The Ditzy Demons Are in Love With Me is not only a long title for a game, but is also one of the better-looking eroge available on Steam, coming from the same artist behind the popular Nekopara series. It is a pretty good read, but it does not come without some problems, mainly its flat characters and technical faults.
Note: This review covers the base game with the 18+ patch. Without the patch, many of the game’s scenes are either cropped, censored, or removed entirely. While the game can be played without this patch, it will make for a much shorter game, especially in the character routes.
Pros:
Actually decent comedy. For most of the common route, I was actually surprised that this game was tagged as a nukige, as it seemed to be more of a slice-of-life comedy than anything (although with plenty of inappropriate jokes). That is certainly not a bad thing though, as this comedy was pretty well-done for the most part, rarely feeling out of place. In fact, I would say that the game’s common route could have stood on its own without any 18+ material due to how well it managed its slice-of-life elements. However, once you get to the character routes, the game ramps up its 18+ content, so those playing without the 18+ patch will not have a whole lot to read through there. Even so, when the game did attempt comedy, it was a pretty fun read, even if there were some lulls.
Outstanding art. Ditzy Demons best feature would have to be just how good the art is. The character designs and CGs are some of the best I have seen in an eroge available on Steam, courtesy of the talent behind the game’s artist, Sayori. That talent shines here, as the art quality is pretty consistent throughout, with no bad character design or CG. In fact, the game does not even suffer from blurry art when zoomed in, something that I find to be common with most visual novels released these days. Ditzy Demons really raises the bar here and I only hope that other visual novels follow suit.
Some unique VN features. There are a couple of features here in Ditzy Demons that I feel deserve their own shout-out. The first of which is something I have never seen in a visual novel before: the ability to move the game’s textbox. Being able to hide the textbox is pretty much standard at this point, but Ditzy Demons goes one step further and allows the player to move it up and down anywhere on the screen. Granted, I did not make much use of this feature, but it was a cool addition nonetheless, especially for those that would prefer the text to be at the top of the screen rather than the bottom. The other cool feature is the game’s “panic mode”. Simply pressing P at any time during play will switch the game’s screen to one of many panic screens, ranging from a Dark Souls “you died” screen to a fake blue screen of death. On top of that, the game also changes its taskbar icon to that of Microsoft Paint’s. Although some of these screens would be hard to explain in the event of a panic, the addition of such a feature was pretty fun regardless, one that really goes to show the game’s comedic side.
Cons:
Flat characters. While I may have praised the game’s character designs, it certainly does not help when the characters themselves are rather flat. Each and every character fits their role and does nothing more than that. You have the little-sister type, the childhood friend, the shy beauty, and even the tsundere loli to name a few. These characters remain relatively static throughout the game, even in their own character routes. It definitely does not make for some good storytelling, but that is obviously not what the game is going for. For this type of game, it may not even be a problem for many, but considering just how much the game spends on its slice-of-life moments, it could really use some more dynamic characters.
Finicky auto-mode. Ditzy Demons has one of the most finicky auto-modes I have had to deal with in a visual novel. Normally, one would adjust the auto-mode to match their reading speed, something I tried to do right at the start of the game. However, Ditzy Demons does not appear to scale the auto-mode speed with the length of the displayed text, so lines that consist of just a few words last as long as lines that are multiple sentences. In fact, I even timed how long these lines last and found that it appeared to be a static rate, regardless of how long the displayed text is. This pretty much made the auto-mode useless to me, as I would either have to set the timer longer (and have to wait several seconds after shorter lines) or have it set to my reading pace (and not be able to read some of the longer lines).
No rebindable keys. Considering just how many keybindings there are in Ditzy Demons, it is a bit of a shame that none of them are rebindable. What is even more odd is the fact that the game allows rebinding of gamepad controls, but not keyboard controls – the control method I would expect most players to be using when playing a visual novel. I even poked around in the game’s installation directory, but did not find any sort of external config. As it stands, players will just have to stick with the game’s default keybindings, which, while not bad, should be configurable, especially for a game released in 2018.
With its outstanding art, Ditzy Demons does a good job in what it sets out to do, with the added bonus of having some decent comedy as well. Even so, the characters are pretty flat, making for some rather shallow storytelling, especially in the character routes. However, this is obviously not a game that strives for good storytelling, so many will simply overlook that fault. On the technical side though, the game does suffer from a finicky auto-mode and completely lacks rebindable keys. Despite this, I still recommend the game, but do keep in mind the difference between the patched and unpatched versions of the game.
You can buy The Ditzy Demons Are in Love With Me on Steam here.
I was provided a review copy of the game in order to write this review. Read more about how I do my game reviews here.
cublikefoot 