DAMON and BABY Reviews
While I admire what Daisuke Ishiwatari and his team set out to achieve with DAMON and BABY, the resulting work is weighed down heavily by poorly designed levels and unsatisfying combat. There are fleeting moments of charm to be found within its story and cute art style, but they are just as quickly diminished by a myriad of mechanics that fail to cohesively coalesce.
DAMON and BABY will be a key cult success this year. It has a lot of heart, a great message, remarkable combat, an enthralling world, funny characters and scenarios, it’s different, and genuinely challenging (especially if you play the game wrong like I did). More than any other game this year so far, this one made me smile the most and there’s great value in that when the times are tough and it’s hard to find other reasons to smile. This game absolutely deserves its time in the spotlight.
Damon and Baby has some solid qualities, such as its core gameplay and narrative/setting, but its repetitiveness and confusing map design hold it back from reaching its full potential. I think a couple of additional mechanics and a couple of gameplay tweaks would go a long way for this one, as what’s there is decent, but could be better.
Damon and Baby is a good little game quite nervous to the multitude of different enemies that you should not take as a Die & Retry. Here to die is to return to the title screen (which is a little tedious) and start again at its last backup. The characters are endearing, and the gameplay nice even if it could have been a little more fluid and nervous. Still the problems of cameras or hitboxes that, however, can not spoil a nice journey.
Review in French | Read full review