Armed with The Holy Shotgun: A Devil Inside Us: Roots of Evil Review

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, XBox, PlayStation 4, PC

There have been several survival horror games that harken back to 90s aesthetics lately, and there is quite a bit of that in the game we'll be looking at today. Devil Inside Us: Roots of Evil is a story-focused horror game that comes to us by way of the two-man team known as Mr.Skull Game Studio, and published by QUByte Interactive. It's out now on consoles, following an earlier release on Steam, and it sees you take on the unlikely role of an old priest who must bring an end to the titular Evil. A somewhat strange premise, but the devil is in the details after all, so let's dive into it!

The 1984 Incident.

Some things never end.

Have you ever wanted to try out life as an old priest? Well, let's hope so, since Devil Inside Us puts you into the shoes of one Aughust Heylel, a priest who is also an exorcist that's been legitimized by the Vatican. He is called in to investigate some possible supernatural happenings in 1984 that ultimately results in the death of those he was hoping to help. While he was unable to stop that tragedy, he was able to ascertain that the evil seemed to reside in the house itself. This failure haunts him for decades, and causes him to question his faith. It also sets his resolve to see the matter through to the end, no matter what that end may bring. Flash forward to 2020 and the house has seen several renovations, several new families, and has not caused anything similar to the events of 1984. Then, in the middle of conducting further renovations, the current family residing in the house start to experience strange occurrences that begin to set off alarm bells for Aughust. At the ripe age of 74, it's now up to him to face the evil once and for all, and to fully exorcise the evil that has been gnawing at him for decades. The closure he finds though just might be his undoing, but then again that's what happens when you try to get to the Roots of Evil.

Devil Inside Us is something of an adventure game that has a few action sequences peppered throughout. Much of the game is spent reading letters/notes to further the plot, finding keys or other items that open up new areas, and then sometimes fighting enemies that said exploration uncovers. Since you're a priest who seeks to drive the evil from the house, you'll be doing a lot of exorcism throughout. This is done by simply placing your always-held cross in front of you, and consuming a bit of faith. You'll need to exorcise items and areas to progress, but this cross-based action also serves as your main form of attack. Your faith bar isn't infinite, but it can be refilled by using rosaries that you find scattered throughout the house. This faith bar is also used to power the Holy Shotgun (I am not even joking, that's what it's called!) in a couple specific action sequences. Speaking of rosaries, that's pretty much the only thing you'll be doing besides exorcising and finding your way into new areas: picking up consumables. These come in the form of caffeine pills which refill stamina, first aid kits that refill health, and the aforementioned rosaries. Besides these they're are a few secret items to find, but I'll talk about those a bit later. Also, since I'm discussing refilling your three status bars, I should mention that I'm not exactly sure if they all refill over time, but the faith bar definitely does.

Our hero, Aughust Heylel.

THE HOLY SHOTGUN

​The first time you'll encounter enemies in the game, you'll only have your cross to fend them off. This begins an awkward series of actions that have you holding out your cross in front of you, and hoping you have enough faith to get the job done. I quickly learned that consumables are rather plentiful, and you seem to start out with more of them if you die at any point in the game. Basically, don't be afraid to use a rosary or health kit if things are starting to look grim. Enemies can be formless shadows, zombie-like demons, undead dogs, or even the Big Bad himself. They do have different attacks, but are all dealt with in the same way, a well-placed exorcism or two. There are sections where you get the Holy Shotgun, and while this is a far more powerful weapon that is capable of performing one-hit kills, it also consumes a lot of faith for each shot you make. There is no player-controlled save system, so you'll have to rely on whenever the game autosaves. This is important as you'll more than likely die from a few enemy encounters throughout the game. This is in no small part due to the fact that faith is the only meter that is actually visible to you. You'll only notice stamina and health being near empty by the screen going weird and prompts telling you which button uses which item. This is why I mentioned not really being sure if they refill over time earlier. While I found the action sequences to be quite wonky, they come and go so quickly that you'll more than likely find yourself dealing with them without much thought. If only you could keep that shotgun throughout the entire game though...

The mark of evil.

Much of the story is told through these documents.

There's probably more I can say about gameplay, but I'm going to talk about graphics for a bit. There were a lot of moments in Devil Inside Us where I thought the imagery was quite spooky, and that the environments added to that overall vibe. The thing is that I'm pretty sure that most of this game is made up of pre-built store assets. There's nothing wrong with this per se, but it does give the game a generic feeling that flies in the face of some of the better aspects of the game. I can only imagine that the dream sequence areas are as random as they feel because they simply were working with whatever assets they had in hand. With that in mind I must say that there were a lot of things that worked graphically that surprised me, namely everything that involved the main demon you face throughout the game. I played the game on the Nintendo Switch, and I'm not sure if it's just this version that looks this way, but I did notice that the trailer shows graphics that are far above what I witnessed in game. I don't think this is a catfish situation though, just that the Switch probably got the short end of the graphical stick. That said, I never was particularly bothered by the visuals, and the game runs fairly smooth for what it is.

I actually was surprised by the soundtrack in Devil Inside Us as I was thinking it would have similar "just there" vibes as the graphics, but I was wrong. The music isn't going to win any awards, nor is it going to have me reading up on the game's composer, but it set the mood perfectly and added an extra layer to the horror in certain scenes. Cutscenes had an added layer of importance and drama thanks to the music that was playing, and there were some action scenes that were made all the more frantic because of what was playing in the background. Sound effects fare even better, and it was these that really got me more than a few times. I'm used to scare chords and sound effects, but the ones here made me jump more than a few times. Some may consider scares like that to be low-hanging fruit, but you can't argue with the fact that they are often effective. There's voice acting here too, and while it's not AAA caliber, it isn't bad at all. The acting has a budget feel to it, and has more than a few weird translation issues, but nothing was distractingly bad. There are a few accidentally funny line deliveries because of this though, but those are to be expected I think. My only true gripe with the soundtrack would have to be the mix itself. I'm not sure if it was mixed to make the jump scares more effective, but the sound mix is all over the place. There are times when voices were too quiet so I put up the volume, only to regret it when the next action scene came around. No amount of messing with the options made it truly bearable, so I actually had to play a lot of the game quiet and rely mainly on subtitles for the dialogue by the end.

It's THAT year!

Kiss the Go-Go Goat

Controls in this game take quite a bit getting used to, even if they're actually very simple. This is one of those games where the character's walking speed is extremely slow, and you'll be relying on running to get from one place to another quickly. Unfortunately this uses stamina, but it seems to restore slowly over time similar to Faith. Speaking of which, all Faith-based attacks, as in the cross or the shotgun, are assigned to the right trigger button. This is fairly standard, but it's worth mentioning that the Faith meter is only visible when you're using it. You can fake it out with the cross to see where you currently stand, but can't do this with the shotgun as you'll simply fire it. It's not a big issue, but makes everything feel a little off at times. What also feels a bit off is the targeting reticle that you use to interact with things. This aiming reticle is somewhat forgiving for the most part, but it can be very easy to miss clickable items that have really small hit boxes, or near impossible to get the headshot you're so desperately trying for. Other than that there's the items use buttons, which I have to say are the most confusing of all, but for a rather odd reason. Similar to the issue regarding not being able to see life and stamina bars in-game is the fact that it's hard to tell when an item is actually used or not. There were times when it felt like pressing the button to use healing items wasn't registering. Then I'd find myself mashing the button so as to not have to redo the entire section, only to then realize that I had somehow managed to use four medkits in one battle. This would be extremely frustrating if not for the fact that you seem to get more items whenever you die, but that just makes the frustration feel even more pointless. Also, since you can actually unlock unlimited stamina and Faith via secret item pickups, it's a wonder why they bothered with this system in the first place. I bet the game would've benefitted from being a simple adventure game without the action elements. I'd have appreciated this game a lot more if it resembled something similar to TellTale Game's Walking Dead games for example.

Many locked doors block your way.

Some grisly imagery.

Devil Inside Us is a pretty short game. It took me about 2 hours to beat it, and that was due mainly to replaying sections I kept dying on, or sitting around for minutes on end waiting for my faith bar to refill. You can realistically beat the game quicker than me, depending on your skills as an FPS player, most likely in a single session. The game does have secrets to unlock, like the unlimited stamina and faith mentioned earlier, but it's nothing that will take you too long to accomplish. That said, the game currently has a price tag of $14.99, so it's quite on the affordable end of things. I'd very much have preferred a game of this length and scale to have a price closer to $9.99, but it's thankfully not priced too high where it feels like you're paying several dollars for each minute of gameplay. I always look at games like this as experiencing a movie, maybe even one longer than feature length. It's something you can always come back to if you want a repeat viewing, but it's more about experiencing a story while also interacting with it. Also, I don't want to give away any more plot details, but I can definitely say that the ending is not at all what you're expecting it to be.

There's this backstory also.

Man, shit really hit the fan here.

I walked away from the game with very mixed feelings. It had some great scares that really got to me, the ending was quite a shocker, and it definitely was better than I was expecting. It also had some poorly implemented combat, wonky item usage and controls, and some sections that were more frustrating than fun. I wish it were priced just a little cheaper so I could give it a recommendation simply based on being an okay game with a low price tag, but it's just a tad above that. That said, if you're a fan of survival horror games or even adventure games with a horror twist, then you'll probably enjoy Devil Inside Us: Roots of Evil as much as I did. I mean, what other game gives you a literal Holy Shotgun to take out demons? Grab it if you're so inclined, and be sure to kick ass in the name of the Lord!

Check Out Devil Inside Us: Roots of Evil on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/devil-inside-us-roots-of-evil-switch/

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Story: B+
Gameplay: C
Graphics: B
Music/Sound: B+
Value: B

Overall: B

Pros:
+ A surprisingly effective horror game that has a few rather shocking moments.
+ Doesn't hold anything back in terms of what it's willing to depict on-screen. It definitely earns its rating.
+ Taking on the role of an older priest who must use faith to exorcise demons is a nice take on the genre.
+ The graphics, atmosphere, and music all come together in a way that goes far above its indie roots.
+ While the game can be difficult in a few sections, it is forgiving when it comes to consumable items and unlockable options.

Cons:
- This is an extremely short game that will take only about 1-3 hours to complete at most.
- Not being able to see your health or stamina in-game is very annoying when trying to manage them in combat.
- The control scheme can be quite wonky at times, especially when trying to use consumable items.
- The action sequences don't really fit in, and this might've benefitted from simply being a horror-themed adventure game.
- Speaking of action sequences, be prepared to do some of them over and over again due to the random spikes in difficulty that come with their arrival.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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Pizza time!