Demon's World

Demon's World is a horror-themed horizontally-scrolling run and gun game where players assume the role of two ghost hunters through ten increasingly difficult linear autoscrolling stages across various locations, some of which have a boss at the end that must be fought before progressing any further in an effort to defeat several ghosts and monsters that were unleashed upon Earth by the titular demon king as the main objective.

The player characters are armed with a gun complete with energy pack reminiscent to the Ghostbusters franchise to shoot various ghosts and monsters that infest each stage, though players can also defeat enemies by jumping on them, in addition to performing a double jump to move across platforms as well. Along the way, players can collect multiple a weapon power-up to change their gun to fire lasers, bombs or a spread shot. Other items can also be collected during gameplay such as "P" icons that, after collecting three icons in a row, grants the players a shield that takes an extra enemy hit and heart icons that give points. Firing on determined locations is crucial to reach high-scores and get extra lives, as certain setpieces in some stages hosts bonus secrets.

Demon's World was released on arcades worldwide in 1989 by Taito in Japan as Horror Story, Catalina Games in North America and Toaplan across other regions. The soundtrack was co-composed by Osamu Ōta and Toshiaki Tomizawa, while artist Atsushi Kawaguchi was responsible for the artwork. The arcade board is multi-regional, meaning that it can be configured for different regions via the DIP switches and these settings change the legal warnings, display the Taito licensing message and can change the title between the English version and the Japanese version. In 2018, an album containing music from the title and other Toaplan games was published exclusively in Japan by City Connection under their Clarice Disk label.

On 26 February 1993, Demon's World was ported to the PC Engine Super CD-ROM² by NEC Avenue under its original Japanese title (Horror Story) and published exclusively in Japan, featuring an arranged soundtrack using Redbook CD Audio. It is built on the later alternative arcade board revision along with its new stage and features a new "cowboy skeleton" mid-boss that is exclusive to this version, among other changes.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Demon's World as the 22nd most popular arcade game of August 1989.

Demon's World has been met with mixed critical reception since its PC Engine Super CD-ROM² release as Horror Story from critics who reviewed it as an import title. French magazine Consoles + praised the graphics, music and gameplay but noted the presentation to be the conversion's main negative point. Markus Appel of German magazine Mega Fun gave mixed remarks to the graphics and sound. Likewise, both Andreas Knauf and Martin Gaksch from German magazine Video Games gave this port a mixed outlook. Den of Geek noted it to be a solid but forgettable title from Toaplan.