When I first saw a glimpse of Devil Jam I thought it looked like an intriguing blend of Hades and Vampire Survivors with its mix of devilish lore and gameplay style. While it has hallmarks from each game it fails to live up to the magic of either.

Devil Jam is from a small developer Rogueside that seemingly aimed to deliver a fast paced evolving experience but neglected to add any depth of story or context to the experience. The game literally starts with a tutorial and then a run begins. No explanation of the world, the two starting characters or the odd base area that seems to be Devil Jam HQ.

IO completely understand the small scale nature of the game, but I was really dismayed, not just because I love narrative experience, but everything looked so cool and wanted to know more. The hub has a few characters, a Devil Quest, umm, tracker, the merchant and trader. Non of this is explained, even with simple text screens and I feel this is a big shame.

Aside from buying some upgrades, which I maxed out in a few runs, changing between two characters and checking quest progress which unlocks resources and new Sins (powers) findable in a run there is not much to do in the HQ. The real (and only) meat to the game is the Runs.

Like Vampire Survivors this is an auto battling game, meaning you start with an attack and it auto triggers. As enemies are killed they drop resources which trigger level ups, in this case new powers.

The one cool adjustment to the formula is that not only are there 12 slots for powers some are buffs that affect multiple squares in the grid. This allows some strategy on how the powers are placed to maximize their potential.

The powers get upgraded by finding new versions of the same skill, same goes for buffs and there are some passive skills as well to add to the mix. Reroll tokens are also available to re-roll the powers, which I forgot about often, but came in handy time to time.

The lack of a narrative here also hurts the game as there is different characters from the Deadly Sins like Lust, Wrath and Gluttony that assign powers from their catalogue to choose from. Again there could have been more Hades influence here with banter and dialogue added to spice up this part of the game, but nope, just a well drawn portrait and a list of powers.

The game itself is, well fine, it is a tad addicting, can move at a frantic pace and the boss fights are quite interesting. Graphically I found it very pleasing and thought much more could have been done with the lovely art Rogueside has generated here.

There are quite a few enemy types, but the main environment, while unlimited in scale, is basically the same thing over and over again. Some changes in the main world would have been great to see.

One of my biggest disappointments is in the audio department. I thought this would be a true Devilish Jam with powers and moves intricately tied to the music. Instead the attacks are just measured in Beats between triggers and the music was mostly forgettable faux metal.

In the end Devil Jam had some potential to be a really Metal take on the Vampire Survivors formula, but instead it came across as a Muzak version.

We were give a Steam key for Devil Jam via PressEngine and it will be available on PC via Steam on November 3rd.