Arc System Works and Executive Director Daisuke Ishiwatari are known for fighting games, and their upcoming game, Damon and Baby, is a huge shift. It’s an action-adventure game that’s defined by an overhead viewpoint, twin-stick shooter mechanics, a lighthearted, cartoonish art style, and a wry, satirical wit — a departure from series like Guilty Gear and BlazBlue.
Damon and Baby is an expansive game that packs a surprising amount of depth and challenge. I recently played through the first 10 hours of Damon and Baby ahead of its release to get a first-hand feel for its blend of action mechanics and comedy stylings.
You take on the role of Damon, a demon with aspirations for greatness, who has what turns out to be an unfortunate friendship with a priest. At the start of the tale, the priest shows up mortally wounded and entrusts Damon with a baby. Little does Damon know that, through supernatural shenanigans, the two have become inseparable, and if Damon wanders too far away from the baby, he’s instantly teleported back to her.
Stuck with putting his demonic plans on hold to care for a cute child, Damon sets out to find a way to separate himself from the baby. But he quickly discovers that while he wants to get rid of the kid, there are demonic forces, led by Death, who will do anything to claim her. And while Damon is a curmudgeonly demon, it turns out he has a heart of gold, so he grabs some guns and sets about fighting through hordes of supernatural enemies.
Fast, furious twin-stick combat
And you will fight a lot of enemies in Damon and Baby, using a close-range melee strike and four different types of weapons: pistols, shotguns, machine guns, and rocket launchers.
Each of the gun archetypes comes in all sorts of variations, sporting different stats and nuanced capabilities. Some guns might add additional bullets to their spread, pierce through enemies, or fire in powerful, short bursts rather than continuously.
Each weapon is good for specific situations, encouraging you to change them up often as you fight all kinds of enemies. From easily-defeated knife-wielding spirits, to giant, flying, shield-wielding fiends, there’s a huge number of threats to deal with and you’ll have to constantly shift strategies in order to stay alive.
Toss that baby!
Damon and Baby gives you a few interesting tools to help you, as well. Before long, Damon realizes he can use that whole baby curse thing to his advantage, giving you the ability to throw the baby, which causes Damon to teleport to wherever she is and catch her. That move allows you to cover big gaps that you couldn’t normally jump over, and it serves as your primary dodge to escape enemy attacks.
You’ll need to use that baby throw ability a lot, because enemies hit hard. While Damon and Baby might look cartoonish on the surface, it packs some serious challenges.
Even normal enemies can be huge and powerful, but the bosses take things up a notch — like a giant, katana-wielding wolf dressed like he belongs in Kill Bill, or a moth who uses a massive sniper rifle against you in a grocery store. They’ll clobber you if you’re not on your game.
Throwing the baby is also just one of the many abilities that help you explore its sprawling areas. As Damon earns a double-jump and wall jump, and “ultimate” abilities that let him do things like smash through certain kinds of objects, you can revisit earlier areas to discover secrets and power-ups, or earn money for buying new weapons. Damon and Baby’s levels are huge, and offer almost as many nooks and crannies to check as demons to shoot.
Heaven and Hell have bureaucrats, too
The thing I liked most in my preview of the game, though, was Damon and Baby’s comedic sensibility. It’s set in a world where demons, angels, and monsters are old hat for normal folks, and dealing with Heaven and Hell is mostly a bureaucratic annoyance, and it’s a paperwork snafu that costs Damon his powers at the start of the game.
Damon’s ultimate goal is to get to Sedona — as in, Arizona — and he’s helped out by a demonic insurance agent, a vampire mafioso who transforms into a bat to help you in combat, and an angelic cook, among other weirdos.
It’s a game that imagines a goofy supernatural world that’s full of spirits and creatures trying to help you save the world, but who still have to work within a society full of mundane tasks and arbitrary rules. The absurdity leads to a lot of good jokes, especially as Damon complains his way through the journey.
You’ll get a chance to explore the enormous, ridiculous world of Damon and Baby when it launches on PS5 and PS4 on March 26.