With Deamon X Machina: Titanic Scion's final release date inching ever closer, fans of Marvelous USA's take on a mech-action title are gearing up to dive back into the adventure and customize their mechs to their heart's content before diving into the thick of things in a significantly larger world than its predecessor.
With the studio looking to expand on the size and scope of the franchise's first outing, things are heating up for the Outers in this new adventure, requiring that they bring their best piloting skills to the field as they attempt to navigate a new world with complex and nuanced political relationships requiring their tact and skill.
To that end, let's take a look at what's new in Titanic Scion and perhaps help you decide if this one is worth your time, attention, and of course, your hard-earned cash.
Marvelous has stated that Titanic Scion is a sequel to the first game. Your character is an Outer, a human being who has been granted the power to control and pilot mechs called Arsenals thanks to the power of Femto, an element formed during a past catastrophe called the Moonfall Calamity.
You are thrust into a struggle for control of a planet that's the stage for an armed conflict between the Outer Government and its military branch, called the Axioms, and the Reclaimers who form a resistance group dedicated to retaining their home planet's freedom. Expect nuanced interactions with their members and perhaps even a few key decisions to make over the course of the story.
While the original Deamon X Machina featured large explorable areas in which you carried out missions, Titanic Scion features an open world that you must explore, navigating it between missions and encountering enemies, field bosses, and side content along the way.
It's a welcome change that builds on the size and scope of the first game while allowing players a modicum of freedom in how they approach its content.
Getting around the open world that Marvelous is bringing in this time around might sound daunting for an Outer who needs to get a rather large mech moving and covering ground quickly. But the studio has been clever to introduce mechanics that make those journeys easier, and dare we say quite fun!
That's because Early previews show the player character being able to mount a horse along the way to their next objective, while others choose to use the newly introduced Femto-boost mechanic to take their mech to the skies, covering ground rapidly in the process. All of this is facilitated by mech designs that are streamlined and lightweight, making them perfect for mobility during exploration and even combat.
That's an intelligent change if we ever saw one.
Like many other open worlds, Titanic Scion's map features fast-travel points that you can use if you feel like zipping around in your mech isn't your cup of tea. While that's certainly convenient, you will need to visit each one and complete objectives to ensure it is available for use later down the line.
While the objectives themselves seem fairly straightforward, we believe that it's an interesting wrinkle that balances convenience with engagement, making you actually put in the work to earn the right to skip tedious journeys from point A to B. It's way more immersive than simply having to visit the area to unlock the added functionality of each point, for sure.
The sleeker mech models find another place to shine, with Titanic Scion's combat benefiting greatly from their improved mobility. The option to lock-on to an enemy during battles is now present, as is a plethora of ways to deal with the threat that the enemy poses.
The action has been stepped up a notch with the new particle weapons system that lets you essentially switch between attacking, guarding, and dodging, along with the heavy Armor mechanic that lets you call down a massive mech to obliterate your enemies in a pinch as long as you have enough power to do so.
Expect a more refined, seamless combat loop in Titanic Scion, and try to enjoy it as much as we're going to.
If you're the type to seek out the biggest and baddest enemies in a new area the minute you enter it, we've got good news for you. Titanic Scion's early previews suggest that there are both field bosses to discover alongside a roster of enemies that you will have to defeat over the course of the main campaign.
The boss designs we've seen are quite impressive, ranging from giant monstrosities to agile characters who are probably going to bring a relentless stream of attacks for you to manage out in the field. There is a possibility that each of these fearsome foes drops useful gear or weapons, incentivizing you to take them on and emerge victorious with some skillful piloting of your mech.
Speaking of loot drops, Marvelous seems to be averse to players hoarding items in their inventory, allowing players to select only one item from downed enemies from a range of options. These could include items that might serve you well in your current encounter or upgrades to your mech that let you play the long game and create a build that withstands increasingly difficult assaults.
It's a great way of ensuring that your choices matter in the game, making you think carefully about your progression in a title that places a lot of emphasis on loadouts and their effective use in the field.
Strategic looting is one part of the equation in creating a lethal build for your mech, with the new Fusion System being another. The parts and materials you nab from enemies let you choose upgrades across four categories, opening up a lot of options for your build.
There are weapon skills, stylish new moves, upgrades to specific mech components, and so much more on offer in a customization system that runs pretty deep. You could find yourself sinking a lot of hours into this game if you like crunching numbers to min/max your build, and that's a good thing in a title like Titanic Scion.
We touched upon the Axioms and Reclaimers in an earlier section of this list but it's worth mentioning that their natural affinity towards a less-than-friendly relationship could be a source of interesting conflict for your character to navigate.
The game could potentially include story threads or side content in which you would have to pick one side over the other to get to a specific reward or upgrade, saving the other option for your next playthrough. It could mean a fair bit of replay value for Titanic Scion while allowing its players the chance to see familiar story beats from a different perspective if Marvelous has indeed made use of the narrative potential here.
Aside from teaming up with your buddies in online co-op play, the lone wolves among you might be interested to know that asynchronous multiplayer is making its way to Titanic Scion. Early previews have revealed that the actions of other players do affect your version of the mysterious planet your character is in, bringing the feeling of a world in which other mercenaries are after similar goals as your own.
It's a nice touch and is one that could be quite immersive once the game gets some traction going post-release.
Marvelous has been clever to bring a soundtrack that fits well with the action and theme of the game, mixing rock and roll into the game's soundtrack to create some memorable tracks you might just find yourself playing even when you're not actively fending off enemies in your mech.
The soundtrack might very well become our favorite part of the game if the tracks we've already heard are any indication.
Exploring the open world could get all the more entertaining with the presence of minigames, such as one in which you mine for useful resources, using well-timed button presses to improve your chances of obtaining more of them. There may even be a collectible card game to track down in some obscure corner of the world if some previews are to be believed.
While Marvelous has been rather cagey about the playtime Titanic Scion brings to the table, expect the main story to take anywhere between 15-20 hours to complete while completionist runs could take that number up by a significant amount.
Additionally, its multiplayer elements could have you constantly returning to the game's world to take on missions with your friends or perhaps indulge in a few versus battles to blow off some steam. Titanic Scion could keep you occupied for a long time to come if its gameplay loop resonates well with your love for mech-action titles.
If you're looking to play the game on your PC, the minimum specs your setup will need include an Intel Core i5-10400 CPU, 16GB of RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050, Windows 10 64-bit and 50 GB of SSD storage, and DirectX Version 12. The recommended specs take things up to an Intel Core i7-12700 CPU, 32GB of RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, Windows 10 64-bit and 50 GB of SSD storage, and DirectX Version 12.