[h1]A Daemon's Titanic Strangeness[/h1]
DxM: Titanic Scion is an third-person action-shooter with RPG elements in a mecha-style ensemble. You are an Outer, an augmented human and formerly part of the Sovereign Axiom, an Outer-centric organization that has warred with humanity for several centuries. In the ashes of two distinct wars and a devastated star system, you're left fending for yourself and joining with a ragtag team of scavengers trying to navigate the aftermath of Earth.
There's a lot for me to say about Titanic Scion, and my general conflicted feelings throughout playing it. Firstly, unlike its predecessor, DxM, Titanic Scion breaks the former's Armored Core mold by two major decisions: removing the mecha in favor of a pilot-centric exosuit, and going to an open world environment. Both very ambitious and distinct in the attempt to change the game's baseline formula while maintaining the same combat model. I didn't hate it necessarily, but it also didn't impress me as much as it could've.
For one, the overworld model unfortunately follows the worst version: the environment is largely irrelevant, combat centers on pockets of enemies, and you have to sparingly jet around picking up mining nodes. It is a series of content islands chained together that exist solely for their own sake and not much else. DxM's Ace Combat / Armored Core 'pick a mission and execute' style is near completely absent, but traversing the overworld did not add anything to the experience of ... navigating to the mission's starting flag compared to just starting a mission. For such a dramatic investment in development resources, I don't know if the overworld justifies itself. Even with Co-Op in such an environment, there was never a reason to leave each other or explore on our own (in fact, the host has a tether to the co-op partners so lol).
On the other hand, Titanic Scion is a large step forward in the technical gameplay, user interface, and overall character build/play experience compared to DxM. Taking the foundations of its predecessor and iterating on it went universally well, and even going back to DxM with my rose-tinted glasses immediately noticed how much better Titanic Scion was in this respect. I'm not a fan of the smaller, non-mecha scale, but the exosuit gameplay is functionally the same just ... very flimsy and weightless feeling. The whole point of mecha is to have cool machinery working, not some laser that materializes your armor on and off at will, you know?
My largest and unyielding criticism of the game, however, is the complete mess of a story. It is severely underbaked, barely strung together, and lacking in the punch it wants to deliver about human social connection, technology changing the human condition, and the divorce one experiences when they no longer believe in their (former) way of life. All the ingredients are there, the components make sense, but they are just NOT cooked to completion. DxM's own story had some wild ideas going on with it, but the classical Armored Core mission narrator / email system, plus in-mission cutscenes, did a lot for its presentation. Cohesive, wild in some places, but it drove you start to finish. Titanic Scion struggled constantly despite aping some of the same hallmarks.
This, unfortunately, greatly damaged the game's experience despite the solid technical basis, as I found myself laughing constantly at the drama it wanted to present because it was so undeserved. Former teammate espousing eco-terrorism views and yadda yadda? Meet them once, have a fight, meet them again, kill them, dramatic monologue, aaaand they're gone, well onto the next cause I got neun of these one-trick ponies to work through. Again, each of them had interesting ideas, but this played like a proof-of-concept for pacing, not a final or cohesive product. Sure, the gameplay was pretty good, but the difference between a game and a sandbox is the narrative experience tying it together, you know?
[h2]Conclusion[/h2]
I was honestly conflicted about Titanic Scion all the way up to finishing it. The game's strange issues and underbaked feeling honestly makes me think there was significant trouble in development and the team had to prioritize shipping literally anything. It had the ambition for something much grander, and all the parts were there, it just didn't build out to achieving that potential. The fact it was so robust in some ways, such as the technical gameplay, is proof of their skillful capability, so I don't think they were overreaching necessarily.
This game is barely a positive 'yes' from me because of that: the gameplay is solid for a DxM sequel and you can have fun in co-op with friends. The story is a mess, even by this genre's standards, and sadly very forgettable as a result. I think picking this up on sale at the least is the best way forward, and if you have two other friends (3 player co-op), it can be a fun romp. The inclusion of challenge dungeons, world bosses, and other repeat grind/farm content is where the meat of the game will actually be, and give you something to chew on for a good few dozen hours if you're really into that sort of thing.
