Yasha: Legends of the Demon Blade pre-launch review

Written by Ross Locksley on 26 Mar 2025

It's no secret around the office that I was initially drawn to this game due to the tremendous artwork, with its imaginative designs and pastel colours being just my cup of tea. I'd missed the Kickstarter campaign which sadly slipped me by, but have been somewhat cheered up by news of a special edition that contains, among other things, an artbook. Yummy.

Of course, despite being a graphics-whore of the first order, even I have to acknowledge that gameplay still has to be kind, no matter how much I will the game to be worth playing - the reviews of the splendid looking but ultimately flat Macross Shooting Insight and the very basic but enthralling Deadly Heart Gambit bear this out.

So far we only have a demo of Yasha: Legends of the Demon Blade, but so far it seems to blending thrills and beauty.

The action takes a slightly isometric top-down view while your chosen combatant - immortal ninja girl Shigure, Oni emissary Sara and Demon Samurai tiger-man Taketora. Each handle differently and as you'd expect - Shigure is an all-rounder, Sara is fast but less powerful and Taketora is a tank.

The three are fighting the King of Demons, the Nine Tailed Fox, whose invading hordes have broken a truce that has endured for three hundred years. Subsequently you'll be brawling through minions and imaginative bosses to set things right and return order. 

Certainly in terms of style, Yasha hits all the right notes for an Edo period game. The haunting musical melody that greets you at the menu screen is certainly something I'm going to be downloading when the physical special edition ships. 

Once you're past the intro for your chosen character and a brief battle tutorial, you're dropped into the fray proper. You'll need to clear zones of enemies and at the end of each is a gate. Before passing through, you'll have an orb to collect and a power up (from a choice of three) to choose in order to power up your character. I favoured the dash attack with Shigure as it can hit multiple foes at once, so powering up the basic attack was my first choice. By the time you meet your fist boss, you'll need to have mastered the parry system as it's main attacks will utterly clobber you without deflection, so maybe practice that on the smaller foes as much as you can.

The demo allows you to play as any of the three main characters, and Sara's story is by far the most fun (not to knock the other two, but Sara could drop into Disgaea effortlessly). The stories are connected by events but very different in tone, so multiple playthroughs look to offer lots of narrative rewards. 

The respawn point is very peaceful, and you can interact with the flame to add upgrades

Should death take you, you'll be reincarnated and returned to your village, where you can power up based on the resources you acquired on your run, whether that's natural abilities or your weapons. 

Graphically the game is visually rich, with everything looking sharp and nicely rendered. There are plenty of details on the enemies, as well as a lot of variety which makes for a far more satisfying and varied combat experience. Bosses tromp across the screen with weight and menace, and generally I found everything very pleasing in terms of how the game looks and moves.

While I can't declare the game a hit before release, I can say that I've enjoyed my time with Yasha's pre-build, it has charm, style and smooth combat. It doesn't hurt one bit that it also runs like a dream on the Steam Deck, so once I have the final build, I'll happily review the whole game. In the meantime I'd highly recommend keeping an eye out for the physical pre-order which looks very tasty indeed!