This review copy of DAEMON X MACHINA: TITANIC SCION for Steam was provided by MARVELOUS USA. This review will include spoilers for DAEMON X MACHINA: TITANIC SCION and the original DAEMON X MACHINA, which was provided to Source Gaming for review in 2019 by Nintendo.
When MARVELOUS and FIRST STUDIO released DAEMON X MACHINA in 2019, they showcased a strong blend of visually stunning anime aesthetics, thumping rock music, and hard-rocking mecha action fun. In addition to community feedback pre-release and the support of publishing efforts in the United States, thanks to Nintendo, DAEMON X MACHINA, despite its faults, was a near-masterpiece. With eager anticipation of a sequel as revealed over 5 years, DAEMON X MACHINA: TITANIC SCION was shaping up to be the next game to capture my heart. However, the results have left me with more concern than love.
Image: Source Gaming.
GAMEPLAY – Pillars of Foundation
In the original DAEMON X MACHINA, the gameplay set-up was: pick a mission, be sent to an enclosed environment to complete it, return to the hub, and repeat that cycle. TITANIC SCION has replaced this structure with an open world. While there is still a hub base to speak to teammates about main story missions, its main utility is in activating side missions. Through it, progression through the game is allowed to be more freeform. Focus can be given solely to the story or to completing additional tasks that provide extra benefits, like money, gear, and fast travel points. In both missions and personal voyages, players can freely traverse across war-torn terrains, mountains, and abandoned cities, taking on violent A.I. and mutated organisms known as Immortals. The main enemy faction, the military regime known as the Sovereign Axiom, can be found on roaming vehicles, in stations, and is always eager to fight.
Despite the freedom of an open world, TITANIC SCION can be treated similarly to its predecessor’s setup. Across the open world and each of its separated environments, plenty of byways serve as fast travel points, accessible from the map. Incorporating checking the menu within my routine took a while due to my forgetting its existence. But, once I adjusted, I opted to treat TITANIC SCION like the original DAEMON X MACHINA, only focusing on side-quests that provided the benefits of more fast-travel points. Why I chose to approach the game this way is a necessary explanation, but let’s continue to establish our foundations first.
DAEMON X MACHINA: TITANIC SCION sees another (and already contentious) major shift in its design with its Arsenals. Similar to how our phones and TVs have slimmed out from their bulky designs of decades past, Arsenals in this game are much smaller than the mecha of DAEMON X MACHINA, not much larger than their pilots. This change, in addition to the open world aspect, reimagines almost everything from traversal time, scale, and most importantly, combat.
At its core, the Arsenal is equipped with the same number of armor make-up and weapons as the heavier units from 2019 had. Weapons for left and right arms, secondary weapons that can be switched between on the fly, a shoulder weapon for aiming down targets with missiles or lasers, and an auxiliary tool for healing, grenades, or more. How TITANIC SCION aims to evolve this basis primarily comes through two layers, starting with the number of options for weapons. Heavy two-handed swords, crossbows, lances, and knuckles are just a few of the additions. Each one is picked up or built from enemy drops, and they can be altered for the sake of constantly changing playstyles.
But even though I largely stuck to my favorite guns and swords, it was the Fusion system, the revamped take on modifications, that gave the most overall benefits to the formula. In the original DAEMON X MACHINA, players could upgrade a skill tree of Body Modifications that would provide new tools, skills, and stat buffs for the Outer, the pilots, and Arsenal. Alongside the benefits, the player character’s body would progressively be physically modified: artificial pupils, robotic limbs, a blade attached to the arm, and more of different styling. “Would you sacrifice your humanity for power, and how far would you go?” However, since the game sets the player within the Arsenal about 95% of the time, that trope was largely off-screen except for the Outer DLC costumes.
This mechanic takes a brand new and better turn in TITANIC SCION, now known as the Fusion system. After defeating Immortals and looting their carcasses, their genes can be collected and returned to the base. Absorbing them in the Lab provides numerous different combat skills, abilities, and stat buffs to further alter gameplay, while still at the cost of mutating the body. Discover the Mirage ability, which produces a sentient clone of the Arsenal that can draw the attention of enemies and fight on its own. Equip skills that reduce the amount of Stamina used for emergency dodges. Toss a sword or shield through enemies, uppercut and dive-bomb back into the ground, or unleash a rapid succession of piercing attacks. Although the “loss of humanity” idea isn’t really expressed, and it was only slightly present in DAEMON X MACHINA, it ends up being more consciously present due to cutscenes showing the player character’s face a lot, combined with a feature that makes the Arsenal invisible from the waist-up. Additionally, since players will always be in the Arsenal, equipped skills won’t go unused, like in DAEMON X MACHINA.
GAMEPLAY – Arsenal Alteration Assessment
Adjusting to the many changes in TITANIC SCION may take some time for fans of the first game; it did for me. One major change regarding how the smaller Arsenals operate is the shift in utilization of Femto & Stamina. Femto, in DAEMON X MACHINA, was a red material that entered the planet’s ecosystem after part of the Moon split and crashed into it. Utilized as an energy source, Arsenals ran on an ample supply of Femto, and pilots could redirect their supply to different parts of the body. To the jets, speed would be heavily increased in Wing Shift. As a sphere surrounding the unit, Femto could be used as a shield in Guard Shift. And redirected to the arms, held weapons would gain more strength in Assault Shift. Additionally, DAEMON X MACHINA’s Arsenals featured large pools of Stamina for freely boosting on land and in the air. In contrast, the Arsenals of TITANIC SCION feature a greatly decreased amount of Stamina to be used for Emergency Dodges in combat. Instead, boosting around on the ground or in the air consumes the more sizable Femto gauge. The Shift modes are also still available; however, they’re now relegated to specific cuirass. Although I did use a Shield Shift capable cuirass for a few hours, my playthrough did not see much interest in them.
These changes are not particularly satisfying. Arsenals in TITANIC SCION move more like how the human operating them would, always walking, rather than the standard leisurely cruises that they gave in the first game. That maintained cruise while shooting down enemies or preparing for a slash, like in DAEMON X MACHINA, is still present when holding your Emergency Dodge. Outside of battle, this also provides a more comforting way to explore the world without going too fast or too slow. However, the shift in Stamina amount means you won’t explore with that movement for long, and it’s better reserved for utilizing it solely as the Emergency Dodge in combat. Additionally, the restriction of that style of movement disallowed a consistent enjoyment of utilizing handguns, assault rifles, and missiles. For prolonged movement, the expectation is to use the Femto Boost. With it, you can take off like an Olympian on foot or a fighter jet when in the air, all speed halting once you shoot or press for a strike. For exploration, this generally works fantastically well in getting you from place to place quickly. In open environments and smaller fights, this works well depending on Arsenal’s heaviness or the type of weapons used. As I primarily used swords, I can have fun running around and then immediately close in on enemies like it’s nothing. However, the benefits of moving so quickly can come with two heavy detriments: enclosed spaces and encouragement of action.
Boss fights in this game are a lot more fun and challenging. I found myself overwhelmed by the number of unique abilities given to the main antagonists this time around, even with the addition of healing items. However, in the need to tactically retreat between taking massive damage after many dodges, the remaining movement option left becomes the Femto Boost. Thus, in tight enclosed spaces or if the environment features many trucks and buildings present within the area, the annoyance of running into them with difficulty readjusting or the camera cramming itself into my character and obscuring where I could still be getting hit from, can occur often. When fighting against gigantic Immortals, the combination of their weightier movements and more open space provided better instances of utilizing the Femto Boost to readjust and take aim with distanced artillery or maneuvering around for back shots. However, when taking on the Sovereign Axiom’s special military unit of bosses, The Neun: Outers, with heightened capabilities, the aforementioned issues would often creep in.
Where these issues build further is due to the lack of encouragement of action. Across its huge world, TITANIC SCION does not see many moments where it encourages me to engage in combat as part of its story progression. Although there are missions that require destroying enemies to collect key items, the reality is that I’m still casually boosting from point A to point B to kill a small group of Immortals. The group often isn’t important, as attention towards quickly killing the obvious ONE will lead to faster results. Even within the Sovereign Axiom bases, in enemy territory, there was a failure to engage me in battle. There were minimal instances where I needed to defeat enemies to progress to the next room, and those moments led to engaging gameplay. However, most instances within a base provided the opportunity to simply boost past every intended obstacle for unchallenged progression towards the key item or to encounter the boss fight.
Taking a step back, I can understand the intent behind these changes. Create a faster movement option that can be used for battle but is primarily used for exploration with Femto, and utilize Stamina to make combat more active and strategic. DAEMON X MACHINA: TITANIC SCION’s combat skews away from Heavy-Mecha Action & Dogfighting. Instead, it leans towards a grounded human-capable Action-Adventure style of play, mixed with elements that harken to Monster Hunter, while also in an open world. On paper, it makes sense, but in execution, TITANIC SCION’s cumbersome moments in design and presentation build up against its open-world aim and even a desire to interact with its combat.
Finally, where TITANIC SCION aims to bridge the gap between its new approach and predecessor is with the inclusion of Heavy Armor. Heavy Armors are Arsenals that aim to match the look, scale, and capabilities of the original Arsenals from DAEMON X MACHINA. Always accessible after being unlocked, calling upon it allows piloting a preset kit of weaponry that deals uncontested damage and speed. This feels fantastic as a way to gain a major lead at a battle’s start or to utilize as a defensive measure near death. Additionally, as someone who removed the boss’s health gauge from the HUD, instances where I intended to use it as a finisher gained more invested engagement in battle, whether in success or failure. Despite that, decisions in its implementation still leave mixed impressions.
Rather than featuring fully customizable weaponry and armor, there are different Heavy Armor presets to unlock that favor different playstyles. This trade-off is more than understandable. TITANIC SCION is already a sizeable game with hundreds of gear (and I’m pretty sure no two pieces are the same), and also including the entire cast of DAEMON X MACHINA’s Arsenal gear to re-model would be insanely daunting from a development standpoint and player experience. Implementing them in this way feels like the best option. However, when in my control, something feels lost. In DAEMON X MACHINA, despite being in a big mech, the Immortals felt proportionately sized to accommodate the scale of visual perspective, making bosses feel titanic and giving perspective to the world. In TITANIC SCION, all of the Boss Immortals feel even bigger to the smaller, human-sized Arsenals, and that overwhelming scale is even more intense. However, when entering the Heavy Armor, that scale feels displaced. The world still feels curious and spooky; the discarded bridges and buildings still carry weight. But, compared to the Boss Immortals, the size of the Heavy Arsenal feels increased in a way that removes any semblance of attachment to the Arsenal of the past, outside of visual design. Their scale feels comparable to bosses in a way that removes the opposition’s overwhelming presence that was still retained previously, despite being in a big mech. Not only that, but the way they move, keeping a walk similar to TITANIC SCION’s Arsenals rather than shifting from a walk to a swift cruise. It feels as if the Heavy Armors were reverse-engineered, retaining the look of what they’re based on, but performing like the new Arsenals, which I’ve already stated my qualms with.
STORY – A Quick Introduction
Despite being a sequel, DAEMON X MACHINA: TITANIC SCION sets itself far apart from its predecessor in terms of both time and distance. Rather than re-summarize its prologue, which summarizes the results of having migrated to a new planet and 369 years filled with war, its encapsulating frame is included below to read.
Image: Source Gaming. The entire prologue frame of DAEMON X MACHINA: TITANIC SCION.
After customizing the player character, whose default name is Nova, it’s time to immediately hit the ground running. Upon awakening within The Garden’s research facility, face to face with an evil scientist, Savvy, a fellow Outer named Nerve strikes down the nearby guards to rescue you. As explained by your friend and with some details mentioned by the slashed-down scientist, the Sovereign Axiom was planning to strip the livelihood of talented Outers, including Nova, by utilizing their organs as a way to power mechanical soldiers known as Centurions. With the haven no longer safe for you, the two hop into stationed Arsenals and fight through soldiers to escape The Garden. However, ambushed by a Centurion near the exit, Nerve stays behind to fend it off, providing a chance for us to escape. Although Nova does escape, they turn their back to find Nerve struck down by the Centurion, and in an attempt to rescue their comrade, they’re shot out of the sky.
Having crash-landed on The Ground and coming to after being awoken by the sassy robot boy, Toby, and saving his father, Forge, from Immortals, we’re quickly incorporated into the Reclaimers’ ranks as a mercenary. And just as quickly, the story will ramp up in introducing the main antagonists, the Sovereign Axiom’s elite squad of Outers (known as the Neun). Which is all immediately jarring.
STORY – Ripping the Armor Off
TITANIC SCION throws a lot at the viewer without setting the proper groundwork for all of it, thus discussing it with an appropriate pacing also feels difficult. DAEMON X MACHINA TITANIC SCION features a story that, while simple in context, is expressed in such a weakly paced manner.
As mentioned prior, the Neun are the main antagonists of TITANIC SCION, a group of nine Outers that are the elite force of the Sovereign Axiom. Their sudden introduction occurs with the team descending upon The Ground elsewhere after the player completes the main course of Chapter 10, about three and a half hours into my playthrough. The potential for this can be less if attention isn’t provided to side missions, but this incredibly hurts the perceived pacing of the game. If I’m already facing the Neun one by one this early, that too quickly establishes that there will be a rematch for each one’s death. Introducing the main threats so early reduces their scale, making their defeat feel quickly achievable in terms of the narrative’s pace.
Image: Source Gaming. The introduction of the Neun.
There are moments where TITANIC SCION wheedles in detail in an attempt to flesh out the story. Hearing Nova and Nerve discuss their missing dogs when living at an orphanage as they escape from The Garden is a fantastic detail that sets some ground after the spontaneous start. I learn that the two are childhood friends and that there was some semblance of normalcy in this world. However, other, more important details that TITANIC SCION sets as intending to be important to its narrative are not established until they’re just suddenly introduced. For instance, Nova was an Outer from The Garden, wearing a Sovereign Axiom uniform, and thus their prior allegiance with that regime isn’t of much mystery. However, when Legion, the first member you fight in Chapter 12, suddenly drops that the two were friends, that Nova was also part of the Neun – what? How am I expected to feel the weight of conflict between characters if it’s just tossed at me, as stated to be the case? A lot of TITANIC SCION’s story feels like details are introduced when needed to up the stakes within the moment, rather than setting up for it. Relationships and the weight of conflict between Nova and the Neun could be more convincing had there been space to experience it before the game immediately started amidst conflict. With that not being the case, instances when the narrative suddenly delves into details leave me suddenly confused and unconvinced, which is only further escalated due to poor character acting.
PRESENTATION – Lack of Convincing
Every voice actor within DAEMON X MACHINA: TITANIC SCION did a fantastic job portraying their character. Performances ranged from decent to absolutely fantastic when it came to the pacing of certain lines within the endgame, the gruffness and anger exuding from conflicted characters, or the explanation from certain characters in aspects of the game’s world. Forge immediately became my favorite character, at first, because of the kind-hearted and subtle damages of his past reflected in his dialogue and lines by voice actor, Mick Lauer. As the main character, Cristina Vee Valenzula performs well as both a hard-ass and occasionally chummy inhabitant of war. Mike Bodie as Void, the Neun’s leader, never failed to keep me curious with his charismatic but constantly irritated demeanor.
However, the character models themselves do not carry the following weight. Both the player character and everyone else have a default face emotion. When those characters talk, it is usually the case that the lips aren’t well-synced with their voice lines, which would be fine individually. However, when shown, their faces don’t emote far beyond that neutral face positioning. Eyebrows may raise or furrow, but eyelids and irises don’t expand or contract enough to emote surprise or fear. Lips are detailed in form, but they’re unable to create convincing smiles or speech. That lack of synchronization with the actors’ emotions causes the already suffering story to be an overall awkward experience.
Additionally, I think the more neutral presentation of the story and game visually hampers a lot of my emotional connection. DAEMON X MACHINA had a fantastically vibrant and inspiring art style that always made me want to see more of it. Furthermore, its letterboxed format during cutscenes led to eye-catching camera positions that still kept the action present once your inputs were halted. TITANIC SCION is still eye-catching in its designs of mecha and world by Shoji Kawamori and Kazuma Koda, respectively. However, that impactful color is lost, and it’s not outmatched by graphics with less saturation, weaker shadows, fog that dulls out color, and a more standard camera framing.
Finally, one of the smaller annoyances comes from one of the best songs from the first game, “Overkill.” There’s a remix used for battles, a really good one, but every time I’d move ever so slightly out of an Immortal’s purview, it’d fade out. I come back in, and it starts from the beginning. It’s the Sonic Unleashed Effect: TITANIC SCION has incredible music and undercuts it not through poor composition or audio but the failure to recognize that most players may only hear about sixty seconds of it, often less. Those first few seconds end up kinda grating as a result, and my ultimate solution was simply to Femto Boost myself away from fights altogether. Now that the soundtrack was released during my writing, I can finally enjoy the remix and many other fantastic tracks that were overshadowed by moments of narrative confusion.
A New Type of Disconnect (SPOILERS for DAEMON X MACHINA)
Five years ago, I created a video discussing where I felt DAEMON X MACHINA created a disconnect with myself and the narrative it attempted to weave. Despite a silent character that I step into the role of, able to name, embrace with my unique look, and affirmed in importance by every other character inquiring about my future, only two instances provide narrative choice. Thus, after defeating the final boss and being presented with the decision to search for hope on the wartorn and Femto-ridden Red Planet, or leaving it to go towards the stars, towards a Blue Planet, I felt conflicted. With a connection only created by violence to the mercenary asking this of me, Grief, how could I suddenly be expected to choose an end that runs counter to the message most provided through the game? As not just a mercenary, but as a Reclaimer, how could I side against what my comrades and I spoke of fighting for once the war is over?
Since then, and now, I’ve only grown to love DAEMON X MACHINA more as replaying it multiple times reshaped my perspectives on its narrative flaws. In comparison, its story was better paced and almost always left me informed with dialogue amidst missions, during battle, or even when it decided to momentarily halt it while keeping the rock-hard tunes going. However, what helped shed more light on the story within DAEMON X MACHINA and its world is the supplemental material created.
As is common with video games, there is external material that explains or provides context to the world, characters, and the creator’s intentions of DAEMON X MACHINA. Despite these materials being Japan-exclusive, there was a fan effort to document and translate the majority of the first one: the DAEMON X MACHINA Settings Material Collection, which gives producer Kenichiro Tsukada’s insight on creative decisions, story intentions, scrapped ideas, and inspirations. Additionally, there is a partial fan-translation of the online novel also written by Tsukada, DAEMON X MACHINA: Star Reclaimer, which is a more expanded narrative of the original game’s story: giving the main character a voice, creating more interaction between characters, and having a decided ending, Searching for Hope. Learning what FIRST STUDIO and Tsukada wanted to originally include, but couldn’t, and decided to give it life still by other means. That made me hopeful for DAEMON X MACHINA: TITANIC SCION’s narrative.
That is why the results of DAEMON X MACHINA: TITANIC SCION’s story left me disappointed. There are interesting decisions made within its narrative that I think should be continued, such as the ability for dialogue options and decisions. I was not only surprised by how vocal the main character is but also ecstatic that I could decide what they say at certain points; they can be kind, heartless, or actively nonconfrontational. That encourages replayability to discover other routes to the same ending. But what awaits at the end is only more confusion, one that removes both Nova and me from any story or future.
Image: Source Gaming.
After six years filled with anticipation and excitement, that FIRST STUDIO received another chance to not only make a game, but to tell a story. After reading their supplemental material, to learn of their own admitted challenges with introducing concepts that would enrich the world of the game. It’s confusing to see that the heart placed within DAEMON X MACHINA, its sourcebook, and novel, does not exist within its sequel, TITANIC SCION. Partially, that’s from the premise; the game is set so far apart from the narrative of DAEMON X MACHINA that it never offers an opportunity to comprehend the results of that game’s journey. It’s disheartening. And if the paid content scheduled for November wants to prove otherwise, I’d appreciate it, but I’d rather be satisfied with the base game first than be left waiting for it to get better.
Image: DAEMON X MACHINA: TITANIC SCION Steam page. The update roadmap as of the game’s version 1.1.0 update.
CONCLUSION
As an open-world game and as an action game, DAEMON X MACHINA: TITANIC SCION doesn’t merge the two elements strongly. There are instances where the two intersect gracefully, such as the sudden surprise of a gigantic Immortal leaping out from a bed of water, encouraging a change of focus from my original destination. If you’re looking to expand your library of abilities, then there is plenty of encouragement to explore the world and defeat enemies. There’s also an attempt to encourage exploration of TITANIC SCION’s world with transportation via transformable bikes, Humvees, and horseback riding. But with the Arsenal’s full range of skills being limited on horseback and vehicles being easily susceptible to uneven terrains, the attempt doesn’t always stand strong.
I experienced many indelible, satisfying moments within TITANIC SCION. Seeing habitats and environments that completely stopped me in my tracks. Spending an hour or more configuring not just the perfect Arsenal, or the perfect playstyle, but the perfect layout of the HUD for the most comfortable gameplay experience. Collecting rare drops from the carcasses of other players. And there’s even more that it wants to offer: mining for loot, racing across the world, battling to the top ranks of the coliseum, and an entire playable, fleshed-out card game. There’s so much to experience, but there just wasn’t enough to encourage me.
That excess of stuff, coupled with a shoddy narrative that has made me concerned for the future of this planned trilogy, has left me incredibly conflicted. Much care was put into making DAEMON X MACHINA: TITANIC SCION a fun game. I experienced those moments many times. It may take a potential player time to get there, but the fun will happen. But I didn’t find it consistent enough. After a strong first outing, this is not the sequel that I hoped for. With a gameplay loop that is marred by design choices that fail to lead to interaction or encourage disengagement, unfortunate executions in presentation that signal signs of weakness, and a narrative that holds minor attempts to be a successor to previous efforts, DAEMON X MACHINA: TITANIC SCION is not the future that the past deserved.
6/10 – Mixed
Thank you to Wolfman & NantenJex for helping edit this review.
- Demonschoool | Indie Highlight - January 9, 2026
- Pokémon Legends: Z-A – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition | Review - November 11, 2025
- HOTEL BARCELONA | Review - September 29, 2025
