Short Review: Demetrios – The BIG Cynical Adventure
By: RJ (@rga_02)
- Demetrios – The BIG Cynical Adventure
- Developer - Cowcat
- Publisher - Cowcat
- PC/Vita
To be completely honesty, I went blind with this game. I had no clue what to expect. For all I knew, I thought I was going to play some western inspired jRPG. Then I realized it was a point-and-click videogame.
Now I have nothing against point-and-click games. It’s just that I’ve really dabbled in the genre. So Demetrios – The BIG Cynical Adventure is the first game in that genre I fully exposed myself too. But enough of my lack of videogaming experience with certain genre. Let’s actually talk about the game itself.
The main character of the game is Bjorn Thonen. He’s an antique dealer living in the beautiful city of Paris. One morning he wakes up to see that one of his treasures safely stored in the open space of his messy bedroom has been stolen. Thus begins his adventure leading him throughout Paris and some God-forsaken country called “Nogo”.
I liked the premise of the story but it was held back by the immature writing. If you’re into constant fart noises and high school tier sex jokes, then this might be the game for you. As for me, it got old really fast. But not all is just about giving blow jobs to statues or finding socks that someone had a good time with. Everyone in this game is either self-depreciating or cynical. Depending on your level of tolerance, their insufferable attitudes could ruin the game for you. I personally didn’t mind since I’ve come across a lot of insufferable characters in other videogame genres.
Now for the gameplay, well it’s a point-and-click game. You go from location to location clicking on items and people to solve puzzles and progress through the story. The puzzles in the game aren’t that hard at all. If you do find yourself stuck, there are a ton of in-game hints to help you progress. Apart from your standard clicking affair, you will also encounter some mini-games along the way. Ranging from racing worms to shooting animals with fart sounds.
However if there is one thing that I truly enjoyed in this game, it’s the background art. It’s really vibrant and colorful and it kept my eyes glued to the screen looking at the small details. One thing I did wish though that the city of Paris should of have felt more Parisian. While I did enjoy looking around, it felt like I was looking at a typical suburbia setting.
For a genre I was completely oblivious about, I had an alright experience with Demetrios. Personally the crude humor wasn’t for me, but I did enjoy the core concept of the game. If you’re into point-and-clicks and juvenile writing, then this game should be right up your road.
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Second Thoughts
Normally if we do a second review of a videogame, a different writer would take a stab at it. I’ve previously reviewed Demetrios for the PC earlier this year and I was quite critical of it. It was littered with juvenile writing and insufferable characters.
Cowboom decided to re-release the game for the Vita and I decided to take a shot at it one more time. I don’t know what I expected, but it was the same song and dance.
However if there was one thing that made me appreciate this game the second time around was just the overall quirkiness of the surroundings. Yes the writing and premise is juvenile, but damn me if I’m not going to smirk at the various silly hidden props littered throughout the game. But that’s where my appreciation ended.
During my second play through of this game, I thought, who is this game trying to target? There is a market for silly irrelevant humor – and I love some of that humor, but this game doesn’t execute it well.
With the Vita version, there are three different modes should you chose to skip the vulgarity and juvenile writing. It’s a great option for some people, but I feel that regardless of the writing of this game, it should be experienced the way it was originally intended to be.