86/100
Players24 ratings

Where to get it

2013 · Rayark · Rhythm · Adventure

Deemo

Rayark brings you Deemo, a hybrid of music rhythm game and the story of urban fantasy, with hand-drawn art, story-telling gallery and real instrumental feedback of piano key sound.

Released: 12 November 2013
Platforms: Android Nintendo Switch PlayStation Vita iOS
Genres: Rhythm Adventure
Developers: Rayark
Publishers: PM Studios Flyhigh Works
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: First person
Themes: Mystery

About

Deemo is a rhythm video game developed by Taiwanese game developer Rayark. The game was released on iOS and Android mobile platforms on 13 November 2013. An enhanced port for the PlayStation Vita, titled Deemo: Last Recital (Japanese: DEEMO～ラスト・リサイタル～), first announced late 2014, was released in June 2015. A Nintendo Switch port was released worldwide in September 2017.

A remake of the entire game in 3D, titled Deemo -REBORN-, was announced in October 2017 for PlayStation 4 with PlayStation VR compatibility, and was released on 21 November 2019. A PC port was released on 4 September 2020, and a mobile port for Android and iOS was announced on 23 November 2020. On 13 January 2022, Rayark announced the release of its sequel Deemo II.

›Story

Deemo is a mystic character who lives in solitude in a castle, all by itself. A little girl falls from the sky, not knowing who she is, where she comes from. To help the little girl back to her world, Deemo comes to realize a tree keeps growing tall on top of the piano whenever it plays. As the player continues to grow the tree through playing the game, the storyline unlocks gradually.

Keywords

comic book
music and rhythm
tokyo game show 2014

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The core gameplay of Deemo is a score-based music video game. Each playable song features three main levels, namely Easy, Normal, Hard, each given a difficulty rating measured in a 'Level' scale. 0 version, marks the extension of the levels range, now being ranged from 1 to 12. A few selected songs also have an unlockable "Expert" difficulty which may have letters in place of the level number.

5 (fastest). Songs can also be "autoplayed" (in the Chart Mode), which plays the song automatically but disqualifies any scores and limiting tree growth.

Story

The game's plot centers around a little girl named Alice who falls from an open trapdoor in the sky and a mysterious black being named Deemo, who, to help the girl return to her own world, plays piano music so that a special tree sapling sprouting from the piano will grow. As the tree grows, various rooms of the structure open for Alice to explore. She also encounters a person wearing a white gown and mask, referred to as the "Masked Lady", who expresses annoyance towards Deemo and the girl trying to grow the tree.

When the tree stops growing at a height of 20 meters, Alice discovers a stairway through a painting in the side room and walks into it with Deemo. The stairway leads to a chamber with another piano covered in thick thorns. As Deemo plays that piano, large-scale tremors occur and the tree resumes growth.

Reception

Rayark claims that Deemo saw 200,000 downloads within one month of release, and 7 million downloads as of October 2014, ranking first in the music game genre in the App Store of over 100 regions. At the time of the anime adaption's announcement in 2021, 28 million downloads of the original game were reported.

Deemo received generally positive critical reviews. Smartphone game review site TouchArcade gave a 4.5-star rating, citing "the game's art style and subtle story meld together beautifully to create an overall presentation that simply works". A Kotaku review praises the story delivering spectrum of emotions while accompanied by a fitting soundtrack, akin to "the rhythm game equivalent of musical theater". Last Recital for PlayStation Vita received a 33/40 Famitsu Score (8/8/9/8).