[[2026 Games]]  ## 2026-02-22 I think we lost our way when we stopped making big-budget 3D Platformers. [[Donkey Kong Bananza]] was great, but we get those like, once or twice a generation from Nintendo at this point. **Demon Tides** is not “big-budget,” but it’s the closest we’re likely to get for a while. I didn’t like the first game, **Demon Turf**, all that much, but this game blows it out of the water. A sprawling, free-form, open-world platforming game, it has a much pleasanter aesthetic, surprisingly reminding me of **Wind Waker**. You travel a giant ocean that’s peppered with islands of various sizes, collecting things you’re wont to do in a 3D Platformer. I’m not far enough to know what one of the items are for — that would be cogs — but what’s been really fun to stumble upon is the gear. **Tides** is an extremely customizable platformer, in a way I’m not particularly used to. There are tons of modifiers that you can equip to the protagonist that can shift how you move through the world, in both major and minor ways. So far I’ve found ones that increase your dash speed on the ground, extend your distance when doing a specific air dash, and more. And in a weirdly timely parallel with [[Nioh 3]], you can swap between two gear sets with a press of the button. Beating bosses increases the amount of these modifiers that you can equip too, so I’m ready to get into some shenanigans by endgame. Of course, movement is the most important thing to pin down in a platformer, and **Demon Tides** is successful in this particular endeavor. It’s a *tad* floaty for my taste, but after half an hour of fumbling I got a feel for the game’s physics and started zooming. There are good accessibility options to help with the jumpin’ and dashin’ as well. No complaints there. I just wanna keep playing and see how far the movement can take you. ## 2026-02-27 Wrapped. Great use of 15 hours to be honest. Getting all the abilities makes movement really fun. There’s some jank, for sure, but it’s nothing world-ending, and all still very impressive for a small indie company. The scale is wild, and I still haven’t even collected everything. One thing I found really cool and unique was the graffiti system. It’s like a more in-depth and immediately helpful version of **Dark Souls’** messages. Press a button and you can leave various stickers and combinations of stickers on pretty much any wall or floor. You’ll see the graffiti people have placed in your own game. Some of it was cute, some of it I pressed a button to report. But most of the graffiti I saw was actually super helpful. Stuff like telling you how many items are on an island, pointing out hidden paths, leading you to unlockable shortcuts. It was fun and useful throughout the whole playthrough, and definitely makes **Demon Tides** stand out. I appreciate the dev team’s attempt at making a more in-depth narrative for a 3D platformer, but I honestly couldn’t care less about **Tides’** story by the end of things, unfortunately. Something about familial bonds and found family and what not. It’s just a lot of yapping that didn’t immediately grip me. Not *bad* by any means, and I’m sure some people will get something out of it. I’m just not one of them. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/7️⃣