DAMON and BABY

（序盤のボス撃破時点での評価） 期待と応援を込めてサムズアップ。 雑にいうと、 某ブレスオブザワイルド風の世界観が広がるツインスティックシューター。 ウィットの効いた洋画風の会話のやり取りや オマージュ元を隠そうとしないパロディ（オープニングのスター〇ォーズ等）が 混ざりあい、一周回って 若気の至りを過ぎた大人達がワイワイやんちゃしているような尊さすら感じる。 ストアにある意気込みPVや頻繁なアップデートなど 「メーカーの柱となる新規IPを育てるぞ」という気概をひしひしと感じる。 今の時代、そんなタイトルの成長を間直に見られるという観点でも とても貴重な体験が出来るに違いない。

[h1]Truly Daisuke's vision[/h1] Very fun game, good to play in spurts without making it feel too exhausting. The game does not have a deep story, in fact you can argue it's all an excuse to shoot demons in an isometric platform environment, but the game has fun with what it has and makes the most of it. There's definitely passion put into this game, even if some areas fall short like how some areas are just a single area and one boss. If you're a fan of ArcSys's world with BlazBlue and Guilty Gear, this game is a passionate letter that gives subtle nods while also sprinkling in potential future plot threads. The crossover characters from the respective IPs are not involved in the story, primarily taking a backseat to provide Damon upgrades to help in his journey. You have plenty of way to customize Damon, and there's multiple ways to snap the game in half. Inventory is limited, and I suspect it's because you're encouraged to sell any weapons you do not need so you can invest in upgrades. Once you expand your inventory, you are pretty much free to customize Damon to your preference by stacking charms. I went with an Ultimate build that eventually hit the damage cap, [spoiler]but the best build is to spec into your handgun, as not only can you get its fire rate to surpass machine guns, but it's the only weapon you can use against the final boss when it suddenly turns into a bullet hell.[/spoiler] Hell, if you so wish, you can even reset your point allocations at a cheap price once you have access to to Faust. Overall, I like this game. ArcSys can definitely expand upon this game and potentially make it a new IP in their repertoire if they want a break from making fighting games for a moment as part of their mission to make good games with a smaller budget (if I recall correctly). The best 7/10 game. By the way, did you know ArcSys also developed Sailor Moon S for the Super Famicom? It also happens to be their first fighting game. Throw Baby to become invincible, like Sailor Uranus with her ground dash.

Daisuke's passion project, Extremely dad-coded, about 15 hours in length, very oldschool type of game.

One of the first things that floored me about this game was the sheer amount of ambition put into it, despite being a lower budget game. The visual appeal was upfront, but the length of the game was longer than expected (devs approximated around 20~ hours iirc, I expected 12~ at most?) and it wasn't as linear as I thought it would have been. The devs clearly have so many ideas they want to execute that aren't typical for them to do and I greatly appreciate that alone. On that point, the game could use balancing and rethinking of certain mechanics to make them feel more whole. The game will feel like a challenge initially, but towards the end, if you collected certain upgrades and equipment, it's quite easy to go in GUNS BLAZING--disregarding many mechanics, such as elemental properties, inventory management, and more--even destroying enemies so fast you would never get acquainted with their full attack patterns. The handgun IS busted and I find that so funny (especially as a HC main), but it's allowed me to disrespect so many bosses in the last half of game, lol. It would feel more satisfying if the sheer amount of gun types and abilities felt more necessary than just being around as mere options. The fact that there's a promise of extra content in future updates at no extra cost is very exciting. The devs also have an official Discord server and they are always reading, they respond to feedback and any bug reports. I look forward to how Damon and Baby will expand!

This is a cute game that has some good ideas and fun level design, but needs a lot of polish to be truly great. I'd give it about a 6.5 out of 10. I was looking forward to this because the developer has a lot of unique and innovative gimmicks in the guilty gear series, but this game misses the mark pretty often. Here is what I think needs to be fixed: 1) Inventory management is a huge pain. Yes, you can buy bigger backpacks and storage, but I just hate tetris-ing stuff in my inventory. It's a big waste of time in this game, which is exacerbated by... 2) The healing system is the worst I have ever seen in ANY game. First of all, you need to pause the game to use healing while in combat, which is insane for a twin-stick shooter. And second, the healing consumables are all items that you have to cook using a truly absurd amount of different ingredient pickups. Each type of ingredient - and healing consumable, of which there are many, many, slight variations - takes up one of the limited slots in your inventory. I tried to engage with this system as little as possible, and just bought the default healing burgers from the starting vendor in bulk whenever possible. I don't know who picks up a twin stick shooter and wants to memorize a ten-ingredient recipe for a Carbonara Burger, but it's definitely not me. 3) Invisible walls. This is a game that gives you a lot of movement and traversal abilities, but then hamstrings your ability to use them. The amount of chest-high walls that can't be jumped over because they are actually invisible walls is insane. The worst offenders are invisible walls with invisible gaps in them that you actually are intended to get though to reach secret items. Oftentimes the invisible wall fences and fences that can actually be jumped over use the same art assets, which is a terrible design choice. 4) The maps. The levels in this game are very, very big. And you have to find map chunks lying around or else you're just running around blind. Some of the map chunks are in out-of-the way spots that are difficult to find, and you'll end up spending a lot of time trying to figure out where the hell you haven't gone yet. This game really needs some hints pointing your towards the map fragments, like in hollow knight where you can follow the pages that cornifer dropped. I spent way, way too long in the shopping mall level trying to find the maps. There are also some areas where it's really difficult to figure out where you're allowed to go because there are so many walls that the camera cuts through (looking at you, fog city apartment building). 5) Lack of meaningful gun variety. There are a lot of guns you can pick up but they all do pretty much the same thing. some do more damage than others, or fire more shots, but that's it. 6) Half-finished systems that were clearly cut. There are all sorts of elemental rings you can equip to change the element of your attack, but I finished the game and still have no idea which enemies i was supposed to use each element again. Some of the guns also have elements attached to them, but I have no idea when I was supposed to use them. Looking forward to more from this team. If they cut some of the bloated elements, streamline the gameplay loop, and spend some more time on play testing, this IP could be really good.

I do recommend Damon and Baby but with a caveat. It's a good game, I enjoyed it in the end but don't expect a super polished experience, it's was made by a small team in comparison to other Arcsys games, still it can be fun if you approach it like a metroidvania/dungeon crawler. Hope to see more of this IP in the future!

总的来说是个挺不错的的双摇杆俯视角射击游戏，还不错的地图设计和一百五十多种角色让一路上玩起来都比较新鲜。 不过在支线任务引导和背包管理方面玩起来会有点难受，支线任务很多一点头绪没有要硬着头皮逛图，背包管理的话就一直处在“背包装满护符后刚刚好剩一点点来捡材料”这种状态，但是到了最后的关卡之后掉落了大量护符且没有新的背包升级，玩起来就有点难受。 关于手感部分，我是用手柄玩的，如果用键盘的话建议先下个demo试试自己能不能适应这个冲刺操作。 总的来讲推荐游玩，里面会有你想要的小石特色元素。不过90的价格有点贵，68的样子比较合适。

8/10 would baby throw again