Games Like Double Damnation

WARNING: THIS GAME IS ACTUALLY DIFFERENT!

Momentum is shared, it depends on you and your friend's inputs if it is preserved, boosted infinitely, or instantly erased. You can also animation-cancel all actions of your friend, and vice-versa, for insane techs. The movement by itself is unironically as deep as your skill level. Hence, there is no in-game skill system, as all movement options are unlocked from the start. This is balanced by the coordination you have with your friend (or lack thereof ;) leading to constantly surprising situations, or discovering new movement options!

The goal is to make you re-feel that fresh experience of a child playing videogames for the first time... The controversial input layout and its resulting movement^, form the core of this experience. Even the spellword system highlights the rebirth of what you are used to. Instead of "Press Q to cast fireball", you literally type "fire"

True Non-Linear Level Design

Look at platformer and castlevania level design. Linear hallways with generic enemy placements. Metroidvanias also suffer greatly from this, as they promote "non-linear exploration" which is only for the connection of the levels, but not the levels themselves! These boring levels when you aren't in the lategame full of mobility upgrades can only be traversed with the exact same inputs the developer pressed and designed, only the timing of these buttons is different... Double Damnation's level design was tailored to its expressive movement, and so, every level is non-linear. For this reason, there are few levels, but they can never grow old, as you grow more skilled and traverse them in a different way - faster or safer. Every run, a different path.