behaviours. And when the action picks up and the screen becomes a fisheye view of unfathomable violence navigated by sound and intuition more than sight, god! Screenshots can't capture it. Its many skulls have a crystalline makeover, glimmering like citrine and shattering the spectrum into rainbow highlights. I am delighted that the best-looking game of 2016 has been followed by the best-looking game of 2022. Here's the important thing to realise: the unearthly and incomprehensible violence you see in that trailer is genuinely what the game looks like to play. When I first saw Hyper Demon's trailer, I felt excitement, wonder, and fear. In Hyper Demon, a long and cautious run will likely score lower than a short burst of ultraviolence. Both first-person score attack shooters are dressed in similar beautiful cloaks of skulls and gurgling industrial soundscapes, but while Devil Daggers nudges you into cautious survival, Hyper Demon shoves you into aggression. The best way I can explain the difference between Devil Daggers and its surprise sequel is comparison to another pair of goth-o-ramas: Devil Daggers is Dark Souls to Hyper Demon's Bloodborne. The surprise Devil Daggers sequel is a punishing FPS but rewards perseverance with astonishing multicolour ultraviolence

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