You signed a deal with the Devil himself. Unfortunately Death had better ideas and stopped your budding career as a rockstar. Now you need to battle Death and all his friends to get you and your band out of hell!

After singing a record deal label Falco and his band are killed and end up in hell. The record label exec turns out to be the Devil and they've signed their souls away for fame and fortune. It almost sounds familiar doesn't it... Falco pleads for his life back and strikes another deal with the Devil. In exchange for his soul he must battle through hell and defeat Death himself.

Your main protagonist here is Falco but you can also play as Amy and Lydia they have their own play styles. To help you find your groove in the underworld.

The game has a familiar feeling to Hades where it's trying to build multiple characters and story arcs within a greater story. Being an indie studio it doesn't feel like they had the time or resources to fully realize this feature. The Devil for the most part has a voice actor for his lines however there just isn't the same cast of characters and world building you see in the aforementioned Hades.

Kill, collect, XP, Level up, Gear up and Use the 12-slot gear system to build clever combinations and unlock powerful killer combos. It's quite simple but very well thought out meaning you can buff weapons and stats with clever load out options. If you start putting items in randomly slots it's not likely to end well for you. Just like any musical instrument mastering the slot system is time practice and patience. The controls are simple and smooth, you can auto aim too which I highly recommend for adults playing on the Switch or Switch 2 with the teeny tiny controllers.

The gameplay is addictive and simple like many rogulites, it plays very similarly to Vampire Survivors swarms of enemies come at you and you need to survive whilst collecting xp to level up and choose your new load out items or upgrades. There are 3 boss fights every round 1 of the is Death and the other two are random from a cast of 3 (that I've encountered) bosses with different attack patterns to learn. these boss fight happen randomly every 10 minutes or so.

The game is addictive and balances the rogulite structure it gives you just enough to make you go back in for a second run. The currency system is clever and not too complicated. It does mean you need to be picky about upgrades to get the most out of your death break, there's lots of challenges you complete along the way which means you often have enough coins for a couple of upgrades.

Bold, fully hand-animated characters and effects bring the underworld roaring to life.

In my playthrough on the Switch 2 there were a few visual bugs that included stuttering or repeating loading screens. None of these issues were an actual problem but the did confuse me a bit to begin with. Knowing older loading screens from my childhood got me thinking it'd bugged out.

You play in an overworld arena with different power ups across the infinite (from my play throughs) scrolling map, it has various relics that you unlock through the shop to help you on your journey. This was a little blan after a while. Whilst it's not terrible you kind of wonder aimlesly until a boss battle arrives.

For a music themed game I'm a little disappointed by the main soundtrack. Whilst this might sound like a silly gripe and a contradictory statement the music is initially great it fits the theme and is heavy rock but it's a bit repetitive after a while. I know this is an small team and what they have done is great but I'd have loved to hear more tracks of the same quality to really rave about how good it is. Also bearing in mind a play though is roughly 20-30 minutes some of the greatest albums barely run over 40-50 minutes in length so there was a chance for a phenomenal soundtrack here.

The sound effects are well positioned within the game giving a satisfying beat and rhythm within the game.

For it's price Devil Jam is incredible value for money and very much worth it.