Demon Tides is Giving Super Mario Odyssey a Run for Its Crown
There’s a particular kind of confidence required to make a 3D platformer in 2026. Nintendo’s been running that game since 1996, and anyone stepping into the arena knows they’ll be measured against decades of plumber-jumping perfection. So when I tell you that Fabraz just dropped a game that reviewers are calling “as close to 3D Mario as you can get,” you should understand: that’s not hyperbole. That’s a shot across the bow.
The Sequel Nobody Expected to Go This Hard
Demon Tides released last week as the follow-up to 2021’s Demon Turf, a punk-flavored platformer that earned its cult following through sheer personality. Beebz, the shapeshifting demon teenager protagonist, had swagger. The mechanics were tight. The vibes were immaculate. But nothing about it suggested that the sequel would make its predecessor “seem basic by comparison.”
That’s a direct quote from The Gamer’s review, by the way. They gave it a 4.5 out of 5.
What happened? Fabraz went full open-world. Instead of isolated levels, you’re now sailing across three ocean regions filled with interconnected islands, each one a dense playground of collectibles, challenges, and pure movement joy. The structure feels closer to Odyssey’s kingdoms than traditional level design—but with a rebel’s edge that Nintendo would never touch.
Movement as Art Form
The reviews keep using one word: “schmoovement.” It’s the term speedrunners use for movement systems so deep that mastering them becomes its own game. Demon Tides apparently has this in spades.
Beebz can transform between three forms—her standard Lokian body, a bat for aerial navigation, and a sea serpent for racing through water. Combine these with unlockable talismans that modify your moveset (roller skates, bubble-bouncing, extra jumps), and you’ve got a platformer that one reviewer compared to “pulling off moves in Tekken.”
That’s not normal for the genre. Most 3D platformers give you a jump, a double jump, and maybe a ground pound. Demon Tides hands you a fighting game’s worth of options and says “figure it out.” The skill ceiling is apparently astronomical, with worldwide speedrunning leaderboards already filling up with players chasing frame-perfect lines through 30+ hours of content.
Story That Actually Lands
Here’s where things get interesting. Beebz isn’t just vibing across islands collecting shiny things. She’s traveling to meet her estranged father Ragnar—who, it turns out, has been ruling a kingdom through tyrannical oppression. The game asks whether conquest runs in her DNA. Whether the violence she’s so good at is inheritance or choice.
For a cel-shaded platformer with a punk demon protagonist, that’s surprisingly heavy. Reviews consistently praise the writing as “hilarious and heartfelt in equal measure,” with Beebz showing genuine growth while maintaining the attitude that made her original game pop.
The Nitpicks (Because Nothing’s Perfect)
The camera struggles sometimes, especially indoors. Voice acting is inconsistent—some scenes are fully voiced, others aren’t. Minor performance dips on certain islands. These are the complaints I’m seeing across reviews.
Nobody seems to care much. When your core movement feels this good, camera jank becomes a footnote.
The Verdict Across the Board
OpenCritic currently has Demon Tides at 84/100 with 95% of critics recommending it. Lords of Gaming gave it a 9.5/10 and called it “the new Queen of 3D platformers.” Multiple reviewers are putting it in their GOTY conversations—in February.
For $24.99, that’s a steal. Fabraz has been building toward this since their Slime-san days, and it feels like everything finally clicked. A global team of developers making games “bursting with creativity, fun, and heart” just delivered exactly that.
Have you picked up Demon Tides yet? I’m curious if the speedrunning community is going to turn this into the next movement tech obsession. The toolkit seems designed for it.
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