The Spawn franchise is known for a variety of characters, being a staple of the 90s comics culture. These characters will generally get into scrapes in the ever-encroaching battle between good and evil. You might have your favourites, or you may just want to see who would dominate in a bout between each other. In 2000, Players could finally duel it out with their favourites in Spawn: In the Demon’s Hand.

You select your fighter and are thrown into a small, enclosed map with up to three other people from the Spawn universe. Your goal is to defeat your opponents and climb the leaderboard of the match. Characters come with guns, swords, or can use their fists, and your health can drain quickly if you are not careful. However, death is still not the end, and you’ll quickly be respawned while there are seconds left in the match. Kills earn points, as does getting revenge on the players who are in the lead or recently fell you. As you and your character do what is necessary to rise to the top of the leaderboard in two minutes.

While the bouts of Spawn are ultra quick affairs, there are many in the home version, giving the player a quick burst of addictive gameplay almost frequently. There’s a tournament mode that requires the player to achieve a set number of points in a given level to advance. Spawn has a few modes, such as Bosh Rush mode and your impromptu matches. The gameplay is the same, and should be familiar to those who’ve played these types of fighting games before. There are gems you can find that will improve your character’s stats, which can be dropped if you’re killed. All resulting in an easy-to-pick-up, fun to master gameplay loop.

The character selection is vast, giving players a lot of incentive to come back to unlock more by playing the game repeatedly. Capcom lend their flair to the presentation, giving the soundtrack a late 90s MIDI rock sound that would be familiar to you if you played some other Japanese imports on the Dreamcast or otherwise. A lot of the characters are voiced, too. I mainly played as Tiffany and got to hear clips from the iconic voice actor, Alyson Court. The whole style of In the Demon’s Hand is something to be beheld, even if it is just seeing these characters voiced.

While there have been countless debates about eastern and western design and their approaches. In the Demon’s Hands shows the strengths of both, especially as a snapshot of the late 90s. The colourful characters of the franchise gel well with the addictive gameplay and fun soundtrack. Whether alone or with friends, the gameplay loop is enough for more than a few hours. The demon’s hand is heaven-sent, at least for as many weeks as it takes you to master it.

If you want more positive reviews delivered to the e-mail box of your choice, you can click on that little text bubble at the bottom of the screen. Do you agree or disagree? or have a suggestion for another pop-culture artefact that needs a positive light shone on it? Leave a comment in the comment box below! But remember to keep it positive!