I guess if I’m going to make Demo Demo Panic into a series, it should have more than one installment. Tonight I gave another of the many PS3 demos sitting on my hard drive a whirl to see if it’s a hidden gem, or just another slapped together attempt to pander to people who miss 2D gaming.

So, basically we have here a game that’s something of a mix of Castlevania HD and Strider, featuring a handful of ninja warriors attempting to retake their homeland from an evil empire. So, let’s dive right in to Moon Diver.

One thing to say going into this is I’ve also been playing Hard Corps: Uprising, the Arc System Works take on Contra, and it is excellent. In single player. The game has some real dickish tendencies with respawn locations, and the one time I finished the game with a partner (without the PSN slowing to a crawl and disconnecting between stages) I lost all my lives to respawning over a pit during a section involving some of that wonderful missile-to-missile jumping that’s been mandatory since Contra III. One of the things the game added was a DLC character named Sayuri, a samurai chick who brings a sword to a gunfight and does amazingly well. In fact, she’s probably the easiest one to power through the game with , since her sword does massive, swift damage to everything and the charged shots pass through walls that even the Plasma charge shot doesn’t. It makes for a different game, one fun enough that I found myself wanting to play an entire Contra game melee style.

What a coincidence then, that we had a 2-D hack and slasher game show up on the PSN shortly after. Then become unavailable as soon as I heard about it thanks to that lovely little service blackout.

Really, there isn’t a whole lot to say about the demo. It gives you a tutorial style look at the first level of the game, where you mow down a lot of identical looking enemies in different colors. There are blade arm dudes, yellow, exploding blade arm dudes, wasps, and SWAT looking dudes who die in one shot, as well as some gun emplacements and lakes of poison or something to fulfill the 2-D Game Quota Of Inanimate Objects that Hate You. You can slash rapidly, charge up for a big, slow, powerful slash by holding the same button, and use special (ranged) slashes with a tap of Circle that consumes some of your MP. Interestingly, you also have automatic slashes tied to your special maneuvers- flipping up onto a platform from a hanging position, double jumping, and sliding are all accompanied by a subtle ‘blade’ effect I didn’t even notice until the tutes mentioned them. All in all, it does a remarkable job of making you a highly mobile slaughtering machine, which is just what a ninja ought to be. I do wish that the player status info stood out a little easier at the top of the screen. At one point, I took some damage on purpose trying to figure out exactly where my life gauge was supposed to be on the top of the screen. You don’t die easy, at least not in the demo. I didn’t get to play the online version, assuming it even works in the demo, but it sounds kind of cool that your special ‘moonsaults’ can be joined with other players’ special moves for bigger, flashier combos.

All in all, I liked the demo for Moon Diver, but not quite enough to splurge on it. I didn’t hate it by any stretch, but it has the same insubstantial feeling to it that I get any time I play a shmup with 2 1/2D graphics these days. It seems like cel shaded imitation sprites just lack the ‘impact’ old school hand-drawn ones do.