DAEMON X MACHINA (Switch) Review – Mecha At Its Finest

PhantomZ2 takes to the skies to reclaim the world in DAEMON X MACHINA! Thank you to Nintendo of America for sending us a review code.

Nintendo started their E3 2018 Direct with a tease of a brand new IP from MARVELOUS Japan Inc. and First Studio. Through this, we saw cryptic, but eye capturing imagery accompanied by a rocking track, heavy on the guitars. Although it ended abruptly, the name still evokes an eagerness within me.

DAEMON X MACHINA

My interest in this game was high, like many other titles that released this year. However, this game had something that those games didn’t: Mechs. The concept of a small and easily destructible human being given the power to operate machinery and tech that not only simulates the physical operations of a human but goes beyond in terms of speed and strength has always been incredibly interesting to me. A piece of media with high-speed mech battles, a rocking soundtrack, and a nice looking art style? Now I’m far beyond interested, I’m in love. So with thanks to Nintendo for sending us a review copy, let’s hop into our Arsenals and reclaim the world in DAEMON X MACHINA.

STORY:

Years ago, a piece of the moon crashed into Earth and with it came a special energy called Femto. This crash brought upon the destruction of humanity as the moon’s Femto corrupted A.I.s, causing them to turn against humans. However, to contrast humanity’s impending demise, this Femto also gave some humans the ability to fight back through mechs – known as Arsenals. Your created character is a Reclaimer, a mercenary that is working amongst many other Reclaimers within the Orbital Facility, tasked with missions to help destroy the Immortal A.I.s and reclaim the Earth. A slight drawback to the overall story of the game is that DAEMON X MACHINA throws you into it rather quickly, but without fully allowing the player to comprehend absolutely everything that should be going on in this world. In addition, there are a multitude of terminologies and names that I wish the game had a glossary so I could keep track of it all.

Although everyone seems to be working towards the same goal of saving the Earth, every mercenary you meet is part of a different guild and wants to survive for their ow reasons. This is where DAEMON X MACHINA shines when its method of storytelling and progress takes a back seat. Each mission will lead to briefings, led by Orbital’s AI Four, that are full of memorable and fun character interactions. Although your character doesn’t talk, at least based upon how far I am in the game, other Reclaimers will always take into account that you’re part of the mission, some being friendly and others being into the mission for different p. Although getting the chance to see every character interact is entertaining, I personally love getting the chance to go on missions with Johnny G. from Bullet Works. He works hard to do the right thing, loves coffee, and always tries to ask about my perspective even if I can’t respond.

However, since DAEMON X MACHINA mostly focuses on gameplay, let’s move into that.

GAMEPLAY:

In DAEMON X MACHINA, you will be tasked on missions to destroy Immortals to reclaim the Earth, protect other factions and environments within the Oval (the place where humanity is now inhabited), and occasionally to fight other Mercenaries. Most missions will be explosive, high-flying and exhilarating battles with your Arsenal. However, some missions will require you to act as an Outer – basically being outside of your Arsenal and traveling on foot with traps, grenades, and a laser at your disposal.

You and your Arsenal are fully yours to control and customize. At any point, while you’re in the hangar, you can change your appearance or paint your Arsenal with decals or camouflage. This can be taken further as your Arsenal’s armor and weaponry is fully customizable. If you want to focus on speed or Femto usage, you can do that. Want to make battles more personal? There are melee weapons such as lances or swords for you to use. I personally use a combination of fast shooting weapons, missiles, swords, and grenade launchers. You can also customize the gear that you’re using by equipping attachments that will make them stronger, more durable, or fire at a faster rate.

DAEMON X MACHINA takes customization further as you can also modify your Arsenal stats and Outer stats through body modifications in the lab. Although some modifications will physically alter your appearance, it will also grant you new tools, abilities and stat boosts. For example, I’ve modified my Outer body to have a blade attached to my arm and got rid of my legs for mechanical ones so that I could double jump. These modifications make the instances where you’re playing as an Outer far more entertaining because as a human, your body is reasonably very fragile.

One of my favorite aspects of this game is the reward system for missions. Every mission you perform will reward you with credits that you can use to modify your body, buy ice cream, purchase equipable armor/weapons, and use to help with developing new equipment as well. Besides that, you will also be rewarded with new attachments and player titles depending on what in-game achievements you complete. However, the best part comes into play when fighting other Arsenals. Fighting Arsenals, either corrupted A.I. or other mercenaries, won’t be completely easy. So when you take one down, you’ll be able to go to the fallen mech and will get to take one piece of armor or weapon that it had equipped. New equipment that you don’t have or modified versions of equipment that you already have will be highlighted in yellow. Now, although you can’t replay story missions, you can replay Free Missions as much as you want. So if you continuously replay Free Missions, not only will you be able to take out more Arsenals and take their equipment but if you take out another Mercenary, you’ll gain the option to request them as a partner on Free Missions. This makes the character interactions within this game grow even more entertaining as you get to work with many mercenaries, especially because requesting a mercenary costs money. They’re fighting for their own lives as well, so the fact that I have to pay them for their work feels as if I’m putting back more into the lives I want to help reclaim.

From the Prototype Missions Demo to its release, this game was improved upon GREATLY. While the game does slow down when a lot of things happen at once, it runs incredibly smooth and controls way better than before. Originally, the default controls felt very awkward and weird to adjust to. I felt as if I was pushing myself to try and enjoy the game. The updated default controls and feel make DAEMON X MACHINA a lot more comfortable and fun, I truly enjoy boosting around the vivid areas while still being able to focus on attacking my enemies at the same time. The testers deserve numerous amounts of praise for helping get this game to a very much needed level of quality.

Lastly, this game does feature online play. While I haven’t had the chance to experience it for a long time due to the Internet cords outside of my house being physically destroyed, playing at my friend’s house granted me the chance to play with 3 other people in some missions that I didn’t have access to yet in my own save. While this could lead to potential spoilers for players, the type and amount of rewards you’ll receive from these advanced missions will greatly make customizing your Arsenal more enjoyable than before.

PRESENTATION:

I love this game’s art style. It looks great in both handheld mode and TV mode. Although some areas will be your battlefield more than once, every battlefield is vast within the area that is granted to the player and is full of beautiful looking colors and design. Although the character designs, as done by Fire Emblem Fates character designer: Yusuke Kozaki, are underused in terms of how stiffly they’re animated in cutscenes, I’ll never forget a character’s face or how much I love their voice, especially their voices. The Arsenal designs look amazing, absolutely, but the voice of the mercs that are piloting their Arsenal always feels so energetic, realistic, and passionate. In addition, the music in this game is nothing to scoff at either. DAEMON X MACHINA is loaded to the brim with rocking tunes, some that are also matched with vocals or raps that give off a very Xenoblade X feel.

The only drawback of this game in terms of presentation is the lack of space or usage of the hangar base in terms of giving you something to do on the side and the menu UI for checking and comparing the statistics of equipment. There are a lot of statistics about your Arsenal and figuring out if the performance of the weapon or the performance of the Arsenal never felt fully comprehensible.

FINAL VERDICT:

It has been quite a while since I’ve got my hands on a mech game and this satisfied that longing. At this moment, DAEMON X MACHINA is sandwiched between other major releases such as Astral Chain, Gears 5, and Link’s Awakening. However, I think this game is a must-buy for those that love to take to action within a mech or for those that have been longing for an entertaining title that is somewhat similar but goes beyond the fun of what Dynasty Warriors GUNDAM was.