Persona-Inspired ‘Demonschool’ Looks Like A DS Game In The Absolute Best Way

The era of unusual, highly-stylistic games like Ghost Trick, Zero Escape, and Elite Beat Agents is sadly long over — and weirdly enough, it coincides with the demise of the Nintendo DS, a console that encouraged weird games more than anything.

But the spirit of the DS lives on — in games like NEO: The World Ends With You, and an upcoming game from Necrosoft and Brandon Sheffield called Demonschool, which draws its inspiration from the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series, as well as Italian horror cinema (why not).

Demonschool is a delightfully grungy isometric tactics RPG themed around a demon-infested school, where your enemies will range from Yakuza members performing summoning rituals to your own fellow students, who’ve been possessed. You will play as Faye, the last remaining member of a legendary demon-hunting family, on a mission to rid the school of the demonic scourge alongside your (un-possessed) classmates.

The tactics part sounds really interesting, and we’ll defer to the official description here so we don’t get it wrong:

Demonschool is a streamlined tactics game where movement equals action, decisions can be rewound, and speedy mechanics remove the genre’s traditional cruft. Plan each student’s moves at your leisure, then hit the action button and watch it all play out in devastating, character-based combos. Destin, a hot-blooded fighter, can knock foes forward into Namako’s debuffing dash, and damage dealers like Faye benefit from shrine keeper Knute’s helpful wards. Adjust strategies for monolithic bosses and unusual battlefields, bucking genre conventions. Unleash tide-turning special moves to keep the demons at bay—if they reach the back line, the human world is lost.

Sounds fun, right?!

Have a look at these delicious screenshots (and one gif, because it looks really cool):

Demonschool is slated for a 2023 release on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4/5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S|X.

What do you think of Demonschool? Tell us in the comments!