Written by the “that guy” of NitroPlus Haganeya Jin (鋼屋ジン), Demonbane is an action visual novel heavily inspired by Cthulhu mythos. Though inspired might be too kind a word as it just rips off Lovecraft’s characters and plot points without context. The VN basically messes up everything in a really low-brow way showing love but no actual respect or understanding of the original subject matter. I mean, whose bright idea was to turn Cthullhu into Godzilla? Monster movies are the antithesis to everything Lovecraft wrote about!
That being said, if it was the only shortcoming of this work, I would really not mind it that much, but, damn me, if this work isn’t painfully boring. The fights are not only always resolved through deus ex machina where the only thing that really matters is the “feelings” of the protagonist, but are also excruciatingly overwritten, some taking over an hour to conclude. The characters are alright for the most part, but not really interesting or deep enough to carry the plot by themselves. The story isn’t particularly interesting either as what it doesn’t rip from Lovecraft is just generic shounen tripe and monster movie drivel. On top of that, the first half of the work is mostly episodic filler which is completely redundant to the overall story.
So yeah, while characters are alright, the whole experience is tedious, boring and predictable, killing any sense of suspense, or entertainment for that matter. Though the prose is competent and the premise not half-bad, the novel fails on almost every single level and I don’t recommend it to anyone unless you really think you have too much time on your hands and are really resistant to boredom. No wonder Demonbane is both the first and last significant work that NitroPlus let Haganeya Jin work on. ><
| Positive: | Negative: |
| Interesting setting | Poorly drawn ero scenes |
| A lot of good complicated ideas, albeit not executed well | Underwhelming music |
| Long-winded tedious writing | |
| First half is nearly completely redundant to the overall story | |
| Second half, especially the fights, is drawn out for too long | |
| Contrived fights offer no tension | |
| Extreme predictability leads to a complete lack of suspense | |
| Characters lack interesting motivation |
Visual novel & other stuff impressions 
I don’t know. So far I’m on the seventh chapter and I’m kind of enjoying it for what it is, a sort of chunni yet mature re-imagining of Super Sentai. Kurou fights the monster, then there’s a giant robot he battles every episode. Yeah, it’s kind of repetitive for a VN, but at least you know what you’re getting into. I like the on foot fight scenes, but most of the time when the mechas are battling, it’s the same old shit. I can usually clear a chapter in about an hour or so, so it’s a more relaxing read that doesn’t require my full attention. It’s essentially mindless fun, but there’s nothing really wrong with that, right?
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Underwhelming Music? It’s very fun music like everytime ZIZZ does music for Nitro +.
Yea most fights are won through a mecha this is a mecha visual novel what the hell you expect some kind of DBZ power ups, no it’s better this way. For the rest I pretty much agree on but you have to have a certain mindset to enjoy a shounen esquie vn from Nitro + of all things
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I usually like Nitro+ games, but it seems I just can’t get into anything written by Haganeya Jin. It feels like all flash, no substance to me all the time, and while I can appreciate that sometimes in small doses, Demonbane just went on forever; I was praying for it to finally end round the middle point.
Lol, when I said “Most fights are won through deus ex machina means” I meant figuratively, uh, as in like they felt contrived and all that. I guess it makes sense when their mechas are also called that, but it doesn’t change the fact the fights weren’t fun to watch. xD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina
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