Devil Daggers is brutally, gleefully hard. As the ceaseless waves of enemies stack, the seconds stretch into weeks; each one a living nightmare in which you're only just able to stay ahead of the pack. Reviewing your score at the end of a run is like coming back from another dimension in which time runs at a different pace - was that really just 58.4539 seconds?
Those four decimal points weren't included for comedic effect, by the way - Devil Daggers really does give you that exact a time at the end of each run, because it knows full well you're doing to end up obsessing over every single millisecond. As you pore over the two leaderboards - Steam friends and global - it's difficult not to develop an intense, roiling hatred for the person one step ahead of you. I know this because I spent a good hour getting increasingly resentful of fellow Eurogamer staffer Ian, who was just 0.1501 seconds ahead of my best time. You start to wonder how they managed it - what fiendish pact did they make with Devil Daggers that helped them luck into a score they patently don't deserve?
You can download and watch the replay, if you like, but it doesn't make you feel any better. If anything it only confirms what you already know - that person is an impostor and a charlatan and they don't deserve to be ahead of you. The only logical thing to do, naturally, is to throw yourself back into the hellscape and try again. The anaemic glow of your daggers greets you like an old friend. Before you know it, you're flinching your way through now familiar waves of hellspawn, your ears filling with shrieks and snapping bones.
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