Persona-adjacent turn-based tactics RPG Demonschool just got its second big patch, seems like now is the time to dive in

The Persona games sound fascinating. Tactics RPGs about students who fight demonic analogues of small-town problems at night, yet have to balance that with school and social obligations by day? I'd say sign me up, but even the shorter ones take 80+ hours and the longer ones demand well over 100. I tried Metaphor: ReFantazio and gave up in boredom during the second dungeon. They are not games that respect your time.

So Demonschool, which seems to basically be a Persona game in all but name and the fact it can be wrapped in under 40 hours, should have been an instant slam-dunk. Our reviewer, Mollie Taylor, liked it well enough, praising the intricacy of its battle system and the wit of its dialogue, but had an important reservation. At launch, it suffered from "some wonkily-threaded narrative beats" and "some general visual bugs and systems that felt a little obtuse at times".

No problems that couldn't be patched it seems, which made me put it on the "wait" pile rather than the "play immediately" pile. With every update it shifts a little closer to that second pile, and the latest, which Demonschool developer Necrosoft is calling its second big post-release patch, seeming like a significant one.

This patch removes a redundant skill called Add Stun, which was a leftover prototype for the Stunner skill that's also in the game but actually works. (If you bought the non-working skill, you'll get refunded the cost when you load a save.) It also adds vsync and a framerate cap to the options menu, and adjusts the profile screen so now it tells you exactly when students will return from rest or study.

It also fixes a bunch of bugs, including one that stopped the Stoic technique from working on non-knockback characters, and one that meant some targets weren't taking damage from Cross Slash if they were in a group that contained immovable enemies. Various typos have also been viciously hunted down and exterminated.

Demonschool is currently 10% off on Steam as an introductory offer, and is included in several bundles with other games we like such as Into the Breach and Look Outside.