Daimon Blades is a brutally fast hack-and-slash roguelite set in the wonderfully weird universe of E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy. You know you’re in for a wild ride when the game opens with a thesaurus explaining what the hell its name even means, then immediately dumps you into actual hell to fend off hordes of demons. Much like E.Y.E., it’s janky and cryptic, but also endlessly fascinating.
Hey folks, I’m Ash, and let me show you what Daimon Blades has to offer, where it excels, and also where it stumbles.
Video version of this review (~13 minutes)
I hope you like big swords
Daimon Blades is all about speed and spectacle. You and your enemies zip through the levels at ridiculous speeds, charge attacks detonate the whole screen, and it's often hard to even see what's happening thanks to all of the limbs flying around.
Needless to say, carving through hordes of demons with a massive greatsword is immensely satisfying - especially since these aren’t ordinary weapons. They’re the titular Daimon Blades, each with its own attack patterns, magical abilities like turning enemies into flowers, and perks you can upgrade between runs. They're distinct enough to feel different, yet similar enough that swapping between won't make you stumble.
And that’s important, because the enemies here don’t give you a second to breathe. Basic fodder will simply leap at you, while the stronger ones will teleport behind you, try to pin you down, or just scuttle across the ceiling to strike from weird angles. None of them are dangerous alone, but once twenty of them start circling you, it becomes really hard to stay in control.
At least until you learn the magical combo: dodge around, charge a heavy attack, dive in to bisect everything in your path, and repeat. You can clear most encounters this way, and on higher difficulties you’ll pretty much need to. Which brings me to my main issue: the combat’s a bit one-note.
Leaping from group to group and carving through them in seconds is a great power trip, but once you’ve mastered the basics there’s just not much depth left to chase. After spending a lot of time with Darktide recently, I can’t help but feel like Daimon Blades lacks that extra layer of nuance - the various little tricks that you can use to swing a fight in your favor. Which is a shame, because I genuinely like what Daimon Blades is trying to do - it just feels a bit rough right now.
The enemies are cool - they just need to highlight their attacks better
Get ready for some jank
Unfortunately, I have to pile in a bit more bad news, because there’s a fair bit of jank sprinkled throughout. Things just don't feel 100% there. The weapons, especially the big ones, lack some much-needed weight and impact. The grappling hook - because of course there's a grappling hook - is especially finicky. Getting a proper lock-on is very inconsistent, which makes it supremely awkward to use mid-fight - exactly when its desperately needed.
Thankfully, the devs seem open to feedback. The grappling hook used to require you to stand perfectly still, but after an update you can now you can use it even while double-jumping! So hopefully these problems will be sorted out in the near future.
As for right now, while Daimon Blades isn't a Souls-like, it does borrow one of the genre's best features: parrying. Not only that, but you can parry both melee and ranged enemies! Parrying projectiles is incredibly satisfying since they bounce right back into the enemy's face and make them explode. And since the timing is generous enough that you can do it mid-fight, it's a fun and very potent tool.
On the other hand, trying to parry melee enemies is a quick way to get turned into soup. Some attacks have bizarre delays while others come out instantly, making reactive play almost impossible. Loose hitboxes don’t help either. Several times I died without even seeing what hit me, which just never feels good.
That cryptid looking blur is about to one-shot me from across the room
Multiplayer madness
Where Daimon Blades really sets itself apart from Souls games is with its actually functional co-op. You can team up with up to three other players and carve through demons together like one big, unhinged family. And there will be a lot of demons to chop as the enemy counts skyrocket in full groups.
Which is great, because mowing down a horde is far more exciting than gently massaging a damage sponge with a huge greatsword. Balance does need a bit of work, though: most enemies feel fair, but a few hit absurdly hard for how much they zip around. It’s pretty demoralizing to spend an hour on a great run, only to get spawn-camped in the final room by enemies you can barely see.
Between levels, your team will get to decide which regions to visit, which mostly just changes the scenery and mission variety. Then, every few levels, you’ll do a Mortal Kombat style stare-down with The Hermit - the big bad pulling all the strings. He picks a permanent debuff to slap onto your squad - or fails to if your team is, and I paraphrase, "perverted enough." Afterwards you counter with a massive team-wide buff of your own. It’s a clever risk–reward sort of system, but it needs a bit more variety as everyone just stacks damage and calls it a day.
Much like everything else, multiplayer has its fair share of jank - mainly the netcode. Even when I’m hosting, allies tend to teleport around mid-fight, making any sort of coordination impossible. Hopefully the devs can tighten that up soon so we can all focus on what truly matters in life - opening treasure chests!
Everyone loves shiny gems!
Are the upgrades fun?
Since Daimon Blades is a roguelite, there’s plenty of different loot to chase: new weapons, rings, and currency you can use to power yourself up between missions, along with a wide assortment of upgrades that last for the duration of the run. It might sound complex, but there's really not much too it.
Most upgrades you can find mid-mission just boil down to bigger numbers: more damage, more health, more loot, etc. Because of this I rarely had to think about what to pick - the best choice was almost always immediately obvious. The permanent upgrades follow the exact same formula - they just make you slight better, which is nice, but hardly exciting.
When Daimon Blades gets creative, though, things get much more exciting. The Alchemy/Magic system is a great example of this. There aren’t that many spells yet, but the ones that do exist can completely change how you fight. My favorite is the whirlwind spell as it scoops up enemies, tosses them around, and drops them neatly in front of you in head-chopping formation.
I just wish magic wasn’t so buggy. For most of my runs, spells would break after a level or two and never work again. I tried everything to fix it, but nope! No luck. It's just a roll of the dice. Maybe it’ll work and you’ll have a blast, or maybe it’ll just become a shiny new sticker on your UI.
The first is completely useless, and the other two completely identical
Weird yet captivating world
But you know what’s even cooler than a sticker? Well... pretty much everything - including Daimon Blades’ world. It has that Warhammer 40K vibe where everything looks like it's built for giants, but it’s so bizarre and alien that you can’t even guess what any of it is supposed to be. And honestly, that mystery makes it impossible to look away.
For example, there's a region that looks like hell. It's a literal hellscape of lava, endlessly trashing souls fused into the walls, and a soundscape made entirely of fire and scraping metal. It’s clearly an awful place - but what is it? Why does it exist? Is it actual hell? Are we even on Earth? If you’re looking for answers, I’ve got nothing.
And the characters aren’t much help either. Most of them are zealots on a holy crusade to destroy The Hermit - because he's the bad guy... right? The few that do know what’s going on speak in cryptic riddles that somehow make things even less clear.
My favorite moment is when an evil door - yes, an actual door - starts talking to you in a language you don’t understand. It then realizes you’re confused, apologizes for mistaking you for someone else, then switches to another language you still don’t understand and keeps going. It’s complete insanity, but it works. I’m honestly more curious about Daimon Blades’ world than any other game I’ve played this year. It’s strange, stylish, and utterly unique.
This wouldn't feel amiss in Warhammer 40k, and I say that as a compliment
Big bad bosses
Speaking of doors, that's one of the three bosses you'll face in the current version. The first one acts as an introduction so he's fairly simple, but The Door and The Hermit are where the real fun begins. They're lengthy, multi-phase fights with loads of different attacks, and I love both of them. They're the type of boss that will obliterate you if you’re just mashing buttons, but if you pay attention and learn their patterns, you can get through the entire fight without taking a single hit.
I especially love how you can parry their projectiles, so when The Hermit unleashes his gigantic wave of death, you can just yell "git gud" and send it right back at him. These bosses are a great example of how Daimon Blades' combat system can be used for something more intricate, and I can only hope future updates will expand this sort of design across the rest of the game.
I don't think I ever fought a door before
Does it run well?
Given how many special effects these bosses tend to spew out, I was pleasantly surprised to see Daimon Blades run smoothly, even on my fairly old PC. Throughout my journey I never had any serious FPS drops, and I only crashed once. So performance-wise, it’s in surprisingly good shape - aside from the multiplayer netcode being a bit wobbly.
Is it worth playing?
So... is Daimon Blades worth playing this early? That depends on your tolerance for jank. I genuinely like what it's doing, and I had a great time with it over the past week. But it only just launched into Early Access, so it's very rough around the edges.
If you're okay with that roughness, you can get a solid 15-20 hours of fun before it starts feeling repetitive. But if you want something polished that you can really sink your teeth into, I'd recommend waiting a few months and letting the devs smooth things out. The foundation really is solid - it just needs more time in the oven.
[Note]: If you want to make your first run through Daimon Blades to be as smooth as a trip through hell can be, I've made a beginner's guide covering some of the things I wish I knew when I first started.