I’ve always been a fan of dynamic duos in my video games. As a young gamer I found characters like Banjo and Kazooie incredibly charming, in part due to them having actual conversations and banter when so often I’d be playing as a mute avatar. This has carried on throughout the years, with everyone from Jak and Daxter to Joel and Ellie delighting gamers across the generations. Perhaps one of the weirdest duos I’ve played as in a game are Damon and Baby, a pair bonded together by a bizarre curse who couldn’t be more different.
For the most part in this charming game you play as Damon, a demon with dreams of ruling over his peers by any means necessary. This all changes when his buddy dies though, and asks him to look after a young girl. After a bit of dark magic goes wrong this unlikely pair are cursed to stick together, and this doesn’t impress the demon community. Damon loses his powers and is forced onto the road to redemption, where he’ll try to send the baby to a better place and become the powerhouse he once was. It’s an interesting story that I’m excited to see through, and was certainly a fun setup for the opening of the game.
With lots of nasty creatures out to get Damon, you’ll need to use your remaining otherworldly talents to defend yourself. In terms of offense this means letting loose with a three hit melee combo and also blasting out shots with various guns. The focus is definitely more on the twin stick shooting than on the up close smashing, but there’s a particularly cool mechanic where you can combine the two. Any enemy you hit up close will be locked onto, and when you do this you’ll hit them perfectly for the next few shots and they’ll fire at a much more rapid rate. It’s an interesting way to combine combat styles, and I had a lot of fun beating up various goons by taking advantage of it.
Throughout the first two chapters of the game I was given a host of different guns to use, each with strengths, weaknesses and of course stats. Your first gun is a pistol, which is a bit lacking in power but makes up for it with magical infinite ammo. After that I found various versions of machine guns and shotguns, all of which were satisfying to use and fun to switch between to conserve ammo.
There’s much more to Damon and Baby than just fighting monsters though, there’s also a real focus on exploration. The chapters I played were pretty damn vast, with all sorts of keys to find and different routes to take looking for loot. There’s also a decent amount of platforming and even some Metroidvania elements as you gain access to new skills, which I must admit I wasn’t expecting.
My favourite of all the ways to explore the world of Damon and Baby involves the baby herself. Because you’re bound to this child by magic you can’t physically be apart, and you can use this to your advantage. By launching Baby across gaps you can cross them, because once the kid lands on solid ground you’ll be teleported to them as you’re too far apart. It’s a hilarious way to add a long jump to a game, and don’t worry about Baby because she’s kept unharmed by demon magic (obviously).
I just wasn’t quite prepared for the amount of depth I found even in the first little chunk of Damon and Baby, and it really did impress me. There’s a levelling system where you can choose from a selection of ways to boost your stats by using a bed, and a whole cooking system where you can find recipes and get your social worker to make food for Baby to heal and temporarily buff some stats. I’m excited to see how this progresses going forwards, because the early hours were compelling and rewarding.
Damon and Baby has a whole lot of promise, with engaging twin stick combat, loads of exploration, and a level of depth I wasn’t quite prepared for. Alongside all this the premise is charming as heck, and I want to know how this unlikely pair finish their adventure. I don’t have long to wait either, and next month we might all be regaling this new duo with a whole lot of praise.
Damon and Baby is coming to PC via Steam, PS5, and Switch on March 26th.
