The Devil Within: Satgat Review

I keep saying this each time I cover a Metroidvania title, but 2024 has been an excellent year for Metroidvanias. It's usually rare for a year not to have good titles from the genre, but this year just feels exceptionally good. Nine Sols, Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus, Voidwrought, AWAKEN: Astral Blade, and many more.

From developer Newcore Games, we've got yet another Metroidvania souls-like, and I've got to say I'm impressed. I got a lot of Bloodborne vibes from this game, and seeing as Bloodborne stands as one of my favorite games of all time, it was hard not to love The Devil Within: Satgat.

When I first launched The Devil Within: Satgat, I was drawn into the dark, atmospheric beginning straight away. Set in the Joseon period, the game introduces us to the Blackstone Tower, a construction that has brought both wealth and disasters to the planet. Kim Rip is a warrior cursed with demonic blood tasked with seeking the truth behind the Blackstone Tower while fighting against corruption invading the country.

From the very beginning, the story hooked me because it managed to combine historical influences with a fantastical twist, creating a setting that feels both terrestrial and otherworldly. I can tell that FromSoftware's work, like Elden Ring, inspired The Devil Within: Satgat quite a bit.

The story doesn't give much to start with; bits of mythology are scattered throughout. Notes, NPC interactions, and environmental narrative helped me piece together the history of this cursed land.

The premise of The Devil Within: Satgat caught my attention as quite intriguing. You come across a black tower of unknown origin that has somehow shown up and changed the world. Coming and starting to corrupt the people were monsters from demons. Here, General Hong Sang and Royal Guard Kim Rip made a move to take down the source of evil at the root of the black tower.

In The Devil Within: Satgat, you play Kim Rip and follow his quest to purify the earth of demonic impurity. The fate of the planet rests on your shoulders; you have to accept the darkness within yourself if you are ever going to defeat the demons.

What drew me into the story of The Devil Within: Satgat most was how everything wasn't plain and simple or straightforward. You are left to research and draw conclusions about what transpired. This sense of mystery kept me drawn in, and I always sought out more information about the world and the struggles of Kim Rip.

One of the strongest aspects of the game is exploration. A true Metroidvania at its core, The Devil Within: Satgat is a linked and secret-filled world. I started to count the number of times I stumbled upon shortcuts or secret paths that circled back to past locations. The game practically begs for investigation; I found myself again and again leaving the main road in search of challenges or treasure.

The name of the game is to advance through the map, build shortcuts, and discover relic items to enable you to reach their area's boss from more significant distances. There are currently three distinct map areas for you to fight through and a central hub area where you respawn between the completion of each map.

The fast travel feature unlocks after you reach a certain part of the story, but before that, there was no way to get to a previous location you had visited. But it's a bit uninspiring to go back to the previous locations and look for items that you left behind. A lot of Soulslike Metroidvania-style games, have one big map you are exploring and creating shortcuts across. I wouldn't say I liked having three different maps that disappeared with the story progression in The Devil Within at first because I did not know it. This allowed me to look past a few things on my initial game run.

I will say, though, that some parts—like the Dark Forest—felt a little punishing in The Devil Within: Satgat because of the few checkpoints. This resulted in a few annoying times when I had to go back over long stretches following death, but the gratification of finally overcoming those areas made the work worthwhile.

Combat in The Devil Within: Satgat is a pleasure. It requires precision and is quick and unforgiving. Kim Rip introduces a versatile arsenal to manage a variety of enemies with a katana for close combat and a shotgun for long-range attacks.

The stamina system makes you think about your actions; there's no button-mashing your way to victory. Both dodging and parrying are absolutely essential, but the timing for these motions can be merciless.

I must have spent a considerable portion of my early playtime of The Devil Within: Satgat practicing the timing of parries, and though it was initially frustrating, the feeling of accomplishment when I finally nailed it was extremely rewarding.

The menu's gameplay tab has a section marked "difficulty." Notable also is your ability to personalize items, including displaying enemy HP and damage and other common stuff.

Though I personally had a rather large learning curve on the platforming, once I worked it out, I felt rather unstoppable. The areas felt free of enemies, and although, at first, the bosses seemed to be throwing a lot at you, they were readily teachable. For many of The Devil Within: Satgat's bosses, your approach is the same.

Because you have to fight the same boss more than just a handful of times in The Devil Within: Satgat, the overall boss count becomes somewhat skewed. Of course, they all vary a bit, and if you are good at parrying and using your skills, you can wipe out the boss's health bar very easily and very quickly. Some enemies are just annoying to fight; they aren't necessarily hard to kill.

Your souls are called Ingram in this game, so gameplay is quite simple. You get those with every kill, or with popping the Ingram crystals, you collect. You use those then to level up your character. Pureness Like your Estus flasks, pellets restore at bonfires and give you bits of health back when consumed.

Between missions, at the hub, you can access a blacksmith and a merchant from which to sell items. I've only come across one alternative outfit for your samurai, three guns, and five different swords so far; the Excalibur one is kind of a meme, but it's really quite good. However, I had wished for more outfits since the ones I found looked very cool.

What The Devil Within: Satgat truly excels in, in my view, are traits in combat. You receive Factor Orbs when you level up using Ingram, which you can spend on various trait techniques for your character. Seeing how this develops in the next releases toward the game's official launch is something that excites me.

There are, as far as I can see, several different methods, which include Special Skill, Devil's Armor (which we can unlock), Acrobatics, Agility, Swordsmanship, Physical Ability, and Toughness. Each branch does its specialty in warfare. Even though the game does tell you briefly about them, it gets a bit confusing since there are so many of these sections to keep track.

Whereas swordsmanship deals with a whole lot of different moves, mixing your combat through light attacks and heavy attacks and how to deal more combo damage, your physical ability manages almost just your level of health and attack power. Particular skill focuses on focused counterattacks. Acrobatics learns your unique artifacts and traversal combat. Toughness covers parrying attacks and bonuses; agility focuses on damage through dodge attacks.

Devil's Armor is really interesting since it will finally let you see yourself with the Devil's Armor powers unlocked at the end of the Early Access phase of the game. But with what we can uncover now, you're totally able to see your character getting strong and doing some cool attacks that make all the combat more fun and responsive.

Even though it's pretty common in Metroidvania games, the only thing I didn't like in The Devil Within: Satgat is the backtracking. Even though you can unlock the fast travel feature once you beat the second boss during the playthrough, you still don't get to open all the chests because you don't have the keys. The game doesn't clearly tell you where to find them.

Another complaint is that there are certain items in the game that you would want to get if you want to level up your weapon; this, again, is very unclear until you progress much further in the game. I upgraded my weapons somewhat at a later stage in the game, but it would've been much more beneficial if I could have done it earlier. Because if you play the game at a higher difficulty, your base weapon does very little damage to normal enemies, and boss fights take way longer. 

The Devil Within: Satgat might not be perfect, but man, it's a solid ride if you're into tough games with a cool vibe. Sure, the lack of reason to go back and collect items you left behind was annoying at times, but the combat, exploration, and atmosphere more than made up for it. I'm excited to see where this one goes as it keeps developing, and if you're up for a challenge, The Devil Within: Satgat is definitely worth checking out.