Vlad Circus: Curse of Asmodeus review

• Reviews by Johnny Nys
• Published:

The prequel ride isn’t quite as wild but steps right up with another enjoyably creepy horror-lite outing

The image of a man sitting in the electric chair sparks across the screen as his dying scream transports us to a dark and dank basement. A body left on a cart under a white sheet moves not, until the sound of a heartbeat emerges. An image of the heart appears in the corner, and with a mini-game – tap the button in time with the surrounding dial reaching its ends – we resuscitate this supposed cadaver. The man rises, his face completely distorted for some reason, unable to even speak. We guide him (preferably with a gamepad, though keyboard works too) as he limps through the various rooms of a dark basement in a hospital gown, the screen still hazy but slowly gaining focus as we progress. We’ll kick rats and broken glass out of the way, grabbing some matches to banish the darkness just long enough to locate the light switch, finding keys in drawers to open doors.

The man’s name is Josef Petrescu, it’s the year 1922, and this is Vlad Circus: Curse of Asmodeus by Spanish developer Indiesruption, the prequel to their previous title Descend into Madness. I’ve heard the name Asmodeus before: the demon or devil in the third Gabriel Knight game. So I know being cursed by this creature can’t be good. What this curse entails, exactly, I’ll let you find out for yourself. But be warned if you’re expecting the same level of survival horror as in the first game, as this less punishing follow-up is designed more to charm pure adventure-minded gamers. Perhaps a bit TOO much tension and horror were sacrificed in the process, but if you prefer exploring without constantly having to fight for your life, you will enjoy a darkly compelling trip through a penitent man’s memories.  

Curse of Asmodeus is filled with mystery. You start with absolutely no idea of what’s going on or what you’re supposed to be doing. We know from the first game that Josef Petrescu was charged with burning down the circus and sentenced to the chair. While I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to have played Descend into Madness, it might be a good idea to help make better sense of some things. This is Josef’s story, after all, and as you go along the pieces fall into place about how the fire came to be in a town filled with fervent belief in demonic influence and highly suspicious of outsiders.

The game has no manual save options, but it employs an autosave and records your progress when you quit. That suffices, as the survival aspects of its predecessor have been seriously toned down here. Other than giving those rats the boot, gone are the combat elements entirely this time around. You can get hurt by accidentally walking on broken glass, but you can simply kick those pieces out of the way as well. Some rooms are filled with gas, which can suffocate you unless you find a way to deal with it. But with no real enemies to vanquish and no weapons to brandish, there is no need for different difficulty levels anymore either.

This may be a disappointment for gamers who enjoy fighting monsters for their survival, but a good thing for those – like me – who get frustrated by the risk of being killed every step of the way. I did still die several times, but it was more from me being stupid than by being attacked by roaming zombies as I was last time. These deaths felt more like the classic game-over screens when you try to do something without being fully prepared.

Should you get hurt, the corners of the screen show a red haze and you can heal yourself by taking aspirin. You can only carry three tablets at a time, but there’s an unlimited supply in a pair of suitcases you can find somewhere in the basement. Should you succumb to your injuries, or get instantly killed in some other way, you simply wind up back in the room you originally woke up in, with an intact inventory and no need to redo anything except some backtracking to return to where you were. There is still a sense of danger at times, but you don’t suffer any serious setbacks because of it.

There’s also no more worrying about resource management. Where Descend into Madness imposed a limited inventory, you can carry as much as you want in Curse of Asmodeus. Also, early on you find a pack of matches to illuminate the dark corners of the building and discover hidden things. You will never run out of matches, in contrast to the first game where you had to constantly refill a kerosene lamp while dodging enemies.

From his starting point in what appears to be an old asylum, Josef has to puzzle his way to the ground floor and outside by acquiring keys to the many locked doors. You’ll walk up and down and back and forth throughout the subterranean facility, learning about it through notes scattered across the building, which is run by a Nurse Edna type of character. You never have to worry about her catching you, though. Instead, it’s obvious this toned-down version is focused more on story and puzzles. The state of the other “patients” you encounter and the terrible way they are interned and treated here give Curse of Asmodeus some of the horror vibe of its predecessor. However, you can’t actually interact with them except one: a small, childlike woman who seems to have free rein of the place and will help you if you can catch a mouse for her.

Vlad Circus: Curse of Asmodeus

Genre:	Horror, Mystery
Presentation:	2D or 2.5D, Overhead
Theme:	Historical, Psychological, Religion/Occult
Perspective:	Third-Person
Graphic Style:	Pixel art
Gameplay:	Quest, Survival
Control:	Direct Control
Game Length:	Short (1-5 hours)
Difficulty:	Low

Several rooms of the “asylum” house mirrors, which have the same function as the circus troupe photograph in the first game. Some mirrors are dirty and need you to clean them first. But once Josef gazes into his own reflected eyes, he’s transported back into memories of the time before Vlad’s circus burned to the ground, when Josef went to ask his brother if he could return to the family business after a huge falling out several years earlier. In order to convince not only Vlad but also the other members of his troupe (all familiar faces from Descend into Madness, who each have small cameos in one of the memories), he needs to find a new attraction for the circus.

As luck would have it, in the nearby town where the circus is currently set up, San Reno, lives The Hottest Woman In The World, a fire-breather performing in a local museum/casino. During these past segments, you control a normal and healthy Josef. First you’ll fix a broken-down cart of a Romani for a ride from the train station to the circus, avoiding the station master as you scavenge for tools. You’ll also sneak past the circus troupe to talk to Vlad by organising some distractions. In town you need to chase and outsmart a pickpocketer, and of course convince the performer to leave her home and defect to the circus without her father becoming any the wiser. It feels like you’re on a mission for P.T. Barnum: great adventure game fare combining inventory puzzles with deception, other than one irritating casino slot machine mini-game to acquire the necessary funds to fulfill one of your quests.

These flashback scenes first start in sepia tones, but quickly transition to full color. Appropriate to the era, San Reno has lots of wooden buildings with people wearing dresses and costumes or shirts and suspenders depending on their class. This very brown-toned place is only slightly more modern than a Wild West town, especially with the local bar still offering spittoons for their clientele. You arrive during the day but also explore at night, so you get to see it in two different color palettes. There are no dark or disturbing elements present, though – except perhaps if the enormously filthy restrooms of the local bar make you shudder in revolting horror.

You can’t die at all in these segments, so personally I enjoyed them more than the present-day parts. The memories are also more puzzly, while in the asylum it’s mostly a case of unlocking doors to progress without even much narrative going on other than what you read in the notes about the curse of Asmodeus and what that actually entails. I also enjoyed being able to talk to people, like the hotel manager who won’t tell you in which room the fire-breather is staying, the bartender who helps you out in return for a favor, a prisoner in jail and a policeman who can give you some clues on how to proceed. There’s also a very judgmental priest, whom I suspected immediately would have a bigger part to play later on, and a Romani woman taking on the role of a Voodoo Lady in helping you with concocting a potion. All these interactions form a great contrast to the solitary and depressive wanderings through the neglected, maze-like asylum.

Curse of Asmodeus is a very linear game that won’t allow you to progress until it says so. While traipsing around your present-day prison, looking for a way out, you might find your way frustratingly blocked with no apparent solution. Whenever I was stuck like this throughout my four-hour playthrough, it meant I hadn’t located one of those memory-inducing mirrors yet. After a flashback scene, the conditions in the basement will have changed, usually because of the nurse and the small woman moving around, which then offers you a new path forward.

As with the first game, the slightly overhead pixel art style and ambient sounds here are very much on point. They nicely capture the gritty, dark feel of the asylum, with great little audio effects like the scurrying rats, the breaking of glass when you tread on the shards, squeaking hinges, water dripping from the ceiling, and the cries and moans of other patients. There is once again no voice acting, but even in the absence of much immediate danger, the haunting music brings everything together to convey a fearful, confined atmosphere ruled by a befuddling trepidation. The town of San Reno during flashbacks is lighter and more playful, the colors brighter during the daytime scenes and with warmer lights at night. To top it all off, as was the case in the first game, there are more detailed portraits of people speaking in conversation, and at dramatic moments you’re treated to beautifully detailed, albeit slightly disturbing close-ups capturing at least some of that familiar horror flavor.

Final Verdict

This game certainly holds fast to the original’s production values, and its interesting story is a suitable new addition to the Vlad Circus lore. For anyone expecting more of the same, however, Curse of Asmodeus doesn’t follow the same path as its predecessor. Sure, there are some light horrific elements but you will never be truly scared or have to battle for your life, with the survival aspects largely gone in favor of a more straightforward adventure game experience with simple yet enjoyable puzzles. I mostly appreciated this decision, as I had a great time plotting my escape and playing through Josef Petrescu’s history. But even though I was relieved not to have to keep track of my health and ammunition, I can’t help but feel slightly disappointed as well by the reduced horror factor here that made Descend into Madness such a wonderfully creepy time. And so, while a fun game in its own right that fixes certain issues I had with the first game, ultimately it falls victim to the curse of the sequel rarely being as good as the original.

Johnny played Vlad Circus: Curse of Admodeus on PC using a review code provided by the game's publisher.