Video Game / Daemon Summoner

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Daemon Summoner (also known internationally as Chronicles of Vampire Hunter) is a 2006 First-Person Shooter action game developed by Atomic Planet Entertainment for the PlayStation 2.

In 19th century London, James Farrington-Higgs was an ordinary man, living an ordinary life with his beautiful wife Emily and his infant son, David, until vampires attacked his family. Led by a pair of ruthless vampire twins named Kinus and Ranius, the undead kills David, left James in a near-dead state and had Emily brutally violated, before deciding to convert her into one of their kind instead of granting her the release of death. James somehow survived, and begins a new life as a vampire hunter, to avenge his family. On the trail of the vampires behind his family's massacre, James needs to confront his now-undead wife, before discovering a conspiracy to summon an ultimate evil.

"I hunt tropes down because they took everything from me. They destroyed my entire life..."

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The first stage has James pursuing vampire!Emily through the streets before she makes it into the sewers. They turn out to be surprisingly huge, with maze-like interiors and infested with ghouls.
• Always Identical Twins: Kinus and Ranius, the Vampire Twins who made James' life hell by exterminating his family, look and dress completely identically. James has no idea they're twins; at the start of the game, he only knows about Kinus. He fights Kinus in a mid-game boss battle, but after he wins Ranius suddenly ambushes James from behind.
• Always Night: Every single stage is set at night, though it's justified since the undead wouldn't be active by daytime.
• Antagonist Title: Who's summoning the daemon to Take Over the World? The Vampire Twins, that's who.
• Artificial Stupidity: Expect plenty of vampire and ghoul enemies to randomly run into walls when trying to lunge towards James, even as he plucks away at them from a distance via crossbow. The entire game is prone to having mooks stuck in corners due to bad programming, and it's hilarious.
• Automatic Crossbows: James' first ranged weapon is his trusty crossbow that reloads on its own after each shot. He gets a revolver later on, but said crossbow still proves to be a better weapon due to the bolts inflicting more damage than bullets.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: The vampiric Emily is Jack the Ripper. The first mission is specifically set in Whitechapel on November 9, 1888, the place and date the real world Jack murdered his final known victim, and James opens the mission stating he was too late to save her.
• Big Red Devil: The titular Daemon is a Satan-like entity with gigantic horns, leathery wings, and huge claws. It's unsealed from its hellish prison by the Vampire Twins in the final level.
• Dual Boss: The Vampire Twins are fought together as the second-to-last boss.
• Failure Is the Only Option:
  • James' first fight against Emily will end with Emily escaping, regardless how little health she had left. Then again, she's the first boss - no surprise here.
  • In a moment overlapping with Cutscene Incompetence, after James defeats the first Vampire Twin, the second one automatically sneaks up behind James and knocks him out. Cue the two villains gloating over James before deciding to have him flung into an abandoned asylum without his weapons, a fate impossible for James to avoid.
• Fragile Speedster: The Imp enemies are tiny little fellas who die in one hit from any of James' weapons, but they tend to scurry all over the place. They can be really difficult to hit in wide open areas.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: James faces his vampirized ex-wife, Emily, as early as the first stage, where she spends the entire boss fight running away from James. He needs to pursue her through the streets of Victorian England before fighting her in a tight corner.
• The Goomba: The zombie-like ghouls, being the first mook enemies James will face. They're slow, dies in a handful of hits, and each shot inflicted on them makes them limp and lose body parts, and subsequently easier to destroy. James later face dozens and dozens of them in a haunted graveyard halfway through, and taking down the entire horde is a piece of cake even then.
• Guns Akimbo: James can collect a second revolver and use it in tandem with his first.
• Match Cut: In the opening FMV, a photo of James and Emily accompanying James' narration of the game's backstory segues into a shot of a now-vampirized Emily, who then leaps towards the camera. Cut to opening titles.
• Mysterious Past: The game doesn't really delve into backstory regarding James' past, but he could be a retired soldier or vampire hunter forced back into action. Given how he begins the game as an undead-killing badass it doesn't seem too far-fetched.
• Our Ghouls Are Creepier: Averted; the ghoul enemies, despite being called such, are more akin to generic zombies. They're also pathetically weak enemies that James has no problems dealing with.
• Our Imps Are Different: Despite being called "imps" in-game, the imp enemies are more akin to goblins, being mostly mindless chaotic races serving as low-ranking servants of evil.
• Revenge: Your main goal is driven by vengeance for your murdered family, in the hands of the Vampires.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The titular Daemon is a Big Red Devil demon lord which the Vampire Twins are attempting to unseal, and it's up to James to stop them at all costs. He manages to kill the Vampire Twins, but unfortunately their ritual is complete - cue James facing the Daemon as the Final Boss.
• Silver Bullet: In a game containing vampires and werewolves? The first werewolf encountar notably has James trying to find a hidden revolver and cache of silver bullets while fleeing from a werewolf guarding his cell, and later shooting said werewolf once he gets the bullets.
• Staking the Loved One: After becoming a vampire hunter, James needs to hunt down his now-vampirized wife, Emily, in order to kill her once and for all and put her out of misery. He succeeds in the second-to-last boss battle.
• Stealth-Based Mission: The second stage in the London Docks has James trying to sneak aboard a vampire-infested ship to track down the Twins. If he gets spotted by patrolling vampires, the ship leaves - cue a Non-Standard Game Over.
• Undead Barefooter: James' wife, Emily, upon being vampirized, runs all over the place barefoot. The same thing applies to lower-level vampire mooks, who probably were once ordinary men before the Vampire Twins turned them into mindless, undead servants, as is the case with Emily. The Twins themselves avert this, both wearing black shoes.
• Undeathly Pallor: Emily in the flashbacks looks just like any other human, but as a vampire her skin is unnaturally white. Same goes for the vampire enemies.
• Vampire Hunter: James himself after losing his family, though throughout the game he also hunts ghouls, werewolves and imps.
• Victorian London: The game is set here during November 1888, the tail end of Jack the Ripper's murder spree.
• Werewolves Are Dogs: The werewolf enemies are mindless, slavering minions of the vampires, serving as guard-dogs without any form of sentience. The very first werewolf is in fact introduced guarding James' cell when he escaped the asylum.