Universal DEMONS' SCORE - (by Square Enix)

Discussion in 'iPhone and iPad Games' started by Echoseven, Sep 18, 2012.

  1. Exact-Psience

    Exact-Psience Well-Known Member

    Jan 12, 2012
    22,664
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    The Work-At-Home Guy
    Philippines
    #61 Exact-Psience, Sep 20, 2012
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2012
    I dont mind the current model. I bought the game, but never used any IAP yet. To be honest i dont really find a use for it. Currently on normal difficulty.

    It isnt Elite Beat Agents, but for me, it's still one of the better music apps on the iOS.

    I just love it despite not being able to use the other personas.

    EDIT: And if it's any consolation, i only used Default Serenity because i like her beat better than Asmodeus.
     
  2. aaronius80

    aaronius80 Well-Known Member

    Dec 23, 2010
    128
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    Legal/Enforcement
    Asia
    Thanks for the info! I was about to click on the purchase button when I read your post. Sad that SE has to resort to this kind of paidmium format.:(

    Guess I will skip this..

     
  3. ykazumi

    ykazumi Member

    Feb 24, 2010
    16
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    Kanagawa, Japan
    I don't know what Square Enix is trying to do.
    I was just surprised when I read about how the IAP works in this game for the international players.

    The game released in the Japanese App Store doesn't have the IAP for unlocking the costumes. Just finished through the easy and normal difficulty and I was able to unlock and use the costumes after finishing each stage so far. But for healing items, you need to buy the IAP.

    So over here in Japan, players are giving thumbs up to Square Enix for not using the IAP so heavily.

    I noticed that the pricing is different also. It costs 1,500yen to purchase the app in Japan store, and that's almost double the price compared to the US store (calculating by $1=¥78). But I think it's still unfair since from what I read in this thread it costs almost $50 to completely unlock all the costumes plus the MAX difficulty.

    Yeah, but still just for buying 9 costumes will cost more than the app's download price in Japan.

    So weird...huh?
     
  4. Nemer

    Nemer Well-Known Member

    Apr 16, 2012
    358
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    College/Part job
    Far far away
    If they let you unlock characters without paying real money i would buy this game instantly but sadly its not the case :(
     
  5. worldcitizen1919

    worldcitizen1919 Well-Known Member

    Jun 27, 2012
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    It depends

    Iit depends how the model works for you. If you're a casual player then you won't be forking out $43 or whatever in one go. It might take weeks to use up the $2.99 incremental IAP. And stretching it over weeks you wouldn't mind paying $2.99 at a time.

    IF its a good enough game, with plenty and plenty of gameplay and has good replayability then go for it. I find most SE games keep me going for ages and I love the quality and quite happily pay premium because little by little. Of course if you're aiming to finish it in one go then OUCH IT HURTS,!

    But I would rather spend $3 at a time on a real good quality game from SE than spend the same amount of money buying trash program's.

    So it comes down to how much you like the game. Since I got my iPad I've hardly played on my PC which surprisingly has SAVED me heaps of money. So if this is really good then it's far cheaper than a PC game for $70. If I prefer gaming on my iPad then I'm saving heaps of $$ only because I'm getting the same fun factor or more than on my PC but at way lower prices. So if its really good then I would much rather spend $40 on it than some game on steam for $70-90 that turned out to be no good. I've got a very high end GPU but I enjoy my iPad for gaming more than my PC so it's way cheaper.

    The only question for me then is is this a really, really good game? I don't have to fork out all the $ at once like on Steam so if its really, really good why not?
    [/QUOTE]
     
  6. Misguided

    Misguided Well-Known Member

    Jan 27, 2009
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    I'm confused...do the IAP purchases open new levels or just costumes?
     
  7. pentarou

    pentarou Active Member

    Mar 18, 2012
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    There's an initial short first portion to each level which is unique to the character you pick, with music different from the boss' stage.

    IAP is as follows (possibly spoilers?)
    Default (Serenity) - included with game
    Asmodeus - included with game
    Belial - $2.99, unlocks on Easy
    Eligos - $2.99, unlocks on Easy
    Azazel - $4.99, unlocks on Hard
    Berith - $2.99, unlocks on Easy
    Dantalion - $4.99, unlocks on Hard
    Beelzebub - $3.99, unlocks on Normal
    Lilith - $2.99, unlocks on Easy
    Astaroth - $3.99, unlocks on Normal
    Satan - $9.99, unlocks on Hard, unlocks Hell difficulty?

    I played as default Serenity through most of the game, then bought Dantalion because I like ZUNTATA, ...and then my character became pretty much invincible for all of Hard mode, at the expense of my score. But that said, I think I'm stopping there. Not enough of a fan of the music or the game to want to play through Hell difficulty.
     
  8. bigrand1

    bigrand1 Well-Known Member

    Apr 23, 2010
    4,968
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    Geriatric Party Animal
    California, USA
    I've been using default Serenity as well. I've been playing for awhile, and beat 4 or 5 bosses, but to me, I must say, this game just isn't really fun! Playing on 'normal' setting, but there's absolutely no spark here to keep me playing on. Probably gonna delete it. Haven't felt the need to buy the IAP myself but repetitive nature in itself here is enough to stop playing it. Can't put my finger on it, just no 'snap'. Kinda boring after a short while, that's all. Bland.
     
  9. kioshi

    kioshi Well-Known Member

    Apr 9, 2011
    880
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    Brazil
    Slidetoplay gave this game a 2/4:

    "Only one extra outfit is free, and Square Enix made the greedy choice to require a $3.99 in-app purchase for each of the new outfits you unlock. They call this "signing a demon pact", so you won't even realize you're about to be charged until after you hit the "sign pact" button. At the very least, they should make the purchase price clear inside the game, but really, each of these outfits should be a free bonus for progressing through this $6.99 game.

    Unlocking outfits isn't just aesthetic-- they'll also change the background music for the first part of each level, which is essential for keeping the gameplay varied."

    http://www.slidetoplay.com/story/demons-score-review
     
  10. kioshi

    kioshi Well-Known Member

    Apr 9, 2011
    880
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    Brazil
    Well if as you say the Normal and Hard costumes are 3.99 and 4.99, you can add 6 bucks to my calculations so instead of 46 USD, the game + Satan + costumes cost 52 USD and change.
     
  11. Exact-Psience

    Exact-Psience Well-Known Member

    Jan 12, 2012
    22,664
    2
    38
    The Work-At-Home Guy
    Philippines
    If they add: Buy all IAP (except the consumables) for $20-$25 id buy it.
     
  12. Mrkill

    Mrkill Member

    Sep 21, 2012
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    Didn't like this game. And of course it costs too much for such quality
     
  13. ImJPaul

    ImJPaul Well-Known Member

    May 23, 2012
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    16
    Male
    MGMT!
    Baltimore
    Me too. I hope they do this because I really wanna play this game but as of right now I just can't support it at console pricing.
     
  14. Allanon

    Allanon Well-Known Member

    Dec 10, 2011
    645
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    Protecting the Lands from Brona
    Paranor
    I just came in here to ask if it had achievements and I'm sad to see it doesn't. What BS!

    Apple should definitely make it mandatory
     
  15. EightRooks

    EightRooks Well-Known Member

    Jan 13, 2012
    627
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    UK
    Yeah, it's not a bad game, or broken, or crippled by IAP... but not buying the IAP does leave much of the game pretty boring, and while there's some pretty good art design for most of the costumes the free one is the worst by a long way and the rest of the game simply isn't interesting enough to stand up for long against the competition on iOS, to say nothing of the developers' back catalogue. It's just not a great rhythm action game, and when all the neat rewards are locked behind a very high paywall you start wondering why you shouldn't go play something like ToneSphere or Cytus instead.

    The final level of Gitaroo Man is one of my all-time favourite gaming moments - utter balls-out madness and an awesome soundtrack and hilarious and sweetly, wonderfully emotional as well. Loser finally realises he's a pretty awesome guy whilst battling his evil nemesis a mile above the ground, both of them dressed in mech suits and wielding electric guitars that are on fire - what's not to like? There's nothing in Demon's Score as remotely as epic as that, in any sense, and having beaten Easy and Normal other than Berith's battle the whole thing is pretty much a damp squib. Disappointing.
     
  16. kioshi

    kioshi Well-Known Member

    Apr 9, 2011
    880
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    Brazil
    Well I haven't bought any costume (asked for a refund actually) but both slidetoplay and pocketgamer say IAP changes the music variety of the game. From pocketgamer:

     
  17. EightRooks

    EightRooks Well-Known Member

    Jan 13, 2012
    627
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    UK
    Each "signing a pact" IAP changes the costume Serenity is wearing, her voice and the lines she uses. It also changes the music that plays during the travelling stages between boss fights. I'm not sure if it does anything to the actual boss fights other than change a bit of the dialogue? My problems are that the voices generally sound really silly coming out of Serenity's model - as someone else said in this thread there's no attempt to show it's an extra personality on top of hers, it's just like someone redubbed her part - and that even if you use another tune on the travelling stages, the pattern for each of these tunes is exactly the same for that difficulty level on every single stage you use it on. It just seems like a really stupid way to structure a music game to have you play through what is essentially a three-minute loading screen between boss fights. Even if you bought every single IAP and got all the tunes you'd get to know them quickly enough, and the backgrounds for those levels are so dull - every single one is just a straight corridor! - it's still pretty boring even with the musical variety.

    Just feels really poorly thought-out all round. If you'd priced it at £15, Square, all costumes included, every single IAP tune with increasingly complex pattern variations within each difficulty level, set the costumes up as unlocks tied to how well you do on particular stages, charge £3 for the Satan difficulty if you really, really felt you had to... and I'd be praising this a lot more. But the way things are right now I'm pretty sure I'm not spending any more than the basic price - I just don't feel any urge to keep going now I've beaten the first two settings.
     
  18. kioshi

    kioshi Well-Known Member

    Apr 9, 2011
    880
    0
    0
    Brazil
    Apple gave me my refund.
    I never asked for a refund before, shouldn't the game be deleted from my iPad or whatever?
    I haven't had access to my Mac the last few days but I have logged in to the iOS app store and updated stuff.
     
  19. ahmads25

    ahmads25 New Member

    Oct 1, 2012
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    Is there any difference in endings between difficulties (no need spoilers, simple yes or no will suffice :))?
     
  20. Laire

    Laire Well-Known Member

    Feb 4, 2012
    586
    0
    0
    Overworked Graphic Designer :)
    Mandatory achievements isn't the answer. Fixing the flawed system is.

    Unless there's rules in place that forces all games to have a similar number, value, and "difficulty system" in place for their achievements, there's no point in having an overall score for achievements across all systems. They need to be taken seriously by the creators before they can expect the players to care.

    So long as one game is allowed to have "[100] Press Start" while another has "[50] 3-Star Every Level In The Game," the achievements are meaningless.
     

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