Dungeon Crawler Meets Visual Novel: Serment - Contract with a Devil Review

Player(s): 1
Platform(s): PC (Via Steam)

"Serment – Contract with a Devil" is a game made for the casual player with both a dungeon-crawler and visual novel experience in one package. There are mini-games and random encounters to keep you occupied, on top of a slight micro-managing system primarily having to do with your wallet. With slight sim dating elements mixed in, but that's almost to be expected. This game was indeed fun, and it was certainly a blast to play. Is it good though, and can it live up to other visual novel-type games and their standards? Let's take a look! This is my review of "Serment – Contract with a Devil"!

The story starts, weirdly enough, with a human thrust into the demon world. There is given little explanation in the beginning, but the main character is dead. It's blatantly told to you. Already, this is starting to feel like two people online role-playing. "Serment – Contract with a Devil" wouldn't feel that way as long as the dialogue between characters held up, which sadly it doesn't That's possibly my biggest complaint in a game such as this, is that there is no easing into anything, it's more like a crawl. From the start, it's made clear that most everything is made out to be friendly or cute. When something really does start to happen later in the story, there was no feeling for anyone. Most people are happy-go-lucky up towards the end.

The story isn't terrible, but for something that focuses a lot on dungeons, "Serment – Contract with a Devil" could benefit from getting to the point. It seems as though there is actual filler within the dialogue itself, with everyone saying their hellos and goodbyes during an entrance or exit of a scene. We expect a straight visual-novel to maybe give us that, but not to this degree. I found myself skip some text boxes because it was leading up to the "bye." Not even joking. Especially sequences with food, there was no escaping filler text boxes. When the game doesn't do that and it opens up, it's a load of fun! There can be some clever dialogue, and a few that even made me laugh a bit.

Visually the game looks okay. The animation looks decent, but it's kind of expected out of most indie titles. That's not to say the game can't look impressive, because some drawings and backgrounds look pretty good. The Sound itself is more or less generic, but it's easily passible with how well they're implemented into each section of the game.

Now, the dungeon-crawling aspect of "Serment – Contract with a Devil". It's actually very welcome for this game. Definitely a nice change of pace from the typical visual novel format, however it is taking a page straight from wizardry in how it's all put together. That's certainly not a bad thing. In fact, it really does work well. Except there are a few things to take note of, which make the game somewhat easy. This includes healing your HP automatically after every battle, when people lose their life in a fight they are just sent home for the night, and each enemy seems to stay the same level within each area.

As someone who loves to do the most difficult modes first, choosing the tougher character to use didn't really seem to up the difficulty much for me. Could just be that I'm used to most types of games, but it still seemed a little easy throughout. The game isn't a cakewalk, but it was still more simple to go through than what I would have liked. Some enemies are no joke, but with an ample amount of save points, it didn't feel as if there was much risk in losing. Plus, just out-level the creatures you're fighting and you'll be sure to do well! Each enemy seems to be defined in their own right too, with a majority just being typical animals.

"Serment – Contract with a Devil" holds up surprisingly well against other visual novels. Dungeon-crawling was something I have always enjoyed, whether it be a retro classic or current generation game implementing it. The game isn't a gold standard within the genres it represents, but it does well enough for me to continue playing this game and others like this. For a decent chunk of the game, there is also no real hint of it being dating sim-related, but it shows up kind of out of nowhere.

For those who enjoy what can only be described as a pretty good RPG. "Serment - Contract with a Devil" is one of those rare occasions I will say is a good deal. For only $15 right now on Steam, you can't go wrong. It's difficult to rate as well, because it was so fun to play. I'll even still probably play it for however long to finish out all the characters. However, the story and music lack a bit of artistic expression...

-JT

For More Information On "Serment - Contract With A Devil":
https://sekaiproject.com/pages/serment-contract-with-a-devil

---

Story: C
Gameplay: B+
Graphics: C+
Sound: C+
Value: A

Overall: B+

Pros:
+Fun to play!
+Easy to get into.
+Story unfolds later on, and gets better.

Cons:
-Story can crawl quite a bit.
-Music and Artwork are a little generic.
-No emotional ties were felt in this happy-go-lucky world.

---

Disclaimer: This visual novel was provided to us by the publisher for the purpose of this review.