Thank you Circle Entertainment for sending us this game to review!

The previous demon lord has been confined to a box by humans and seeks to take revenge on them.  The problem with that plan is that most of his army has deserted him since his imprisonment.    He does however, stumble upon Poohdark, a hell pig general.  Poohdark agrees to join his cause and offers to help rebuild his demonic army.  To do so, he  gains respect in the nether world by proving his worth on the battlefield.

The battle system in Demon King Box is unique; it reminds me of rhythm games in a way.  While the top screen shows the battle in 3D, you have to focus on the bottom screen which is in 2D.  On the bottom there are several lanes with red diamonds moving toward you.  Each diamond represents an enemy unit.  You have to drag your available units to the lane of your choice to combat them.   Your units will show up as blue diamonds. In order for units to be available you have to have enough spirit energy to summon them and the cool down period must be fulfilled.  This prevents spamming with the same enemy type over and over again.  There is a limit of how many units you can have out on the battle field, but I have never come even close to maxing that out.    

There are two possible victory conditions per level.  You either have to defeat a certain number of foes or you have to deplete the enemy commander’s health by overwhelming them with your troops.  I found the latter to be more challenging.  

If you’re getting your butt kicked chances are you need to upgrade your army.  To do that you must feed your monsters and/or generals food.  There’s a wide variety of food available and the rarer food items add more experience points than the common delicacies.  Food is earned as loot from winning battles.  Fortunately, you can replay levels as much as you wish to grind for more food.  Another use for food is to engineer more powerful demonic soldiers.  Later in the game you can use alchemy to combine two units and some food to make stronger warriors.    

With a tough enough army you can blitz through this game in a few hours.  The low price compensates for the longevity though.  As you conquer a level, another one becomes available.  There are not many forks in the road so the game play is rather linear.    

Before being tempted by the $4 price tag and cute graphics, be warned that this game has a Mature ESRB rating.  One of the female characters in the game has breasts that grow in battle.  You get to see this in action at a bath house where her naked body is veiled by a thin layer of steam.  This was rather unnecessary for a game that could have been family friendly otherwise.  

The audio is another disappointment.  While it does have English text, all of the voice-overs are done in Japanese.  Subtitles would have been handy as I have no idea what the units are shouting in battle.  

While Demon King Box is simple to learn, it doesn’t do much to keep your attention for long.  Perhaps that’s why they threw in the bath house level.  This is definitely not a game for young kids.  The price is reasonable at four bucks, but don't expect much out of it.