DEEMO REBORN
The melody soars to new heights
Good rhythm games don’t dance along every five minutes, but Deemo Reborn’s graceful combination of rhythm and puzzle elements hits all the right notes. As in PS Vita’s Deemo, you explore a mysterious castle, solving puzzles and playing the songs you earn to reveal more rooms and uncover hints about the equally enigmatic characters who live in the building. However, this is Deemo as we’ve never seen it before: now in full CG and complete with free roaming, the beautifully detailed world both ethereal and downright adorable. 1
Of course, music is at the heart of the game, and the piano-centric soundtrack is gorgeous. The controls suit it perfectly, feeling natural yet rewardingly complex, with chords and analogue stick-tilting glissandos that require your fingers to positively dance over the controller to keep up on the harder challenge settings.
With plenty of songs and three difficulties for each, there’s enough to keep you busy while you nurture the music-loving tree at Deemo’s core and uncover the castle’s secrets without things ever getting too repetitive. Similarly, there’s a nice variety of puzzles, and the way key information and items cross over between rooms, rather than you never needing to think of a room again on completing it, helps make the environment feel fuller and more cohesive.
It’s always nice when a rhythm game’s story is as strong as its action, and Deemo’s gentle and touching narrative is a great example of one that works. Refreshingly for its genre, it revels in its tranquillity rather than strives to be a wild night out encapsulated in a screen. 2 Simple, yet satisfying.