Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion - PS5 Review

Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion by developer Marvelous First Studio and publisher Marvelous Games—Sony PlayStation 5 preview written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes 

Starting off with a bang, Daemon X Machina: Titan's Scion wastes no time throwing you right into the action. Sprung by your best friend from a process that would have turned you into a soulless weapon, you show the Axiom just how much of a force of nature you can be. Hacking, slashing and shooting your way out of an Axiom stronghold, it doesn't take long for things to go sideways and for you to find yourself plummeting from space to the planet below's surface. 

I really enjoyed the original Daemon X Machina when it was released back in 2019. Mission based structure and more mech parts than I knew what to do with, it was the perfect substitute for the Armor Core series that had been quiet for years at that point. Back again, gone is the mission based structure, but returning are just as many mech parts than I knew what to do with!

Taking a different direction than the original Daemon X Machina, Daemon I Machina: Titan’s Scion has both scaled everything up and down simultaneously. That doesn’t make sense PY… it’s one or the other. Is it though? Titan’s Scion has scaled down the size of the mechs, but increased the size of the world which is now yours to roam as you see fit. But does that open world work? More after this image.

Overall the open world works in that it grants you more freedom and ties everything together. While certain areas will remain locked until you progress in the main story, the rest is pretty much yours to explore as long as you’re powerful enough to do so. Axiom forces, neutral parties and beings known as Immortals will often stand between you and your goals.

Titan’s Scion is not an RPG, if you want to be stronger, you’re going to need to find better parts to equip. Coming in light, medium or heavy variations, you’ll be able to customize your helmet, chest piece, legs, and both right and left arms. Following that, you’ll be able to equip a total of four weapons that can be swapped between both hands as you see fit. Just because something is set to your right hand doesn't mean it needs to stay there.

Adding in a few other gear pieces like an auxiliary system and shoulder weapon, this is how you’re going to progress further into the world. To get these pieces you’ll have a few options. The first? Explore the world and gain equipment pieces from the remains of your enemies. This aspect right here is where everything “makes sense”. Defeating enemies from the Axiom will allow you to pick up new equipment pieces. Which makes perfect sense, right?

Where things get really interesting is going up against Immortals. Immortals are not immortal in the general sense of the word. They will die, and when they do, they'll present you with scrap, equipment parts and even gene sequences to be used later down the line. Immortals are beings that have continuously recycled aspects of their genetics over and over in which they don’t really die. Part machine, part organic, finally, enemies that make sense to drop you all the things that you need. It makes the in-game economy make sense and ties all of the in-game functions together.

From there, you can also buy equipment in a shop for a good chunk of change or develop new equipment based off of the remains of what you’ve defeated in the field. This format, when it works, works really well. You can easily go from being pushed over to being the biggest, baddest mech on the field taking out everything that comes near you. When it doesn’t work, that’s what promotes further exploration into the world’s reaches. You don’t always have to get equipment from defeating enemies, sometimes they are already defeated and you simply need to pick up the loot. Other times, you may have a few equipment chests lying around. Everything is free game if you can get your hands on it.

If even all of that is not getting you the results that you want? Then there are two options. First, pick up a few side quests which could give you what you’re looking for. Second, if no side quests are available, move the main story along. This is something that I appreciated with Titan’s Scion. The open world is more of large “open areas” making the overall progression easier to keep in mind while exploring compared to a true open world. It keeps you more in the moment and not so distracted that you’ve been playing cards for an hour… which I may or may not have done.

Titan’s Scion has a card game and I am not ashamed to admit that I spent a good deal of time learning how to play it. Split between four card slots, you face off against an opponent working on card combos and synergies using both you and your opponent's cards. It’s a good distraction from the fast pace of everything else going on.

And it can be very fast paced, so much so that sometimes I didn’t bother keeping track other than what I was currently equipped with: my health, the enemy’s health, and that I was locked in. Because I was so ready to go. Whether your feet are firmly on the ground or that you’re flying around, combat is not slow. At any given time you’ll be hacking and slashing at enemies with blades, hammering them with fists or hammers, or shooting them with a wide variety of ranged weapons.

This is where I thought the gameplay of Titan’s Scion really shines. The combat is super fast-paced and you can’t really mentally check out as even easy level enemies can do some serious damage if you're not paying attention. With two separate buttons to attack with, you can follow up a combo attack from one arm with the other if your timing is spot on. If that’s not what you want to do, you can hit both buttons to attack with both weapons if they can be linked together, such as two swords. Physical, laser, doesn’t matter. It will keep your head in the game.

Even ranged combat doesn’t leave you much space to doze off. While I much prefer being in melee than ranged which allows for an easier time flinching enemies for powerful grab attacks, there are cases where good old fashioned range combat saves the day. This style of combat varies from single shots and automatic firing to charged shots and rocket launchers. It takes a bit more effort to get a feel for what works best for you, but once you do, setting up your loadout for any situation becomes that much easier.

Speaking of loadouts, you’ll probably spend a good deal of time working on these. Thankfully you can save multiple loadouts to make swapping gear a piece of cake as some missions require specifics such as only light or heavy gear for testing. What I appreciated more than the loadouts however was that you don’t have to be at home base to do these, you can take care of setting yourself up out in the field as long as you find a supply base location and set it up.

This works great where you don’t need to go all the way back, but with the quick travel system? I oftentimes found myself completely forgetting about the supply bases because of how easy it was to simply travel back to home base. There are other reasons for travelling here as well, such as being able to eat ice cream for limited time buffs and perhaps one of the wildest systems that Titanic Scion has to offer. Gene mutations.

Being an Outer, someone who looks human but is much stronger, you find yourself in an interesting situation which makes life all the more interesting. You specifically, after surviving a death blow from an epic monster, find yourself able to “gene splice” yourself for new abilities. Some of these abilities are combat based granting you new moves that you can set up for weapon types, and others, are more general use such as being able to auto-dodge or mirror image to make yourself even more formidable. 

With all of the other elements such as mech parts, attachments for the mech parts if they have the slots for them and being able to eat ice cream for another set of buffs, the mutations are worth exploring to see what kinds of abilities they’ll grant you. What are shiny eyes, wavy lines and spiky wings in the face of all of that power?

With all of the awesome, there were a few small issues here and there, but nothing game breaking. The framerate every now and then would hiccup causing a visual lag. This was much less in combat and more in general exploration. There was also a moment where when I quick travelled I was just stuck in the in game load which is an elevator room. Nothing that closing the game and reloading the most recent save wouldn’t fix, but there are odds that you would have to potentially redo a few story dialog segments if that is what you were up to.

On a final note, there is one aspect that I ABSOLUTELY LOVED, and a lot of other developers could learn from. Demo to Full version recognition. I played the Demo of Daemon X Machina for hours until I couldn’t move it further as I hit the cutoff point. When I loaded that said data into the full version, just to have that character’s save data, there was a sweet chime of all of the trophies that I would have gotten had I played the full version to begin with. I was not penalized because that progress had been made in the demo. Those milestones were recognized. 

Overall, Daemon X Machina: Titan’s Scion is a great addition into Marvelous’ Daemon X Machina series. Between the mech customizations and the fast paced combat to test those customizations out in? I think it was worth the wait for the next entry into this series.

Scores: 8 / 10