Where Hell Maiden really differentiates itself is its deckbuilding. Weapons are represented by cards that form a hand you assemble during each run. You have four weapon slots, and each weapon can accept several upgrade cards. Some upgrades add flat damage, others change the number of projectiles fired, and a few introduce random modifiers that can dramatically alter how a weapon behaves.
Identical upgrade cards can be fused to amplify their effects, which forces meaningful choices as you level up. Do you slap a 30% damage buff onto a newly acquired weapon, or merge it with the same upgrade on your starter armament to push that bonus to 50%? Some upgrades also grant positional bonuses depending on their placement in your hand, so loadout positioning becomes an extra layer of strategy—put a card that grants bonuses to the right, and suddenly every weapon to its right benefits.
Hell Maiden | Gameplay Trailer – YouTube
The opening runs can feel a touch sluggish, but that’s typical for the genre: once you learn the upgrade rhythms and synergies, you quickly become satisfyingly overpowered and start shredding enemy waves with ease.
You’ll see this in the screenshots on the Steam page. Hell Maiden is strikingly produced: crisp pixel-art characters, layered 2D backgrounds, and lush portrait work in dialogue scenes. I was especially impressed by the short animated cutscenes that trigger with your screen-clearing specials—each plays like a miniature magical-girl transformation sequence rendered in traditional 2D.
Hell Maiden borrows Hades’ approach to meta-progression, adding short bits of dialogue and persistent advancement between runs. The writing didn’t fully captivate me, but I value having a narrative thread that nudges you back into the next attempt.
I reached the demo’s endpoint—the Limbo stage—after roughly an hour of play, and the finale was another highlight: a boss that blends bullet-hell patterns with area-of-effect telegraphs and raid-style indicators. It made for a thrilling final test and left me eager to see what other encounters the full game will offer.
Roguelikes can be a hard sell for me; only a few titles—Hades, Vampire Survivors—have kept me hooked long-term. I can’t say yet whether Hell Maiden will join that upper tier, but the fact it had me invested in under an hour makes it well worth checking out.
Finish your 100% Silksong run soon — there’s another must-play Metroidvania arriving next month, and its Steam Next Fest demo is one of the best I’ve encountered.
Source: gamesradar.com
