Hell Maiden caught my attention with a rather intriguing premise: this is a Vampire Survivors-inspired reinterpretation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, but the narrative has been gender-swapped to introduce an entirely female cast of anime girls in a ’90s magical girl style, reminiscent of Sailor Moon. That was sufficient to entice me to explore the game’s Steam Next Fest demo, and after a few attempts, I was continually met with new joys, prompting me to hit the wishlist button at lightning speed.
If you’ve experienced Vampire Survivors, or other similar titles that emerged following its meteoric rise, you’ll grasp the fundamentals immediately. From an isometric viewpoint, you guide Dante – who is, once more, an anime girl in this realm – around the screen, and every second or so she performs an automatic strike. Endless swarms of foes approach, and as you vanquish them, they’ll release experience orbs you can collect to level up, acquire new moves, and enhance existing abilities.
Two primary factors set apart the core gameplay. First, you actually direct your strikes with a mouse pointer, giving the gameplay more of a twin-stick shooter essence. Second, there’s a dash ability that allows you to swiftly maneuver past adversaries without incurring damage. This renders the gameplay feel significantly more dynamic and hands-on compared to Vampire Survivors.
However, Hell Maiden’s most significant feature is its deckbuilding mechanic. Your armaments take the form of cards, which you compile during each play session. You possess four slots for weapon cards, and each of these weapons can accommodate several upgrade cards. You might acquire, for instance, a card that provides additional damage, or one that randomly enhances or diminishes the number of projectiles launched with each assault.
You can merge identical upgrade cards to amplify their benefits, which leads to many engaging decisions throughout your leveling journey. Do you wish to assign that 30% damage increase to your new weapon, or merge it with the same upgrade on your initial weapon for a 50% boost? Some cards provide positional enhancements based on where they are placed in your hand, as well, meaning you’ll have to start making tough choices regarding your setup when you receive cards like one that gives extra damage to every weapon positioned to its right in your loadout.
Hell Maiden | Gameplay Trailer – YouTube
The initial couple of runs of Hell Maiden might seem somewhat sluggish, but as is customary for the genre, once you grasp the fundamentals of the upgrade system, it becomes effortless to feel wonderfully overpowered as you demolish waves of enemies.
You’ll swiftly realize this upon viewing the images on the Steam page, but Hell Maiden is also stunning, featuring beautiful pixel art characters, charming 2D backgrounds, and exquisite illustrations for the narrative scenes. I was astounded by the brief cutscenes that accompany your screen-clearing special.
assaults – each one a stunning, classic piece of 2D animation deserving of a magical girl transformation.
Hell Maiden borrows a concept from Hades with narrative-driven advancement and some dialogue between each attempt. The writing didn’t completely engage me, but I value the presence of more conventional progression to create a hook for successive attempts.
I reached the conclusion of the demo, which spans the Limbo stage, in roughly an hour of gameplay, and discovered yet another pleasure at the end: a distinctive boss encounter that merges bullet hell projectile patterns and area of effect strikes with indicators straight from an MMO raid. It was an excellent final trial here, and one that has certainly heightened my expectations of what else the game has to offer.
Roguelikes are frequently a challenging sell for me, and I typically only feel motivated by the very finest the genre presents – titles like Hades and Vampire Survivors. I’m uncertain if Hell Maiden will possess the durability to stand alongside the top roguelike games, but if it can capture someone like me in under an hour, I’d say it’s definitely worth checking out.