Close enough, welcome back Anthem – I'm loving that Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion has shifted gears to smaller, nimbler mech suit action

Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion may seem like a straightforward sequel to the originally Nintendo Switch exclusive large-scale mech 'em up at first glance. Flick through trailers and screens and there is metal on metal action aplenty. But look a bit further and it's clear that Titanic Scion is in an extremely different position than the original. Yet, rather than veering off course, it provides ample opportunity to fire up hose jet stabilizers and embrace the new.

You have to remember, Daemon X Machina arrived on the scene before FromSoftware's big return with Armored Core 6. The original game wasn't anything to write home about – especially with its rough performance on Nintendo Switch (it ran much better on a later PC port) – but it filled a void left by the at-the-time shackled to PS3 premium mech series. There wasn't a lot of mission variety, and fights could lack impact – but it could be a fun spectacle nevertheless. It's also responsible for the original Switch split pad from Hori, which became the Hori Split Pad Pro – a god send for the bigger handed gamers out there like me and one of the best Nintendo Switch controllers out there. I'm here begging for a Switch 2 equivalent.

Bio beware

Now, though, Armored Core 6 does exist. Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion launching cross-platform across Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC is a start at improving things (performance on PC has been solid so far), but how should this followup really set itself apart in this new landscape? The answer developer Marvelous seems to have landed on is simple, baffling, and glorious: Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion is an Anthem-like.

I didn't know to expect anything like this at first. The opening sees my custom character (named Gum due to her bubblegum pink and baby blue fashion sense) breaking out of imprisonment just as an evil science experiment is about to strip her of her free will in order to become a bio-component of the military machine. Nerve, the solid bro who helps us make a break for it, leads us to a set of small, sleek mech suits to make our escape. These aren't the bigger, chunkier machines I'm used to seeing in mech games. Slipping in and suiting up in what's called an Arsenal, there's no denying the scale in which we use massive swords and rifles to slash and blast our way out of the space station is much closer in feel to Anthem.

Closer to human-size, it means the meched-up action in Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion is able to have a more agile and responsive feel than the heftier suits in its predecessor. Even an Arsenal equipped with heavyweight gear here, while you can still feel the extra kilos, is much more nimble in comparison. With a press of a button you can initiate boosters to strafe enemies – from likewise human-sized to towering monstrosities – and even tap a dodge for a quick evasive maneuver. With action set within a series of open world maps (and some caves and enemy bases for good measure), you can even hop on horses and motorbikes to get around the world – and yes the latter can, of course, transform into a massive rail gun.

While zipping around the large areas – flying up into the air, disengaging thrusters to reposition, bursting towards enemies like a rocket – can feel a bit like Anthem, the combat itself is still firmly positioned like a mech game proper rather than a third-person shooter. Each Arsenal is fully customizable, which means beyond swapping out pieces of armor for each body part, you can also mix and match weapons and other gear between each hand and your shoulders.

Want to go spear and bazooka? Go for it. Dual katana? For some reason, yes, they make mech-sized katana. Rock a massive metal slab of a shield for parries? But of course. You can hotswap between four weapons on top of your shoulder-mounted one (usually, for me, some kind of big ol' panic rocket launcher), meaning you can bring a lot of different options to an encounter.

Still, for as much as I love studying the blade, I do find maintaining distance and piling on explosives to be a solid option in most cases. You can play in co-op, which does mean that outside of the story missions, some of the roaming gigantic enemies – be they machine of a mutant 'immortal' monster – can be pretty tough to take on solo (NPC companions join you in a lot of story moments, though). With huge health bars that can take only a slither of damage from my early gear, getting close enough for them to knock me around decimates my own. Which is why – yes – distance, at least for the 8 hours I've played so far, has served me well.

Like the first game, missions are still quite simplistic, bouncing between clearing regular weak enemies in certain areas to grander fights against elite warriors of your own size to dragon-like freaky creatures. But, taking place within the context of an explorable open world does help them to feel like more of a part of Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion's world than completely forgettable excursions – adding up as points along a longer journey.

It also makes it easier to get distracted on the way to missions by what's just in the distance, clearing points of interest for loot. Bigger enemies even bring suitably bigger rewards that have shades of something like Monster Hunter Wilds – giving you a chance to loot the likes of high tier gear development plans or mutative factors that can allow you to learn whole new skills by altering your appearance (I got some funky eyes). You can spot the tougher foes by the horde of corpses left by other players around them.

While there are differences, Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion's mech action and even its structure reminds me of what I loved about my brief time with Anthem – a game I've always felt only just missed the mark of greatness. Titanic Scion isn't nearly as ambitious – combat here does simply feel a lot more basic, its world more barren – but that does at least allow it to feel like good fun for what it is. Over-ambition definitely did not serve Anthem, after all.

But it has meant that Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion has been a pleasant surprise for me this year. I went in expecting something that would disappoint compared to Armored Core 6, and came out with my itch for something closer to Anthem scratched. That's more than enough reason to get into the mech.

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