Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Video Game / Demonsteele

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/title_screen_demonsteele.png
ROCK ON!

*RING RING, RING RING*
"Hello, God? It's me, Jung Hae-Lin. Just wanted to give you a status update. I haven't been having a whole lot of issues so far, but these guys are definitely stubborn. I don't think I've met a lot more than scouts and troopers, but they're bad business all the same. Yeah. I've still got a ways to go. Uh-huh. I'll keep you updated. Promise. Bye, God."

Demonsteele is a massive gameplay overhaul for Doom by TerminusEst13, more known as the creator of single/multiplayer clash of the oldschool FPS heroes that's called Samsara.

Jung Hae-Lin was a former Korean soldier who just wanted to live the rest of her life in rural bliss. Said rural bliss is interrupted when Hell invades and she find her crops all stomped on by a fight between an Archangel of God and a particularly nasty demon. The Archangel is mortally wounded and passes away, but not before Hae-Lin continues his fight, killing the demon and then accepting his request to take up his mission - as an Angel of Death, rip and tear.

Apart from a plethora of heaven-blessed guns, Hae Lin is armed with, probably, her most signature weapon - Kharon. This sword is capable of sucking in the defeated foes' souls, improving you in two ways:

  • Building up a combo meter which increases the sword's damage depending on how well you do; said combo meter depletes with time or after you take a hit;
  • Building up the soul meter which allows you to do special attacks, both with swords and guns.
Kharon is the really the weapon you're going to use most of the time, making most of the encounters in this mod close and personal. Guns, on the other hand, not only have (relatively) limited ammunition, but also barely participate in growing your combos. Nevertheless, they're useful in cases when you just can't let yourself close to the enemies for whatever reason. Or when you need to finish off these damn bosses.

...or, in a nutshell, take Shadow Warrior, mix it with Devil May Cry, and turn it up to eleven.

While the overall aesthetics haven't changed much from the original game (remember, this is a gameplay mod we're talking about, not a mappack), what was changed noticeably borrows a lot of looks from anime and heavy metal, both put into the blender.

At the time of this writing, Terminus has started implementing a second player character, Sun Shihong, a cyborg girl originating from China whose main focus is more on gunplay and punching people in the face, rather than slashing them, with a stance system to alternately power up her melee strikes or her guns. She can tase people, too.

Like Terminus's other works, Samsara and Push, Demonsteele was remarkable enough to receive a 2014 Cacoward for the Best Gameplay Mod. Its latest version can be downloaded from here. And make sure you wipe blood off your blade after you're done playing.

See also High Noon Drifter and Highway Acceleroid Booster, other mods made by the same author with similar focuses on fast movement but with different themes (The Western and Mega Man X, respectively).

You have a whole page of tropes. Pray for a long read.

  • Animesque: Pretty much, although none of the level textures or enemies were changed to reflect this trope. Hae-Lin's placeholder sprite was Sayaka from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, of all things, and Shihong's seems to be Yuki from Haruhi Suzumiya.
    • Some cookie fortunes and even many in-game files (most replacement objects are prefixed as "weeb<item>") embrace this as well.
  • Anti-Frustration Features:
    • One of the replacement powerups is the Blind Guardian. As the name implies, it covers your back so you won't get stabbed from behind while you're cutting limbs off someone else, even reflecting some projectiles back at their thrower. Sadly, the shield doesn't hold forever, dying off after receiving 1000 points of damage, but it still does the job well.
    • Sentinel is a flying skull drone which automatically locks on enemies and guns the bastards down. Its life expectancy is even lower, though, with only 200 HP to spare.
  • Attack Drone: One for each character. Hae-Lin has Sentinel, and Shihong gets the Ravens. They're really miniature, compared to other attack drones you may know.
  • BFG: The Trope Namer is replaced for Hae-Lin with the Iron Savior, a suit of mystical armor that serves its role quite well. Shihong gets the 00-M Mastodon, which was supposedly a turret modified from a warship.
  • Bottomless Magazines: The ammo is never infinite, but for Hae-Lin it doesn't seem like you need to reload anything but your shotgun. Shihong averts this, however, with her three bullet-firing guns requiring reloads.
    Cookie fortune: "Reloading is just foreplay for your gun."
    • You can also set the soul meter to infinite, if you so prefer.
    • The Arrogant Weapons come with unlimited ammo by default.
  • Brilliant, but Lazy: Sun Shihong would really rather sit on a sofa eating Doritos than fight. Even if she likes fighting.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Whoever wrote the fortunes inside the cookies was definitely off their meds. That, or the papers inside them are self-aware enough to say shit like this.
    Cookie fortune: "Phew! About goddamn time I got out of that cookie."
  • Crosshair Aware: DevilDriver's missiles, before they're launched off.
  • Cyborg: After she was made into one, Sun Shihong basically cheated death. Also, improbable parkour ensues.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Early versions allowed you to do a dash in any direction by tapping said direction twice. However, thanks to the addition of Draw The Line attacks for Kharon, double-tapping works only for that attack, and only if you hold the primary fire button down. To dash, you now need to press the "Run" button instead (although it has been appropriately renamed to "Dodge").
  • Double Jump: The most basic way to cheat this world's physics, complete with entirely negating the momentum of your first jump. Using the Iron Savior gives you a triple jump. Shihong can't do this except with the assistance of a nearby wall, at which point she can jump as many times as the player can manage.
  • Emergency Weapon: Frankly, lots.
    • Omen, which can shock hordes of enemies which somehow happen to crowd together. The downside is that you need to recharge it every now and then and, being a warhammer, only really has the same range as a normal slash from Kharon.
    • Both Arrogant Weapons have infinite ammo and can snipe out enemies on really big distances, at the cost of... some power.
    • Shihong has a built-in taser in her right hand, allowing her to stun almost any enemy for a second or two. It has infinite use, but not much more power than a regular (not to mention faster) punch.
  • Excuse Plot: It doesn't really have a plot of its own, apart from several phone conversations with God himself. Other than that, it's still your regular "demons invade a UAC base/planet Earth, go to hell and kick their butts" premise.
  • Game Mod: Being a mod itself, there have been mods to this mod, including (but not limited to) replacing Kharon's sprites with a rock guitar and rebalancing all the gameplay affair.
  • Gratuitous Japanese: Despite what you might have thought, Hae Lin is in fact Korean. And she's really bad at Japanese.
    • Then there are some fortune cookies.
      "Watashi no hobakurafuto wa unagi de ippai desu." Translation 
      "Gomen nasai. Nihongo ga kakenai." Translation 
    • On a similar note, while Hae Lin speaks English throughout the entire game, she does say exactly one Korean word during her Iron Maiden transformation:
      Byonshi! Translation 
  • Guide Dang It!: It's not especially obvious on how to do special attacks, though the F1 help screen slightly alleviates this. In ZDoom, there is also a handy "Read This!" option on the main menu. There's also a .jpg that comes with the mod to help get you started.
  • Guns Akimbo: Sun Shihong and her Scorpions.
  • Guns vs. Swords: Both Jung Hae Lin and Sun Shihong have lots of guns and a single sword - but the difference in how frequently they use both is fairly noticeable in their gameplay styles. Hae Lin's relies on Kharon more, and as such it's always wielded together with whatever gun she's using. Shihong's is more about throwing bullets at everyone; she doesn't even get a sword by default, and when she does it's an entirely separate weapon.
  • Heroic Mime: Jung Hae Lin is definitely not silent, but she's not too talkative either (apart from a couple of grunts). Unlike the protagonists from the Build engine-era games, she generally only gives out snarky comments in the beginning of the level, and even then only on occasion. Shihong is slightly more talkative, as she'll occasionally remark "ancient Chinese secret" when finding a secret area.
  • Hyperactive Metabolism: Food and soda restore Life Tokens. Ramen goes a step further by surpassing the default health cap.
  • Iaijutsu Practitioner: Hae Lin, when equipped with just Kharon. Sheathe can be abused separately for fun and profit, such as deflecting enemy's projectiles and/or bumping your combo meter to the heavens.
  • Idiosyncratic Combo Levels: The farther you push your combo, the more damage your sword can deal. Oh, and the combos are announced by some mysterious demonic force with No Indoor Voice.
    • FEARLESS!
    • DESTRUCTION!
    • CHAMPION!
    • BEHEMOTH!!
    • ANNIHILATOR!!!
    • SLAYER!!! SLAYER!!! SLAYER!!! SLAYER!!!
  • Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: The harder the level, the less Life Tokens you get from the start. Each character has a unique set with the same confirmation message for both sets.
    • Jung Hae Lin/Shihong:
    • Return to Serenity/Resurrection "You have ten life tokens, Pray for long life"
    • Never Say Die/Come and Get It "You have eight life tokens, Pray for good health"
    • Take No Prisoners/Into the Battle "You have six life tokens, Pray for vast courage"
    • Facing Hell/Seek & Destroy "You have four life tokens, Pray for Iron Will"
    • Killing Machine/All Guns Blazing "You have two life tokens, Pray for a quick death"
    • Angel of Death/Armageddon Machine "Your prayers are in vain"
    • (it's a blank space in-game) "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here"
  • Inertia Is a Cruel Mistress: There are additional run speed options. Most of them seem to be here to piss you off.
  • Interchangeable Asian Cultures: Pretty much averted, because the mod doesn't focus on the protagonists' respective cultures.
  • Life Meter: One of the selling points of this mod (with half of the gameplay adjusted to it) is the Life Token system, where taking a hit removes one token and then makes you invulnerable to further damage for a few seconds. Their maximum amount is always defined by the difficulty you've picked, but you can exceed that cap by collecting shields and Over-Life Tokens.
    • Hit Points: Alternatively, you could always switch back and forth between the above and the traditional Doom hitpoint system. Complete with food items and shields being replaced by medikits and body armor.
  • Limit Break: Special attacks consume your soul gauge. So does using The Iron Savior and its very special attack.
  • Luckily My Sheathe Will Protect Me: With the right timing, Kharon can deflect enemy projectiles - except waving its sheath does a much better job at pushing them off.
  • Ludicrous Gibs: Of course, it's a game where you slash demons apart! And see their intestines. Yuck.
  • Harder Than Hard: Angel of Death. No Life Tokens. Very slim chances of you gaining any chunks of health, since you're a near-permament One-Hit-Point Wonder. Have fun. Uh, I mean, OH GOD PLEASE HELP. Not including the hidden difficulty.
  • Hitscan: Because the game's main emphasis is now on Life Tokens and dodging attacks, none of the enemies use hitscan weapons. Not even zombiemen, which now shoot lasers instead - other hitscanners have been replaced with more appropriate enemies.
  • Kamehame Hadoken: Your most powerful attack for the entire game. It needs helluva lot of souls, however. And a working Iron Savior. Hae Lin will occasionally shout the names of either of the trope namers when using it.
  • Kill It with Fire: Exodus's special attack is a crucifix made of fire. Shihong gets the 05-D Dragon incendiary grenades.
  • Kill It with Ice: Frosthammer, despite the name, is a railgun that can freeze enemies.
  • Koreans in Japan: If you replace "Japan" with "China". Jung Hae Lin is Korean. Sun Shihong is Chinese. They don't give a damn about it. Might be subverted if there ends up being a third playable character from Japan.note 
  • Macross Missile Massacre: The original Cyberdemon shot only three dumb-fire rockets before moving on. His tanky brother in this mod, DevilDriver, digs out six or eight, almost all of which are homing.
  • More Dakka:
    • Sabbath is the only fully-automatic weapon in the game. Sadly, the ammo for it is more scarce than prominent.
    • An interesting variant is Testament, which apparently can hold SIX shells in its two barrels and spit them out in just one shot.
    • Shihong's dual Scorpions are a more downplayed example, as the only auto-fire they do is in three (technically six)-round bursts.
  • More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Sure, Hae Lin might look like a pretty lady and all, but then you see her open her mouth (which she never does in-game, but does in quite a lot of artwork for the game) and then OH MY GOD WHY IS SHE MILEENA ALL OF A SUDDEN.
  • Nintendo Hard: Demonsteele can be both a cakewalk and a walk on the cake after someone put water on it and set it on fire while throwing chocolate cereals at you from above, depending on the difficulty and the easily adjustable gameplay settings; even "Killing Machine" becomes somewhat easier after you set yourself infinite soul meter, no combo penalty and an ability to gauge up combos with guns.
  • No Cutscene Inventory Inertia: As in many other 90s FPS games, Hae Lin will always walk around with Kharon (the sword) and the Acacia A-22 pistol no matter which weapon you are actually wielding. However, there are overlays for the Sentinel, Blind Guardian and Iron Savior.
  • No Fair Cheating: Averted. Fair cheating is in fact allowed here, with the cheatcodes being the same as in the normal game, albeit with different confirmation messages, as well as the options menu giving you possibilities to enjoy yourself rather than going through nearly-Spartan challenges.
  • One-Hit-Point Wonder: The hardest difficulty, Angel of Death, makes you this. You still can increase the amount of Health Tokens, but good luck doing that before you get shot in the face.
  • Pintsized Powerhouse: Hae Lin is slightly below 5'4".
  • Power Palms: As an Iron Maiden, you can shoot bursts of energy out of your hands.
  • Precision F-Strike: Hae Lin doesn't swear at all. Fortune cookies do, however.
  • Rewarding Vandalism: Not always rewarding, but nevertheless, if the map you're on is full of lampposts, torches and candelabras, and if you're in need for ammo/health, you'll be slashing the scenery quite a lot. Some of them may (randomly) give a goodie.
  • Road Runner PC: Hae Lin runs slightly faster than Doomguy, who was already the fastest being in the game. Dashing adds to the insanity. And if you don't feel that's fast enough, there are additional speed options like "Fast", "Faster", "Even Faster", "Even More Faster", "Yet Even More Faster", "HELP", "FUCK", "AAAAAAAAAAA" and "JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL" to satisfy your appetite.
  • Rocket Jump: Doable with two weapons: the rocket launcher and the overly-loaded shotgun.
  • Run, Don't Walk: The walking function from the vanilla Doom is gone.
  • Scoring Points: The HUD has a scorebar on its top, inflating regardless of whether you've killed an enemy or just picked up an item or slashed a piece of scenery. That being said, it almost never ends with zeroes.
  • Shotguns Are Just Better: Testament might look like your regular double-barreled shotgun, but with it you can, in fact, shotgun jump.
  • Shout-Out: Rivals Guilty Gear on the amount of included rock and metal influences (with a host of others), despite not having its own setting and appearing much, much later.
  • Shown Their Work: When Terminus started making Sun Shihong, who happens to love pizza, Terminus decided to try his hand out at making different pizza dishes for the sake of research.
  • Spiritual Successor:
    • To both Shadow Warrior games, regarding its heavy emphasis on melee combat. Especially the reboot, since the 1997 version didn't give much variety to katana attacks.
    • With all the swordfighting, metal and anime thrown into the blender, it could as well be the Guilty Gear of the FPS world.
    • Demonsteele has also been nicknamed "Hideki Kamiya's Doom" by some.
  • Stance System: What makes Sun Shihong's gameplay a bit more complicated than Hae Lin's is that she incorporates three gameplay styles in one character: Puncher, Trigger and Dodger note . The first increases the efficiency of your punches. The second does the same for your guns. The third makes you more mobile and allows you to climb walls.
  • Sword and Gun: Hae Lin holds Kharon in one hand, and a gun in the other. Gun is entirely optional, however.
  • Take That!:
    • One of the possible speed options is "Modern FPS Protagonist". Which is only slightly faster than "Immobile".
    • Loading the Demonsteele WAD alongside Brutal Doom or any of its derivatives including Project Brutality results in this. Even the game gives you a once-in-a-lifetime suggestion to try it yourself:
      Cookie fortune: "Does this run with Brutal Doom?"
      • It has since been changed from the regular Revenant swarm to a swarm of smaller invincible golden Revenants that follow you around everywhere. Word of God has confirmed that he doesn't actually dislike Brutal Doom, he was just annoyed that he kept getting people complaining about bugs that boiled down to "Tried to run it alongside Brutal Doom" (which it is incompatible with), so if someone complains about swarms of golden Revenants, he immediately knows what the problem is. Which arguably makes this more of a Take That, Audience! towards players who combine two massive mods then complain to him about it causing bugs.
    • All Commander Keen enemies have been replaced with Swan Fox pillows◊, which you get to cut in half.
  • Tempting Fate:
    Cookie fortune: "You will live long and enjoy life. Unless you get shot by demons. But what are the odds of that?"
  • Trademark Favourite Food: Hae Lin's is ramen. Shihong's is pizza.
And then there were none.

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top