Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion

Absolute blast of a title. Finished the main plot in about 20 hours (avoided 70% of the side content and grinding). Tons of side content to do. improved gameplay from the previous title. Worth getting on a sale. I don't agree with a 70 dollar price point. DLC is more of the same but new parts and bosses and a loose plot. If you enjoyed Daemon X Machina. Titanic Scion is more of what you loved but with open world co-op.

Didn't quite know what to expect from this one coming from Daemon x Machina, but after 200 hours I can firmly say it's a solid, if slightly unexpected follow-up. Yes I get it, the vibes are closer to something like Anthem now, at least on the surface, but there's still a ton of DxM (and Armored Core) DNA underneath. Adjusting to the new balancing around flight and the open world takes time, but its decently done for a first attempt. That said, the open world is a little bit basic in terms of things to do and many of the side dungeon (such as supply depots) are very samey in both basic layout and looks; frankly a lot of these places I don't buy were actually built with human work/habitation in mind and unlike Armored Core 6, DxM: TS doesn't have the sheer megalophobic horror factor to lean into that sense of disbelief. But we both know if you're thinking of playing this, you care more about the combat. And... its good. They refined a lot of things from DxM 1, like energy weapons both actively draining your Femto to use AND having hard ammo counts that ticked down simultaneously with Femto drain. Bunch of new weapon types and special mechanics/functions have been added. They've also added ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sword beams, which is frankly cool enough that by end game spamming them is what I engineered my final build around. The new colossal immortals honestly don't feel that out of place, considering a lot of them just build on existing patterns and mechanics used by DxM collosal bosses... they just look fleshier and freakier. They also fixed the abominably designed skill tree system of DxM via the new fusions and the skills they unlock, with more options for suppressing the visual changes (and honestly just making a lot of the visual changes less of an out of place eyesore). Story is uh... well, I once again was pleasantly surprised given I didn't go in expecting much and was mostly just interested to see how it ties back into DxM. Best I can tell, this is basically a timeline after the "Fullfill Life's Purpose" ending of DxM. Times and names have changed (with several ancient names being coopted for new factions and concepts, which is a neat linguistic touch you don't see much in a lot of games worldbuilding tbh) but femto related bs has evolved further and Arsenals are now much smaller, more advanced, and capable of being mass produced at such a rate that even civilians can get their hands on one (albeit fairly basic models). Hence the body suit change. Again, it might feel jarring at first but you get used to the change in scale after a bit. Plotwise, it was alright... left me with several questions and tbh there were multiple interesting plot lines that either were forgotten by the end or just went nowhere and... look if you paid attention for the story in DxM, that one somehow feels much more complete with its small details than this one. And DxM literally had most of its small, character/background related plot details shuffled off into a sourcebook that I was only able to read because some legend on the reddit translated it into English. But even with the growing pains of an open world transition and some dropped balls remembering how many of its own narrative elements are in plan, it's good. I promise. If you played the original and liked it, give this one a shot. Don't let yourself get hung up on the fact that your death machine is no longer the size of a single family home. Because you can still unlock a death machine that is the size of a single family home in this :^D 8 traumatized kojima-esque supersoldiers who despise their existences so much they are fine with letting the whole world burn just to reset to a kinder, purer slate, out of 10.