REVIEW: ‘DAMON and BABY’ Is A Flawed, Sometimes Fun, Experiment

DAMON and BABY, the new action-adventure shooter from Arc System Works, is interesting. It marks an attempt from the fighting game veterans to develop some smaller titles in between big tentpole games. The game definitely has potential, with some fun shooting and gorgeous art, but frustrating systems and gameplay loops also weigh it down.

DAMON and BABY stars Damon, a demon that’s been cursed with bringing a baby to Sedona, a gateway to the Celestial Realm. He’s been stripped of his powers and needs to fend for himself against a host of demons trying to stop him, all while doing his best not to infect the precious baby. It’s a fun story with wacky characters that feels like an anime movie, including memorable bosses. 

That extends to the art style, which is downright gorgeous. It looks like a Studio Ghibli production at times, especially in the shop. It’s packed, wall-to-wall with inventory, light streaming in, and an old man on a step ladder at the cash register. This regularity of life is on display, and then a demon is standing there buying a cheeseburger.

DAMON and BABY offer fun and whimsical contrasts. 

It blends everyday, ordinary scenery with the supernatural. A fountain at the mall becomes a demonic battleground, and a house has wardrobes that’ll pop out and attack. It’s a great mix.  It’s supported by a highly detailed art style that is full of things to look at and demons to shoot. 

The gameplay loop is simple enough, as you explore areas, shoot demons, and pick up loot. The twin-stick style shooting is engaging and fun, especially as you mix different weapons to try and quickly mow through enemies. The environments are mazes of places to explore and things to find, with upgrades unlocking new sections. The upgrades are pretty standard fare, from double jumps to bombs, with it feeling like a cross between a classic Zelda game and a twin stick shooter. 

Unfortunately, not everything works. DAMON and BABY is full of friction, but not in the way that makes you better or elevates the experience. The checkpointing in the game can be pretty brutal, as you need to find specific chairs to save your game. The enemies are a constant onslaught, and it can be really frustrating redoing multiple boss fights in a row because you got killed on the way to a save.

There needed to be more  variety in the loot options. 

Fast traveling comes later and costs money to unlock at each instance. Platforming can be difficult due to forced perspective. Some of the areas have tight hallways and tons of things on the ground, where you regularly get stuck.

Loot is all too similar, a mix of guns and stats that don’t really feel any different. Guns also take up a good bit of inventory space, meaning you’re making all too frequent runs to sell stuff or find a chest to store them. This gets better as you go, especially as you unlock fast travel, but it still takes you out of the experience when you need to go sell stuff off to pick up new loot.

DAMON and BABY also feel stuck between two ideologies. One is a bullet hell twin stick shooter, where you need to constantly be dashing and on the move to survive. The other is a more grounded and heavier experience, where the right shot matters more.

Interesting challenges and cut scenes are brought down by inconsistent combat. 

DAMON and BABY is too slow for the first, especially as you take damage from all sides and sometimes don’t even realize how low your health is. It has too much going on to be the latter, with so many enemies and projectiles firing off all the time.

This is most evident in the dash mechanic, known as a Baby Jump. You need to hold a button to pick where to “throw Baby,” and you warp to the landing spot. It’s weird to get the timing down, where there are invulnerability frames while you pick the spot. It feels wrong as you almost need to take the hit while aiming, then warp to avoid damage, where other experiences want you moving constantly. It’s also imprecise, as it can often get caught on level geometry.

Exploration is also a mixed bag throughout DAMON and BABY, as the rewards are usually just more ingredients to cook with or more loot. There are some fun platforming challenges or little cutscenes, but they are few and far between. Some areas, like the mall, are just way too big, with the objectives not always clear on where to go or what to do.

There’s room for improvement throughout DAMON and BABY.

You end up just wandering until you stumble onto the right thing, hoping you don’t die between chairs and redo long sections of fighting and exploring. Meanwhile, some areas are smaller with tighter corridors or maze-like layouts, but then you get stuck on a stack of books and take damage. 

The boss fights aren’t all that memorable either. While they do have cool designs, the actual fights aren’t usually all too interesting. Just shoot, dodge, and recycle, without a ton of variation. One specific fight, against a giant moth, is not fun. It takes place in a crowded grocery store, where their shots fly through geometry and can do huge damage almost anywhere you are, but you’re left hopping over rack after rack and dashes smack into rows of food and end early. 

Cooking in DAMON and BABY is also strange. It’s fine as a mechanic – you find ingredients, cook food based on recipes you find, and they heal you, while some also give benefits like more damage. It gets weird when you bring the shop into it. A hamburger that heals a couple of hearts costs 300. The meat to make the hamburger? That costs 1500.

Arc System Works introduces cool ideas, but they’re flawed in execution. 

It feels strangely tuned. The intent must be to make better food harder to make, but if I can buy a bunch of healing items for cheaper, what’s the point? It makes the central mechanic less engaging when ingredients are so expensive.

Why spend 1500 on meat to make a burger that gives me 1.15x shooting damage, a minimal upgrade, when I can just buy some normal burgers that’ll heal me? You can find ingredients in the wild, sure, but if you’re just one away from being able to cook, it feels off to have an entire meal cost less than a singular ingredient. It needs adjustment.

All of this in tandem makes an experience that feels more frustrating than fun. The core shooting is solid, and exploring levels can be entertaining, but it’s largely lifted by the gorgeous art style. The loot loop doesn’t feel rewarding, and level design can be both too crowded and too open. There is a solid idea and foundation here that needs to be massaged more in future attempts. DAMON and BABY has some cool ideas, but ultimately, is not a fun trip to heaven.

DAMON and BABY is out on March 25th, 2026, on PS5, PS4, Steam, and Nintendo Switch.