titanic scion preview
Image: Nintendo Life / Marvelous

When Nintendo Life reviewed the original Daemon X Machina back in 2019, Chris Scullion called it "a solid mech action game that controls well and gives the player a generous helping of customisation options." However, he noted that mission structure, performance, and overall story were lacking, which dragged things down a little.

Fast-forward six years and I'm back in the land of Femto and giant laser swords for Marvelous' supercharged sequel, Daemon x Machina: Titanic Scion, which makes a whole raft of big changes that should, in theory, alleviate some of the downsides with the original experience.

Let's rewind a minute first to give newly interested parties — and those, like me, with a short memory — a quick rundown of what this series is all about. You assume the role of an Outer (that's the name for a new breed of human that arrived in the aftermath of the "Moonfall calamity") and, as a result, you're a bit of killing machine. Outers, you see, have been exposed to Femto, a mysterious red alien material that's spread around the planet, and they can therefore upgrade aspects of themselves for battle - which is very useful when you're starring in a video game about battles.

As a mech-suited Femto merc, then, you're on the front line of a desperate war for humanity's survival against corrupted AIs who're currently rebelling against their human creators. Piloting a fully customisable mech known as an Arsenal, you team up with other mercs (CPU and/or human) to complete missions to defeat the AI "Immortals" once and for all. So, it's kinda like a standard Saturday night in Glasgow, basically.

It's in the customisation and building of mechs that the first game found a lot of its depth, attempting to give us a proper meaty robot experience for folks who love to build, paint and outfit these great big death machines, whilst also giving us large areas to blast around in. 2019's effort did well, for the most part, in presenting all of this on Switch, and on systems where it didn't struggle with performance (whilst also looking quite a lot nicer, it has to be said), it's a game that still warrants a playthrough. Think Armored Core, but newer and a bit sexier, and you're almost all of the way there.

Moving on to Titanic Scion, and having played up to the end of the first nine chapters for this preview, I'm heavily impressed thus far with what Marvelous is getting up to. This is a much bigger and more open game than its predecessor, that's immediately apparent, and although it's not a fully open world, its segmented regions are huge (well, so far anyway) and the time it takes to travel betwixt them means it's got the necessary sense of epic scale and draw which was somewhat missing from part one.

Movement, whether on land or in the air, has also seen some big changes, or at least it feels that way to me. Everything is zippier and more approachable, and combat in general is a different beast as a result of this. Part of it comes down to the actual physical size of the mech suits, as the ones I've used so far are more slimline and fast-moving exosuits than any sort of traditional, tanky robot design. Another part comes down to new systems in place to make the whole thing more interesting.

I've already seen some comparisons online to Monster Hunter in the approach that Marvelous is taking, you can see it in the combat trailers and other things that they've released so far, but in practice...wow...yeah, it really does feel quite like a big robot take on Capcom's series in its more modern form.

Missions are carried out in much the same way as the original, with preparation crucial in your downtime. Buying new weapons, crafting, re-speccing, and outfitting your mech, and then jettisoning yourself out into huge big landscapes where you are free to explore as you wish, before heading towards whatever objective marker is up next. Heck, you can even knock parts and materials off enemy mechs to use in crafting. How much more Monster can this Hunt get?

Yep, as you might have pieced together yourself if you've checked out any of the reveal trailers, Immortal enemies all now have, well, it's kinda like DNA. They each have their own little genetic marker collectibles that you can strip from them once they are dead, and these are then collected to unlock a ton of skills and buffs, new weaponry, new moves and mech parts. It feels deep. I haven't fought enough huge mechanised beasts or robots to really see where it all goes, but so far it makes for gameplay that has real motivation where the first game didn't. There's a lot of cool gear, a lot of upgrades and skills and ways to build, and seeking out big scraps and hunting down rare bad guys seems to be how you're going to get your hands on a lot of this stuff.

So, once you get your materials stripped off (and note that you can also whittle down a baddie and then get in close to start yanking off parts), you can start getting into the game's fusions. These give you upgrades split across four sections — Genes, Skeleton, Might, and Shell — and there's so many new weapon skills and moves to unlock here that you're going to be playing this one for a long time if it grabs your interest in any way.

Once you're out into the game's world and into any of its huge big hunting grounds, you can take on groups of bad guys, as well as lots of mutated local wildlife, wrestle back control of fast travel locations, and get busy hoovering up the contents of chests (the loot thus far has been pleasing) whilst also mining for materials. There's even an entire card game to play, which I have yet to find - even though I've already discovered quite a few special playing cards hidden around on my travels.

It's all great fun right out of the gate because it gives you the freedom to do all this stuff fairly quickly, and most of the huge arsenal of weapons you can acquire simply give you a tutorial on-the-fly as you pick them up. There's a balance being struck here between keeping things moving, keeping it exciting, and giving you the time, space, and depth you would want in a mech game. Listen, I am a big mech game fan, okay - we like to look at numbers and make the numbers go up and spend lots of time doing decals. All that stuff is here, too.

Oh, and I want to give a shoutout to a very small detail in how nabbing gear from fallen foes works, because it pleases me. When you open up the inventory to see what they've got, you'll be presented with multiple options, but you only get to choose one thing. Again, this might change with a perk, but it makes grabbing gear more interesting and exciting in the early hours. Place this on top of the fact there's just so many varieties of gear on offer, from great big auto-lock missile turrets down to schematics for graceful swords, and you've got a whole big bunch of ways to gear up, level up and grow into your role as an AI-killing machine.

In terms of the combat, once it gets going, it feels excellent. Locking onto targets is a simple matter of clicking the right stick - à la any Soulslike - and weapons can easily be cycled between your main left and right, two side weapons, and a bunch of different throwables, including grenades and lots of poison and fire traps so far. At the moment, I'm switching between two sets that give me dual-wielding SMGs, which work really well for smaller airborne enemies, and a sword and shield because it looks bad-ass.

You also have big old shoulder weapons and an auxiliary slot to place grenade launchers and other gadgets. Emergency dodges feel great to pull off, grabs (which you can do to dazed foes) make for a fun way to throw airborne enemies around, and the game's search mode does a neat and clean job of picking up hidden loot in your vicinity. Oh, and have I mentioned laser swords yet? I have? Good. There's loads of them.

I've got to say, too, that being able to ride around on horses you find in the wild whilst still in your mech suit, or driving around in regular army vehicles in the thing, besides the aesthetic of future-mech-badass-on-horseback (which is fairly epic as these things go), it also makes exploring feel a little Halo-esque at times in how knockabout and silly it can be. Add in an early vehicle sequence and I get the feeling I'm in for a lot of huge big set pieces alongside action that, on the ground and in the air, feels great so far.

Nine chapters might sound like a lot, but in actual fact it's only brought me to what I would consider the first proper boss battle-of-sorts in the game. At this point, I've got the hang of fighting gangs of mechs in the air and on the ground. I've nailed the timings on my dodges, boosts and, to a lesser extent, barrel rolls (barrel rolls are back, baby...I just don't really know how I'm doing them yet!). I've also got the hang of the mining minigame that has you target and shoot little circles in order to knock down a gauge - the more critical hits you get, the better your haul.

I'm also getting a good feel for how smartly designed these initial areas are, with crystallised shards of Femto placed everywhere, you can just shoot at it from range and collect it up (Femto doubles as your fuel), meaning that I'm never really worrying about having to stop flying. Hooray! Indeed, flying around feels great. However, it's also where my one major issue with the game thus far begins to raise its head. Well, in docked mode it does, at least.

Now, for full transparency, prior to a Day One patch dropping during the preview period, I had to get a little negative about a few aspects of the game's performance in docked mode. It was pretty much fine in handheld, but once hooked up to a TV, it struggled as you pelted around the open world in places. Not a game-breaker, but a little worrying when playing a new game on a new console. However. Joy of joys! Now that patch is live, I have very few negative things to say.

Let's start with docked mode, where now both the resolution and frame rate are rock solid, thankfully. The only place I'm really seeing any notable stutters are when zipping into a new area. You'll notice that tell-tale micro-stutter as you make your way to the same point in the tunnels that link landmasses, for example. For a game this big, this action-packed and this nice-looking, I'm impressed.

In handheld, any little issues you may have in docked mode with textures or pop-in are minimised hugely on the smaller screen, and everything just feels that bit zippier and smoother. Where big open-world-esque adventure games on Switch 1 could often feel as though they were about to fall apart in trying to present high-octane action together with expansive landmasses (with the notable exception of Xenoblade Chronicles X), on Switch 2 it feels like we can breathe a bit more easily.

As for the controls, I was dreading there would be input lag and latency issues but they are nowhere to be found, and taking on huge monolithic robots who rise up dramatically from the sand when disturbed, or flocks of tiny mechanised annoyances as you zoom through the sky (there's an altitude limit in place so you don't get too close to the sun), things feel responsive whilst looking just-about on-point.

In fact, as I've just mentioned it, Xenoblade Chronicles X is a good frame of reference here. Take its mech combat - once it really gets going in the latter stages - and place it in a much more action-heavy and adult-oriented world. Now add a ton of depth to the robot weaponry, design and build aspects, and you're sort of getting close to what's going on here.

So, overall then, I'm thoroughly impressed with Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion so far. The narrative is only just getting started, so there's very little to discuss on that front. But in terms of spectacle, action, and depth with the mech builds, we could be onto a winner. I've arrived at a point in the tale where important characters, future squad mates and things of this nature are beginning to take shape and show up, and it's got me fully onboard. Indeed, I've already spied one or two potential new team members who I'm quite looking forward to getting to know.

There's also a nice, adult, grown-up feel to everything so far. It's dark, the stakes are high, and consequences are dire when mistakes are made. Throw in combat and exploration that's doing the business, (and the very exciting prospect of co-op mode once the thing actually releases) and I'm fairly excited to see where the rest of the game takes me.

Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion launches on Switch 2 on 5th September. Looking forward to it? Make sure to let us know.