If you have been following Gamer Social Club for a while, you’ll know that we’ve been very excited for Yasha: Legend of the Demon Blade. Ever since getting a chance to preview it a few months ago, I knew Yasha was setting the bar high with its introduction. The question became, when it was time to dive into the full release, would it deliver? It isn’t easy to get into the roguelike genre and deliver a game as polished and as beautiful as your predecessors; so you have to do something to stand out. Does Yasha make the grade?
Gameplay Loop
To start out with Yasha: Legend of the Demon Blade, you’ll have to choose a character. You’re presented with three options who each come with their own story and fighting style. Your constant character throughout the game, whether you choose to play her or not, is Shigure so expect to see a lot of her even if in different iterations. Consider it a bit like alternate universes or timelines.
During your first run, you’ll find yourself getting to know the character and what brings them to this little town where demons and humans live in harmony. Of course, that only exists within the village as once you step into the outskirts, things are very different. Each demon outside of the village seems to exist for only one reason, that is, to kill you. As with any other roguelite, death is only the beginning.
As you defeat the smaller demons that you encounter, you’ll receive rewards to level up your character and/or your weapons. Gold will be used when you reach the demon festival, orbs will help you level up your weapons, and soul fragments will help you level up your character traits and weapon traits for future runs. Along the way you may also find amulets that can be blessings or possessions.
After the required number of successful runs to complete the story, you’ll be presented with the option to make your runs more challenging. This allows players to see how good they truly are and give themselves more difficult runs as wanted.
Combat
There are three different combat styles that go along with the characters. You have your slower yet powerful Taketora, the speedy Sara, and your balanced Shigure.
Shigure will use one long blade which comes with a story of its own. During combat she can switch between two different blades but she will always only use one at a time. Her combat is quite smooth, easy to learn, and I would recommend actually playing with her first. This will give you a good feeling of getting through the game as a whole and allow you an opportunity to see what you prefer, strength or speed. Once you know which is most important to you, I’d recommend picking the opposite. I went from Shigure to Sara to Taketora and wish I had done this in reverse.
Taketora is quite strong but after playing with Sara’s speed, it was hard to readjust. Taketora fights with a bow and arrow or uses a melee attack when he is up close and personal. The bow and arrow is a bit faster, but the melee feels very slow. It’s not clunky, which is kudos to the team, but it definitely is quite slow to get used to.
Sara will fight with essentially twin blades. As she is quite a small character, they may as well be daggers. Her weapons also allow you to have two different daggers with different stats being used at once. She is quite the fast character even while being limited by the dash counter and reset.
Weapon Upgrade System
As with any other game of its genre, not every upgrade you find will carry through to all runs. After your first run, be it successful or not, you’ll learn how to unlock additional weapons all with their own properties. After unlocking these weapons in town, you can then upgrade them three times to enhance an aspect of them. However, this will only increase a specific overall aspect such as the percentage of damage your starter weapon will do.
When you are on your run, you’ll gather orbs to slot in to your weapon. Each weapon can have up to three soul orbs and each soul orb can be upgraded two times. Once you have filled the three soul orbs per weapon, don’t fret if you end up not liking the combination you’ve chosen. If you get a better upgrade for your weapon, you can remove a previously inserted upgrade. This allows you the opportunity to try out many different combinations to suit your play style.
Character Upgrades
After each run, you’ll find yourself encountering the soul flame of your character. This is where you’ll choose upgrades specific to the character you are playing as. You’ll notice there are traits that are specific to the character as well as general traits. Use your soul points here. These points will also carry over into each run so don’t be shy about where you choose to enter them. A good first point spend is usually on a revive so you can keep your runs going longer. Secondly, I recommend adding another dash to your ability as dashing can get you out of some trouble. Some other helpful ones will be allowing for healing after each stage, increasing odds of healing drops, and of course, more damage.
Demon Festival and Limited Upgrades
Throughout your run you’ll find yourself encountering a demon festival. Not every demon festival will look the same, but you can expect to find a few helpful items here. You’ll find a healer who will restore a portion of your Hit Points and the opportunity to take on a challenge for additional upgrades to your character.
What will rotate throughout the demon festival is some of the vendors. At times you’ll find a vendor who will sell you amulets to increase stats or where you can purchase additional healing in the form of a rice ball. You may also find the ramen shop where you can find ramen that will increase specific stats, The ramen shop will also upgrade based on ingredients you bring to it from your runs so never leave any food behind. You can also run into a mysterious hand that will allow you to purchase additional orbs to upgrade your weapon.
Even within your upgrades the roguelike element is strong and will lead to many different combinations, so choose wisely.
The Non-Combat Time
Here at Gamer Social Club, we won’t ruin the story of the characters. Mostly because it’s worth exploring. Each character has a short yet rich story to tell. Whether protecting the cosmic demon, trying to find a way back home, or understanding their own past, these characters feel fully fleshed out. Seeing how their stories in some way intertwine and yet exist on their own is refreshing. You aren’t playing the same story from three different angles which I will give kudos to the team for doing this. The same story with different weapons may have felt a bit too repetitive so this way they’ve allowed players to experience not only different combat but also different narratives.
You will see some cut scenes that occur before and after boss battles if it is your first time encountering them in each chapter. Some of these cut scenes will come with such a beautiful song, that it is worth listening to. The music goes amazingly with the art style and it feels like you may have been tricked into watching a beautiful anime.
When you come back into town, you can also speak with the villagers who are in town to see how they have changed towards you after every run. Are you a blessing or a curse to the town? You’ll have to speak to them to find out.
Final Thoughts
With a simple gameplay loop, beautiful art, and smooth combat, this game can make a nice addition to a roguelike collection. While I wouldn’t call this game someone’s first roguelike, it can be a really great way to introduce someone to the roguelike genre. The stories are easy to follow and not very long. If the true ending of Hades is too long for you with the number of required runs, this Yasha: Legend of the Demon Blade will be for you.
As far as complaints, it’s a bit short. I won’t say quite how many chapters each character has, but it feels like there could be an opportunity to continue to dive deeper with these characters. There’s also a ninja character that serves as a side character that could have had some interesting combat and his own story. He feels a bit like a missed opportunity. While I don’t think the game should explore paid DLC, a free DLC for this additional character could allow for additional revisiting of Yasha.
On a positive note, Yasha sets itself up to be a speed runners dream. Increase the difficulty as needed and see how fast you can escape when you aren’t seeing the story bits. This can keep players returning again and again to try new combinations, new strategies, and new challenges. I can still happily recommend this game to newcomers of the roguelite genre and those who want something a bit less intensive than your more chaotic or strategic roguelite.
Yasha: Legend of the Demon Blade releases May 15, 2025 on Switch, Playstation 4 & 5, and Steam. Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One will be released at a future date as they await final approval from the platform. Kickstarter backers who requested a Xbox version should look for more communication regarding compensation.
Gamer Social Club was provided a review code from 7Quark for the purposes of this review.
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