Angelo and Deemon: One Hell of a Quest – Review

Imagine sitting in your own apartment room, minding your own business, and suddenly receiving a visit from the Grim Reaper himself! That’s what Angelo experiences first-hand in this new point-and-click adventure from Specialbit Studios, the developer behind hit casual adventure titles such as The Last Dream and Sonya. But instead of panicking and begging for mercy like a normal people would do similar situation, Angela is thrilled to visit Hell with the Grim Reaper. There he then meets his travel companion Deemon and gets to film exclusive content for his video channel, which he hopes will skyrocket his popularity. Hop on this rollercoaster of an adventure in Angelo and Deemon: One Hell of a Quest!

The first thing that I noticed right upon starting Angelo and Deemon is that it clearly takes inspiration from the LucasArts classics. Whether it manages to match LucasArts’ charm and wit remains a question mark. At its core, Angelo and Deemon is a straightforward point-and-click adventure. The game opens up a vast world and allows the player to explore with minimal handholding. The downside of having such an expansive world comes when the game requires a significant amount of back-and-forth traveling. The game also does not feature any fast-traveling methods or shortcuts, instead, the player is often forced to manually navigate forward and backward with full animation sequences each time.

Like all point-and-click adventure games, Angelo and Deemon: One Hell of a Quest features plenty of puzzles. Similar to the adventure gameplay, the puzzles are delightful, but not notably innovative in any way. There are also few puzzles with poorly-worded clues or clues that are far too cryptic even for avid fans of the genre.

Despite some road bumps here and there, Angelo and Deemon: One Hell of a Quest is ultimately a charming game. Given its dark subject matter, the humor-filled dialogs and pop-culture references give the game an interesting dynamic. Although not all the comedy bits hit the target and bad English can be picked up here and there, the sarcastic and light-hearted tone is quite entertaining and definitely welcomed. This is also helped by the game’s excellent voice-overs, which are incredibly convincing and filled with personality.

More on the delivery, Specialbit presents the game through some pleasant hand-drawn graphics. As it highlights in its synopsis, the game steers clear from pixel art, but nails the friendly, yet sophisticated 2D cartoon look. As for the music, it remains low-key throughout, with spotlights given to the exceptional voice-overs previously mentioned.

I personally took three and a half hours to complete the game and of course, picked up the majority of the game’s Steam achievements along the way. In terms of replay value, I do not see myself coming back for another go anytime soon, but possibly in a year or two since the game is such a smooth ride and the humor is surprisingly addicting.

Angelo and Deemon: One Hell of a Quest is a playful modern take on the classic point-and-click adventure genre that might not be all-around perfect, but is certainly worth a try.