Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion

Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion was provided by Marvelous/XSEED for review. Thank you!

When I first saw Daemon X Machina release on the Switch in 2019, I was overwhelmingly excited. I was craving a new action mech game, and I have always loved grinding and outfitting to make myself as powerful as possible. However, while I did have fun, it was more restrictive than I thought it would be, especially when it comes to its mission structure. The sequel, Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion, gets rid of almost all of those restrictions I felt before, giving me the game I was longing for back in the day. It's definitely a big improvement over the first game, and almost all of the issues I had are gone.

A lot of the areas I wanted to see improved were based around the gameplay and progression, though I did find the story to be improved as well. You play as your customized character, who escapes from his home and ends up joining the humans as they fight back against the Sovereign Axiom after discovering what they were going to do to you. As an Outer, someone who was born with special abilities, we will take a stand against the place we used to call home and end its oppression of humans.

The story didn't really hook me at first and felt very generic, but as it progressed, there were some twists that I found entertaining, and I was sucked back in once I learned more about the lore behind the Outers and what they are doing. It never shakes that familiar feeling and can be very obvious at some pivotal moments, but it's still enjoyable to see play out. The conflict between the Outers and Humans is intriguing, especially after knowing the shared history between them.

Ultimately, no matter how interesting it is, it never shakes the feeling that the story was a second thought that was meant more as a means to an end to justify the fights. At the very least, the story is entertaining, but I do wish it were more impactful overall.

Visually, it’s a striking difference from the first game, opting for more realistic visuals over the cel-shaded anime aesthetic that defined the previous entry. As someone who enjoys cel-shaded visuals, I like the change they made here. The biomes are diverse and have some interesting looks to them. There are definitely some spots that feel similar to others around it, but I found a lot of appeal just flying and looking at my surroundings. It may be a stark difference from the previous entry, but it’s a welcome one.

The large open worlds we can explore are another strength for Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion. Apart from some similar-looking areas, there are a lot of spots to discover and enemies to find and fight. There are some nice points of interest around to discover, like supply depots to activate, fast-travel points to unlock, huge mini-bosses to take down, and encampments to uncover. It usually revolves around combat and finding rare loot, but it's enjoyable enough regardless.

Combat also feels much better in general, though it still has its moments. We can have four weapons equipped on us at any given time, and extras kept in reserve that we can switch to at a moment’s notice. Utilizing all-directional movement, fights can take place on the ground or in the air, and they feel dynamic and exciting. I would find myself going and seeking out fights to grind and enjoy myself, using my laser sword, minigun, and shoulder rockets to blast through the enemies in front of me. Almost every fight was exhilarating, and I had a blast fighting through larger enemies and bosses.

In the beginning of Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion, combat can start getting a little monotonous, but this changes as we progress and get new mechanics to play around with. Weapon skills are the first big one. As we play, we can now extract genes to fuse into ourselves, giving us new abilities and skills to either passively buff or actively use with weapons. These skills can spice up combat encounters, unlocking moves like increasing the size of your laser sword and doing a wide slash around you, spinning in a circle and shooting your gun at everyone, and going into a deadly combo. They not only help out in a pinch, but can make fights feel even more exhilarating than they already are.

However, I wish equipping skills were more enjoyable. Each weapon/active skill that is unlocked is equipped to weapon types. So, Laser Swords will only have one skill slot available, while Taichi has its own. It can be a bummer, having two skills that you can’t use with one weapon, since only one can be equipped for each weapon type. You could equip the skills into two different weapon types and just equip them at the same time, but as someone who prefers using a gun and sword, I found myself wishing I could use multiple skills per weapon type.

But I ultimately like the idea behind this system, and it has some cool implications. Since you’re infusing immortal genes into yourself, your character’s appearance will start to change as you continue. Slowly but surely, their skin will change, and new features may pop up. We do have an option to reset our look, but it costs a ton of credits. Still, it’s interesting to see how relying on something so experimental can easily backfire.

On top of that, the gear we find is randomized and can have different stats, as well as attachment slots to augment it further. This starts off pretty mild, with a lot of gear feeling like throwaways with almost no improvements from other gear found, but it gets a lot more intriguing as we progress through the story and start to find more powerful gear, genes, and attachments. We will also find recipes for gear to craft, and with reinforcing, allowing us to further modify weapons, it opens up a lot of variety.

I would say that customization is Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion's greatest strength. There are tons of options for new weapons and armor to craft, a large amount of new gear to find with randomized elements, and augments and attachments to fine-tune them. There are also extensive customization options for our character and suit of armor to make them look exactly how we want. The number of choices for self-expression in aesthetics and our weapons/gear keeps things fresh.

Other than the main storyline and randomized equipment, there's a wealth of progression and side content to keep us busy. We have a Mercenary Rank and weapon proficiency rank that go up similarly to an RPG leveling system, which gives us new bonuses and buffs for those specific types of weapons. There is also a wealth of side quests to take on, the points of interest I mentioned previously, and a Colosseum to fight others one-on-one to climb the ranks, earning you money and camo. There's also a full-on card game called Overbullet to play. It's simple to learn, but it has some surprising depth to it that I very much enjoyed.

All of this can be done in multiplayer, which is a blast. Getting into epic fights with friends was a ton of fun, and there are some nice little features that come along with it. The one I found most interesting is sharing Key Cards. To enter some facilities in the open world, we need to find and analyze key cards. However, some of these are blank and can have information copied into them. If you are playing with someone, you can share and copy their key card info into yours so you can find this place on your own as well.

Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion - Steam Deck Performance

Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion is one of those titles that just feels pretty awesome to play on a handheld. These kinds of open-world JRPGs always hit harder for me on the go, so I was glad that this one is playable. After playing the game on my Steam Deck for our preview coverage, I had an idea of how it would run. And although I played much more of the game, I found that the settings I had chosen before were the best settings overall.

A lot of the game can be played at higher framerates, with much of the world and fights easily hitting 40 FPS on lower settings that are a mix between low and medium quality. However, there are some areas loading in, bosses, and larger fights can drop it below the 40 FPS limit, which can be jarring. On top of that, multiplayer will push the framerate even lower, making it impossible to play at 40 FPS even on the lowest settings. So, I ultimately decided that the settings I chose during the preview period were my favorite.

Because of all those scenarios, especially with multiplayer, I don't recommend pushing the framerate up to 40. It's definitely doable playing alone, though there will still be some drops here and there, but playing with friends will see more crazy drops. The settings I have recommended are also the ones I would say work with 40 FPS when playing alone, so if you want the higher framerate, just change the limiter to 40 FPS instead of 30.

There are different upscalers that are included, but TSR is arguably the best one. FXAA anti-aliasing looks a bit shimmery, even when standing still, and while NVIDIA DLSS can be selected, it looks identical to TSR. So, I recommend using TSR Max in Quality mode with a mix of Medium to Low settings. It ultimately still looks fantastic like this and battery drain is relatively low for up to 5 hours of battery life.

There are some long loading times, and the text size is way too small in some aspects. Any discussions that appear on-screen when flying around or fighting are way too small, as well as details for accepted quests on the right side of the HUD. Looking more closely at the equipment is more legible, but there are still some spots that were tough to read.

Accessibility

There is a dedicated accessibility tab, which has color correction modes for Protanopia, Deuteranopia, and Tritanopia, as well as a toggle for descriptive subtitles. We can also change the camera sensitivity and shake, vibrations, change difficulty, toggle auto-saves, and change audio settings. We can also completely modify the game's HUD to our heart's content, and rebind controls.

The game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions, but it does have cloud saves and controller support. There are no HDR settings.

Conclusion

Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion is a big improvement over the last game in the series in almost every way. The combat feels much tighter and weighty, the amount of customization gives a lot of options to build, and the open world gave me the freedom I was hoping for. The story isn't as in-depth as I like, but it's still an improvement and doesn't bring down the overall experience. The game is a blast, and I am so happy with the changes they made to the formula.

On top of that, it's very playable on the Steam Deck. I do recommend compromising a little for stability throughout the game, regardless of what you do or if you play with friends, but it doesn't harm the experience overall. 30 FPS with good-looking visuals and under 16W battery drain on average is wonderful, and I would absolutely recommend getting this game for portable play.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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