REVIEW – Let’s get something out of the way in the beginning. This game (which is both available for PS4 and PS Vita) was made by the huge amount of THREE people. Considering that, this game is not bad, but to be honest, it could have been much better than the end result.

 

The basic conception of the game is interesting, even if we saw some parts of it already in other games: there’s a character, who only has the single weapon of one measly arrow. „He’s probably buffed up a lot” – you might think. You’re wrong, because it’s completely the opposite: one hit and you’re already dead. That means that there’s no stopping, you simply must master the aiming while on the move, because you’re always going to be at a deficit. Speaking of aiming: you have to do it manually: choose the direction, then throw the arrow – it will slowly get back to you after that.

The doors

Whichever door you pick in the beginning (one out of four, choose your desti… wait, wrong game), the rules are simple: if you can find the weak spot of the boss behind whichever door, then you will win the battle easily – there is quite an interesting slaught of bosses in Titan Souls, for example, there’s even a mushroom.

Thankfully, our moveset isn’t limited as much to make the game like Dark Souls or Bloodborne, but I can’t skip mentioning two limitations. Both are having an effect on the play style: you can run, but only for a limited time. You can roll to avoid incoming attacks, but then several seconds need to pass until you can roll again. It’s not that much, but somehow, it ends up working nicely in the end… but still: I don’t think that these moves should have been limited, because these are subjectively changing the game to positive directions for some and negavitely for others.

RIP

I mentioned Dark Souls and Bloodborne earlier. Yes, we will die, and not just once. You will encounter fights that build upon the player being at the right place at the right time; if you’re missing one of those two, you will simply end up dead in no time. Add the fact that you have to think ahead by a second or so with the aiming. Aiming needs time to properly be set up, However, it isn’t as annoying as the checkpoint system was, which – in my opinion – is poorly designed.

I had a bossfight won, only to be killed in the next one, pushing me back to the first guy, despite already defeating that one earlier. This can make the game repetitive if you get stuck at certain points. I think Acid Nerve should have taken some extra time to consider giving players a few (really, a few!) extra checkpoints in order to avoid repetition for careless – or blind, as in first time playing – players. It would have helped a lot!

Lacking

The game’s biggest issue is the lack of depth. It’s not feeling like a complete game. The retro looks compliment Titan Souls though, it is a top-down view two-dimensional game after all. It can remind you of Team ICO’s illustrious games, but behind the nice looks, everything just feels empty, lacking extra content. Nothing is a must for the player: you can destroy, but for what?

There is no extra reward, there’s also no way to upgrade your weaponry and/or character, so aside from the sweet scent of success, you don’t really want to go for winning every battle. You can even go and play as pacifist as you want if you don’t die a lot – in that case, not even the scenery will feel repetitive.

Not THAT bad

Aside from the style, Titan Souls’ other big positve is the background music. The game gets attention because of the provided challenge, but it simply feels like a cheap bubble gum: the first few minutes provide taste, but after some time, the taste is gone and you chew an empty, tasteless gum. There should have been extra content in the game, like smaller enemies, hidden items, or… I dunno, maybe a STORY perhaps?

Titan Souls feels like an unfinished beta in this state. It has a good direction, but if you would end up climbing steel walls without any tools, you’d also probably end up leaving this task altogether. The game requires little attention, while it should have required a little more attention…

-V-

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Publisher:  Devolver Digital

Developer: Acid Nerve

Genres: action.

Released: 2015 April