Upcoming Demonschool Review
Devilishly moreish and hard to put down, only failed by performance snags and the absence of key quality-of-life features.
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What is it? A hellish tactics RPG that's a little Buffy, a little Shin Megami Tensei.Release date [November 19, 2025]Expect to pay $25/£20Developer Necrosoft GamesPublisher Ysbryd GamesReviewed on Nvidia GeForce RTX3070, AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT, 32GB RAMSteam Deck VerifiedLink Official site
Inside me there are two wolves—Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Persona—so it's hard for me to resist howling when ragtag bands of '90s high schoolers kick demon tail in between pop quizzes and making out with each other. The way Demonschool weaves old-school apocalyptic vibes with tactics-based combat brought out the beast. I devoured it in a matter of days, and it pulled off something no other RPG has managed before: make me fall in love with the ways of the isometric grid.
Faye is very much your typical spunky, slightly boisterous heroine (hi that's me), a self-proclaimed demon hunter on her way to enroll in a school on the mysterious Hemsk Island (god I wish that was me). Why? Because the apocalypse is coming, of course, and the island promises to be a verifiable hub of demon activity. And I mean, hey, she's right.
Demonschool operates on an explore-talk-fight loop: tackling the main story advances the day from morning, evening, and then to night, usually with a battle separating each segment. As the days and weeks advance, so do the island's inhabitants and activities. There's almost always a new NPC to talk to, or a party member begging to be taken to karaoke to advance their friendship (aka future makeout prospect) meter.
Exploring the island between each main quest does a ton for building the overarching narrative, as conversations with the same islanders sprinkle in juicy lore; a man who remembers an ever-decreasing number of his children, an old woman claiming every man to be her husband, a shrine that gets chattier the more I visit it. Their frequently fresh dialogue had me running to every corner to make sure I was catching all of it.
It's worth noting that there's a lotta text (and no voice acting) and a distinct lack of any text log. This was annoying when I slipped into mindlessly advancing through dialogue with my eyes glazed over (listen,
Source: PC Gamer
