College is hard enough – moving away from home, making friends, figuring out who you are. Now imagine you descend from a lineage of demon hunters who had shared that the world would soon end due to said demons. Oh yeah, and you are the one who must deal with all of this. And so is the heavy mantle that Faye, the main character of Demonschool, must carry. Fortunately, Faye is not your run-of-the-mill freshmen. How could she be? Not only is she incredibly enthused about preventing the apocalypse, but she is also equally as excited to recruit friends to the cause – even if they are hesitant with their participation.

Roll Call

Faye is quirky, complete with her flaming pink hair, but also a little socially awkward. The game opens with her on a ship to Hemsk University and choosing her next victim, I mean, friend. Enter Namako, another student at Hemsk, and someone who is so not interested in preventing an upcoming demon apocalypse. Players later befriend Destin and Knute, both with distinctive personalities and background stories. The characters are charming, well written, punchy, clever, and overall enjoyable. I gravitated to Faye nearly instantly because I found her awkwardness and zest for life endearing.

Class Is In Session

Combining demons, an apocalypse, and the daily living of a college student is an interesting mix, but Demonschool handles it flawlessly. Players will balance classes, build friendships, train, explore campus, and fight demons throughout their time with the game. While quite a mixed bag of activities, the gameplay loop is fun and engaging. I felt like it was paced well and did not feel bored at any point. For someone like me who loves a good side quest or twenty, I felt like balancing so many responsibilities helped hook me.

Tactically Challenged

The fighting style in Demonschool all boils down to good old-fashioned tactical RPG combat. Unfortunately, I am not a tactician. The initial battle Faye and Namako enter provides an incredible tutorial where I really felt like my hand was held throughout, and I left confident I could replicate what I’d just done. Spoiler alert: I could not, in fact, just replicate what had happened on my own.

Fights have a planning and action phase. The planning phase allows you to exhaust your moves for each character based on available action points. You can then let it play out and rewind as many times as needed to get your turn just right. While this is incredibly forgiving, I struggled with combat in general. Luckily, they planned for this and within the menu there is an “almost invincible” mode you can toggle on and toggle I did. I’m notorious for playing a game on “easy mode” and was grateful for this option. Each battle has preset goals to work towards and at the end, you’re graded on how well you did. Grades are based on objectives achieved as well as how many characters you did, or didn’t, keep alive. Not happy with your score? You can run battles back for that A+.

Before the Bell

Demonschool is a charming game. Its graphics elicit nostalgic vibes and the soundtrack is phenomenal. The story is interesting and presented in such a way that it’s hard not to be drawn in from the very beginning. Even someone like me who is not the best at this style of combat, I wanted to persevere solely because I needed to know what happened next. I played on my Switch 2, but have been told it runs great everywhere including on Steam Deck.

Score: 7/10

Reviewed on Switch. Demonschool is available now on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.