Video Game / Demon Hunter: The Return of the Wings

Counterclockwise from the bottom left: Perna, Gun, Elen, Greed, Varian

"Since... I began to have a mysterious dream... I've felt that everything familiar is just getting more distant. Who am I in this dream? Reality and dream. Dream and reality. That dream... No, that place to me is... Maybe that guy can give me some answers."

— Gun, opening monologue

Demon Hunter: The Return of the Wings (데몬헌터) is a mobile Metroidvania developed by BiCore for iOS and Android, released in Korea on April 28, 2009 and internationally on April 28, 2011.

The story follows Gun (Geon), a seemingly Ordinary High-School Student who has been taken away from Taros International High to the dimension Akoron by a demon Greed (Grid). According to Greed, Gun is a native of this world and is one of the "winged people". Greed gets chased off by Perna Perlai, but not before telling Gun to find him if he wants answers. Gun reluctantly joins Perna's Dubaq clan of demon hunters, hoping to find a way home.

In 2015 BiCore got defunct, which is significant for two reasons. The game needs one-time connection with the server when the player starts a New Game, so without a barely save file the game is unplayable. It was also before the Android's kernel update, so the game crashes on modern phones. The game has since been fan-modded to work on Android even without the network features.

---

Demon Hunter: Return of the Wings provides examples of:

• 20 Bear Asses: A lot of quests involve getting a certain amount of monster material that is dropped separately from the usual loot while the quest is active.
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The Kamael region is an underground ruin filled with canals, tunnels and waterfalls.
• Accidental Pervert: When Gun and Perna fall into the Cave of Darkness, with Gun still being unconscious, Perna takes an opportunity to take a bath. Shortly Gun discovers her in a Modesty Towel, and she remains bitter for the entire chapter, especially since he notices her hiding her injuries.
• The Ace: Emil is recognized everywhere as one of the best hunters, has the appropriate confidence, and wears Cool Shades all the time.
• Action Bomb: Totu are dynamite-wearing dwarfs who explode shortly after getting close to Gun. There are similar suicidal enemies with an entire barrel of explosives.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: Gun and enemies inexplicably swap hands depending on which direction they're facing.
• Amnesiac Hero: According to Greed, Gun doesn't know his past and his childhood is indeed ambiguous. It's later revealed by Greed that Gun is also an Amnesiac God and the subject of demons' worship.
• Anti-Villain: Near the end of the game it turns out Greed is acting on behalf of demonkind, who are victims of a Fantastic Nuke and are reasonably not happy with Talagaron getting away with it.
• Ax-Crazy: Jabra is a Naru hunter with a short fuse and drops whatever he's doing to fight to the death the last person who has bothered him, enemy or ally alike, then gets bored just as quickly.
• Big Brother Worship: Perna looks up to her brother Elen, who is considered The Ace among all hunters, even better than Emil.
• Bleak Border Base: Dubaq's hideout and the Kamael region are said to be located at the edge of Akoron and Kamael has the weakest monsters. It's also where the plot starts.
• Broken Bridge: Portals to other areas and some doors are closed off until the rest of the story quests are done.
• Cassandra Truth: By the time Greed stops messing around, Gun goes into full denial because he can't trust demons anymore. Unfortunately, Greed is shown to be sincere at least with most his exposition.
• Chainmail Bikini: Perna's "armor" cover the sides and the shoulders, but everything else is almost completely bare.
• Combos: Attacking enemies consequently slowly increases damage until the player is hit or stops attacking. Gun attacks don't stack up.
• Color-Coded Item Tiers: Equipment is marked in white, blue, yellow, gold, and purple, depending on its rarity.
• Comically Serious: Gun isn't used to other hunters' antics and makes an awkward face when they joke at his expense and later starts making his annoyance known through snark.
• Cycle of Revenge: Elen's idea of avenging his mother is punishing whoever he feels responsible with a Fantastic Nuke, which was used in the previous war. Perna calls out that he's just going to continue the suffering.
• Damage Over Time: Poison and Wound effects give damage at regular intervals, and almost everything in forest areas is poisonous.
• Damsel in Distress: In the 5th chapter, Perna is taken hostage and then is also kidnapped, so Gun has to go after her. And after the Final Boss Perna goes missing.
• Dash Attack: Attacking while dashing uses a piercing animation.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Dying lets you resurrect at the cost of 20% of current EXP and gold, as well as reducing your physical attack and defense to almost nothing for 5 minutes. It doesn't affect magic attacks and teleporting to the base removes the debuff, if you don't mind getting back. Spending Premium Currency lets you resurrect with no penalty. Dying to bosses kicks you out of the room though.
• Don't Make Me Destroy You: Elen initially spares Perna so she would join him in the new world, but after a couple of warnings he tries to attack her for real.
• Doppelgänger Attack: Buru's "secret ability" is having two weaker copies of itself joining in during the second phase.
• Do You Want to Haggle?: One quest ends in the same dialogue that starts it if you have 3 Phaladume ore. Leus offers 3500 Rand and Gun asks for 4000. When Leus says 3600, Gun picks 3500, Leus says 3700 and Gun closes right before Leus realizes he screwed up the haggle.
• Dreaming of Times Gone By: Gun has visions about himself fighting in Akoron before Greed, who was also present in his dreams, takes him there and hints at missing memories.
• Dual Boss: Kira and Kiba fight together. Aside from both of them being a Moveset Clone of Gun's two classes, they have a unique Combination Attack and fully revive each other if not defeated at the same time.
• Dub Name Change: Hotsan is called Jacob in the original Korean.
• Dual Wielding: Bormenta has three different swords, but wields up to two at once.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Water beats fire, fire beats light, and light beats water, with 130% and 70% efficiency for attack and defense respectively. All three beat non-element with 110% to 90%.
• Equipment Upgrade: Items can be Enchanced to increase their tier and stats, but at a risk of not only reducing the tier down, but, without Premium Currency, also at a chance of destroying it. And the game also auto-saves while at it.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Greed gets surprisingly aggressive when talking about the deaths of his people.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: The Tower of Sin, if the name wasn't scary enough, collects the energy of Akoron and can be used as a weapon.
• Explosive Stupidity: Lideal tries to scare Gun with an explosive mine, but it fails to trigger, so he checks it personally. An explosion can be heard the moment Gun leaves the area and returning right away shows a loot dropped.
• Fallen Hero:
  • Kiba and Kira were a pair of the best hunters, but to the surprise of others, have sided with Greed to find an exciting life.
  • Elen reveals himself to be in cahoots with demons for quite some time.
• Family of Choice: Since Gun doesn't have anyone else, after the third chapter Gun starts thinking of Dubaq clan as his siblings.
• Fantastic Nuke: In the past Talagarons have used the Tower of Sin against Greed's country, inflicting all residents and animals who have survived with the Curse that made them hideous and immortal.
• Fire and Brimstone Hell: The Inferno region lives up to its name, being entirely filled with brimstone and fiery pits.
• Forced Level-Grinding: The end-game contains almost no side-quests, yet enemies a several levels higher in each area, so you have to find a room to spend a few hours in if you want to do any damage to bosses.
• Foreshadowing: The Tower of Sin is decorated with portraits of Hanin, Elen's One-Winged Angel form.
• Funny Afro: Emil is a weird hunter who is proud of his afro and thinks Gun will never be cool without one.
• Ghostly Gape: Lideal's eyes and mouth are wide and hollow, fitting for a harlequin demon.
• Giant Spider: Buru is a sentient spider demon who uses its web to swing in and out of the boss room.
• GIS Syndrome: For no reason in particular, the top of the Tower of Sin uses Earth's moon as the background despite being in another world.
• The Goomba: The first enemies in the game are level 1 slimes.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • One of the Relics of Treasure King is located on a platform outside of double-jump's reach. The game doesn't give anything that would help getting it, but you can reset your jump by using any skill mid-air with precise timing, and it's unknown if it's a glitch.
  • One of the hunting quest monsters, Race, spawns outside of the map and is initially invisible. You have to stand in a very specific spot in Distia to aggro him out.
• Hailfire Peaks: Distia region is split between adjacent upper flame area (same tileset as Inferno) and the lower snow area. It is described as the land of chaos.
• Harmless Villain: Lideal is Greed's subordinate who threatens Gun, but trips and dies several times before he can even do anything.
• Have You Seen My God?: According to Greed, Gun is the Amnesiac God of Akoron, or specifically of the nation where demons came from, but was rather neglectful of the world's problems and then for unknown reasons fled to Earth and erased his memories. Greed assumed that taking Gun back would shake up his memories, but seeing no progress he declares that Gun has abandoned his people and that Elen should take his place.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Your reward for beating Greed the first time is him stabbing you and escaping.
• Healing Potion: Gun can buy or craft different tiers of health or mana potions and assign them to the toolbar. There are also potions that refill both or remove debuffs.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: Greed's motives are one of the biggest mysteries, as he keeps pausing his hide-and-seek game to give Gun hints on what to do next, which results in defeat of other demons, while also being an Unreliable Expositor.
• Hub Level: The Dubaq base is conveniently placed in the middle of world map and connects to several regions.
• Humans Are Bastards: Greed comments that he finds it intriguing how on Earth, unlike in Akoron, humans reguarly kill each other and the best destroyers are regarded as heroes.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Buru desires the taste of human meat, especially Perna's, after feeding itself with Varians for quite some time.
• I Need You Stronger: Greed sets up a "hide and seek" game for Gun and waits until he goes through the story missions. Greed even shows up a few times to give Gun hints on how to progress. The reason for this is that as the wielder of God's Wing, Gun is the only one who can take the key to the Tower of Sin from Bormenta, which gets promptly stolen by Kira and Kiba, and said Tower also can't activate without him.
• Insufferable Genius: Dayl often complains how nobody gives enough respect to a scientist like him. Davichi similarly complains that hunters are only good for killings and he shows no respect to Gun.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • Buru opts to not reveal its name and it's mentioned in-story later... despite it being shown in the dialogue box and the quest's info.
  • Gun doesn't learn who Elen is until very much later despite the game showing his name in his first appearance.
• It's All Upstairs From Here: The last level, the Tower of Sin, is mostly vertical, and the Final Boss is confronted on the wide-open top floor.
• Item Crafting: Gun can get a large variety of recipes, mainly for the equipment that can't be purchased, which can be crafted at any time in exchange for monster loot.
• Jungle Japes: Stigia is the forest level full of poisonous wildlife.
• Job System: There are three skill trees for sword, guns, and magic. Gun's class and special attack change according to which tree has the most points allocated to. Each class also applies different penalties to some stats.
• Labcoat of Science and Medicine: Dayl is a rare scientist in a fantasy setting, and he wears googles and a labcoat. His Naru's counterpart Davichi also wears a similar labcoat.
• Last Request: Chu's ghost asks Gun to tell everyone he quit and went looking for his girlfriend, instead of being killed in action. Gun honors it.
• Last-Second Ending Choice: At the ending you are abruptly given a choice to look for Perna. If you say no, the game quits to the main menu and you have to redo the Final Boss. Saying yes unlocks a new difficulty mode.
• Level-Up Fill-Up: Leveling up refills the health and mana bars, and also knocks back nearby enemies.
• Limit Break: The Wing of Cracked Time has an invisible progress bar that accumulates when Gun receives damage. It temporarily makes Gun invulnerable and enemies considerably slower, allowing Gun to either obliterate them or flee.
• Mad Bomber: Liam is known as the Bombing Demon, for his attitude and use of machines that could wipe out the entire Gehena is not deactivated.
• Mascot Mook: A Varian has a full artwork and is featured on the game cover despite being the second weakest mook in the game.
• MacGuffin Delivery Service: Demons can't enter the holy center of Distia, so Perna is taken hostage and Gun has to break in and take the key to the Tower of Sin from its guardian.
• Mercy Invincibility: Most enemies flash and are temporarily immune to damage after being knocked out.
• Mistaken for Gay: When Gun looks impressed at Emil shrugging off Jabra's daggers, Emil feels the need to remind him that he's into girls.
• Monster Clown: Greed and Lideal are clown demons. Their subordinates Kiba and Kira also wear clown masks.
• Mook Maker: Evil Kara is a flying demon that spawns other demons. It first appears during the Liam fight as an invulnerable hazard before being available in a hunting quest.
• Motive Rant: Greed's fight in Marlborose is proceeded by several minutes of him monologuing about his plans and his feelings about Gun.
• Never Be Hurt Again: Elen seeks god-like power because his powers weren't enough to prevent his mother's murder.
• Nigh-Invulnerability:
  • Laba and Glashire cannot be harmed without a buff by a specific potion.
  • Bormenta can't be harmed until the three elemental pillars are destroyed.
• News Travels Fast: No matter what mythical area Gun unlocks, the NPCs immediately want him to take care of specific monsters there for personal reasons. For Distia sidequests when Gun asks how do they know it they just reply that news go fast.
• No Ending: After beating the Final Boss, Greed sends Gun back to Earth, while expecting him to find him again, followed by Gun immediately jumping back to find Perna. The game effectively unlocks a new difficulty mode and it's implied the proper resolution wasn't added in before the company got defunct.
• Notice This: There are two spots that emit sparkles and can't be interacted with until the specific story quests.
• Obviously Evil: Greed has a red costume, a wrinkled pale face and Absurdly Sharp Claws. Gun has a late realization that he's not going to answer his questions and is actually dangerous.
• One-Winged Angel: After the confrontation, the Final Boss Elen in desperation transforms into a dark-skinned angel Hanin.
• Only Six Faces: All Talagaron hunters look identical.
• Player Headquarters: Base of Dubaq is where all the early NPCs are, and progressing through story unlocks other bases. Being there also heals you over time.
• Post-End Game Content: Clearing the Final Boss prompts Gun to find a way to save Perna, which unlocks a two-way portal to the Hell Mode where every monster gets stronger by 65 levels. This also contains three Superbosses that are level 105.
• Premium Currency: Cubics are mythical metals that can only be obtained through online shop and certain achievements, and are used to get some game bonuses.
• Protection Mission: An early mission in Infenro requires Gun to defend Dayl from waves of level 1 Varians until he finishes analyzing the firewall.
• Regenerating Health: Enemies will start to heal if not attacked for a while.
• Repeatable Quest: Hunter Quests let you fight bosses and rare enemies repeatedly for hunter points and cash.
• Restart the World: The Tower of Sin is a Lost Superweapon that would wipe out the entire Akoron if fully charged, which is something Elen aims to do to become the god of the new world.
• Resurrective Immortality: Major demons can eventually revive. While it justifies Repeatable Quests, Liam appearing for the second time within the story shocks everyone due to it being way too early. Greed also feels reminding Gun about it after seemingly been defeated for good.
• Rock Monster: Morem monsters are animated rock golems that crawl on the ground.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: When Gun tells he's one of the people of the Wing, Evan doesn't comment on it and asks Gun to keep it a secret.
• Running Gag:
  • Gun keeps encountering Lideal who manages to kill himself in embarrassing ways the first three times.
  • Beros keeps calling Gun "cool guy" and the end of their conversations.
• Sea Serpents: Gun finds scales of a Tetenga, a water dragon, and Evan sends him to get rid of it before it grows up to 30 meters. It's already too late and cue the first boss fight.
• Senseless Sacrifice: When Elen turns into a One-Winged Angel, Perna decides to perform Taking You with Me. It doesn't work. But it's unknown what happened to her, excusing Gun to return for Post-End Game Content.
• Shifting Sand Land: Gehena is a desert-themed level.
• Sinister Scythe: Varians and its rare version Slaneesh use a bloodied scythe as a weapon.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Evan and Hotsan don't like each other and, unless there are urgent matters, constantly bicker and try to portray their respective hunter clans superior.
• Skewed Priorities: When Hotsan catches up with the plot about the world getting destroyed soon, the first thing in his mind is the payment he'd receive for saving it.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Chu thinks himself to be a great hunter and forces Gun to be his apprentice, despite avoiding assignments himself and pushing them onto Gun due to being weak.
• Stalker without a Crush: Greed has been watching Gun's life on Earth for years to learn why would he become Amnesiac God and abandon his people.
• Status Infliction Attack: There are many attacks that inflict various status ailments like Weak, Poisoned or Slow, the latter of which makes very hard to dodge attacks, including another Slow.
• Sword and Gun: Gun has both the sword and guns equipped at all times, but has to switch between them in-combat.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Gun and Chu's ghost manage to make an entire conversation between the Blood Demon's attacks.
• Tempting Fate: Evan thinks Tetenga dragon is only 1 meter tall judging by its scales, and sends a newbie Gun to take care of it before it grows to 30. The water dragon has already grown that big.
• Translation Train Wreck: The English localization has apparently passed not enough quality control, as many sentences are incomplete, use wrong grammar forms, are filled with obvious typos or can't even display.
• Trapped in Another World: Gun goes with Greed without thinking why a demon has appeared in the school, but once he gets teleported to Kamael he quickly decides to seek a way back. Despite getting used to being a hunter, he still prefers to return to the conveniences of modern civilization.
• Treants: Woodrippers are tree monsters with wines for arms.
• Troll: Greed never gives a straight answer and likes to have the last word no matter how inappropriate it is, just to piss people off. He admits that he doesn't like being honest because providing the uncertainty is incredibly amusing.
• Turns Red: Almost every boss adds a new attack after its health goes below half point.
• Underground Monkey: A lot of later enemies and mini-bosses are redesigns or are full copies of weaker enemies.
• The Unfought: For all his big talk, Lideal never fights Gun and is never heard again after Distia.
• The Unsolved Mystery: By the game's ending, two plot points remain ambiguous:
  • Perna blames Greed for killing her parents, while Elen blames Talagarons. Greed also claims it was the Talagarons who have started the war, but he's not known for being trustworthy. So, not much about Talagarons is known aside them being the best hunters and having the unseen royalty.
  • Bormenta, Greed and Elen believe Gun to be the Amnesiac God, but they're not known for being trustworthy and he naturally doesn't remember anything. How his Wing work also pointed out to contradict what is known about People of the Wings.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Elen was just a kindhearted elder brother to Perna until Greed has murdered their parents and Elen swore vengeance against him. Perna thinks that killing Greed would make Elen stop blaming himself.
• Utility Weapon: In the 5th chapter Gun gets a Rock-cutting Sword recipe. As a weapon it's pathetic, but it's required to remove certain walls.
• Victory Fakeout: In the rematch against Greed, when you defeat him, if you were paying attention, he should still have 10% HP left and the quest doesn't count as completed. Sure, try to pick up the loot and face a One-Hit Kill if not at full health.
• Villain Teleportation: Villains can phase in and out of existence in cutscenes, being immune to weapons while transitioning but still managing to taunt the heroes.
• Walking Armory: Aside to wielding a sword, Gun's ranged attacks involve Guns Akimbo, a shotgun and a machinegun. And that's before he learns any technician magic.
• Warp Whistle: Transport Stones let you teleport between regions, though are consumed per use.
• Was Once a Man: According to Greed, the demons were an ordinary nation until Talagaron have used the Tower of Sin against them, turning them into immortal monsters.
• Winged Humanoid: The titular people of the Wing were the rulers of Akoron who have roamed the sky freely. Gun is revealed to have wings, and is said to be the king of this world, but both points contradict a historical source.
• Winter Royal Lady: Kalax the ice witch is the boss of Makerusia region and is also made of ice.
• Wham Episode: The end of Distia level drops a few radical shifts in the current understanding of the plot. Gun is confirmed to be one of the people of the Wing, the previous ruler of this world, AND the Monster Progenitor, Elen shows he has pulled a Face–Heel Turn, kidnaps Perna, and plans to unleash the Lost Superweapon to Restart the World, and Greed Was Once a Man and blames Talagaron for the destruction of his homeland.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Greed states that being immortal isn't very fun in retrospect when you're being repeatedly hunted down. Especially not fun as Resurrective Immortality was forcibly inflicted by the Ancient Superweapon on regular people.
• You Killed My Father: Greed has murdered Perna's father, which she tells in her introduction. Later she elaborates that he killed her mother as well.

---