Titan Souls, a game of unexpected frustrations
3.7 hours of playtime
6 of 27 (22%) achievements earned
Personal rating: average+
Gameplay
Everything you have to do in this game is killing Titans/Bosses. How it works:
You only have 1 life.
You shoot an arrow to wake up the boss. Once is done, you have to find the weak spot and reach it with only 1 arrow (which you can grab back if you walk on it or hold attack button). And the fight is won.
It sounds simple but you have to dodge titans attacks until you are able to reach his weak spot, and the window of opportunity is really tiny: between 0.2 and 0.5 sec.
Every boss is unique, each time the weak spot is cleverly put somewhere else. If I always quickly understood where I had to shoot, in most of case it was a shiny pink/red body part of the boss, I doubted few times. When I had only 0.2 sec to try to shoot on a weak spot, or when to try to shoot meant inevitably to die if shot failed.
Is this really here I have to shoot? YES, the answer was always yes, never doubt of yourself if you try this game ;)
Wake up a titan.
Try to kill him.
Collect his soul.
The Good
I really liked the graphics. In Titan Souls, everything is in pixel art, except the bosses. Maybe you watched the trailer on steam and didn’t even notice it, but bosses are in 3D. It’s well done and they perfectly integrate into the scenery. I only put two screenshots of boss because discovering them is the main interest of the game.
There is no really memorable theme but OST is good too.
A checkpoint. There is one white dot for each titan already killed.
It reminds you something, right ?
Yes, you can swim.But it's not really useful :/
The oversimplified, the frustrating and the VERY frustrating!
Controls are oversimplified.
As I recently played a great top-down view twin-stick shooter with perfect controls (Enter the Gungeon), this paragraph may be a bit rude against the controls. (I played Titan Souls with a xbox controller)
A to roll, hold A to run.
X to charge arrow, release to fire. Hold X to summon your arrow back to you.
Walk AND target with left stick. Move camera with right stick.
Where is the problem?
The developers could make us use the right stick to target with the bow too. But this is less problematic because each time you charge an arrow (or summon it back), you stop to move until you release the button. So, you can walk and target separately.
But ok these are minor flaws, it’s a retro game...
It’s the modern-day gamepad, nowadays we are able to play with 2 buttons! Yeah…
The frustrating
Titan Souls is a weird mix of “walking simulator” and “die&retry”. You walk between each boss areas but you walk again and again each time you died.
I’m shooting on the Titan. He’s awakening. I’m fighting 5 seconds. I’m killed.
I’m brought back to life at the checkpoint. I’m walking during 15 seconds on the “short” path till the boss.
I’m shooting on the Titan. He’s awakening…
You understood?…
John Rambo taught me everything about tactics.
In this game, it means you can kill some bosses in less 5 seconds (if you are good or lucky enough). It happened for me once to kill a boss in 5 seconds, but at my first try! I didn’t even have the time to appreciate him!
That’s the main problem. Too often, all you need is luck. I’d even say that you MUST count on luck. The best strategy I found is not to play cautious and to shorten the fight. It always worked for me.
The game is even conceived to protect you at the instant you reach the weak spot of bosses. Projectiles, spikes, etc... Everything disappear if you kill the boss. So even if you are about to die, you can save yourself with a deadly shot.
(If you are motivated and really want harder and longer fights, there are hard Steam achievements in which you must kill the titans under certain conditions. Be ready to multiply your looping promenades by at least 10 ^^)
The very frustrating
There is nothing to discover, no secret, no npc, no hidden boss. You walk from the checkpoint of an area to another.
Sometimes the boss room is a bit hidden, but just a bit…
It could be so much more, it’s so frustrating. The top-down view and the art remind me the old Zelda games, but in Zelda there was bosses, but exploration too, and puzzles, common enemies, npc, items... etc.
A Link to a complete game.
The prototype of Titan Souls was developed during a Ludum Dare. The theme was: You Only Get One and Titan Souls was the winner of the 28th edition.
To my opinion, once the developers decided to transform their prototype to a full game, they repeated to themselves “You Only Get One” like a mantra and never tried to evolve from it. They added bosses, they improved the graphics, but why didn’t they improve everything else!…. It can’t be hard to add at least few lines of text and a dozen of simple puzzles to fill a bit the area between each boss…
To conclude…
To my opinion, despite all its problems, Titan Souls isn’t a bad game. I experienced it as an incomplete average game. Perhaps, my expectations were too high, or pixel art reminded me too much Zelda… I was aware this game focused his gameplay on boss fights, but more I played more it seemed obvious for me that the developers could add a lot of things to improve their game.
They wanted to be original or perhaps they wanted to do something like Shadow of Colossus (which I’ve never played), they certainly succeed to do something unique, faithful to their successful prototype.
But this could be so much more… ;(
The end screen with my "brilliant" stats.
It’s my first “assassination” post, it took me nearly 3 months to find the motivation to format it (and I only do basics things). Yes I’m lazy :)
I really hope that it displays correctly. Let me know if the displays looks strange for you.
And sorry for my bad english ;)
I agree with everything in your review.
I’m currently trying to slowly play through Titan Souls (can’t play it for longer than 30 min in a sitting) and have already beat 8 bosses and 2 areas but I’m not enjoying my time with it at all. It is a struggle and I find the game design extremely frustrating, particularly the void world, short fights and relatively long walks to the bosses area.
It is a shame because the game could have been a lot more…
Edit: post looks good and your English is fine :)
I played it the same way, slowly. And it’s strange to say it but, thankfully, their game is short. I think you can skip some bosses if you want, but I don’t know how many titan souls are required for the “wrong” ending.
If we are not alone to think that, I hope developers are becoming conscious of Titan Souls problems. And their next game will be great ;)
Thank you for the feedback :)
I think the same.I can’t say nothing bad about this game, but i can’t say nothing good too (except graphic, it’s look really great).While i start played it, i expecting something more then pointless wandering between bosses. I just die, die again, learn(or die again) how boss moves and kill him, after repeat it with others.
P.S.
Your post looks awesome, I enjoyed while reading it. Can’t say nothing about your English, cause don’t know it well
Don’t worry, your post looks fine as hell! And good job on finishing Titan Souls: I own it too but I’m yet to play it (Maybe because Dark Souls is frustrating enough for me right no :P)
You have to be a bit (or a lot) masochist in both these games ;)
It’s hard but in a different manner than Dark Souls. You can die really faster. If you are able to enjoy the difficulty of games like Super Meat Boy you can try it despite its flaws.
Congrats for finishing the game !
I love the art style and concept, but got bored by the walking sections after a few losses, and stopped playing :( Maybe I should try harder, but the whole process of walking, waiting for the boss to awaken etc… was so dull…
And It would be easy to improve, with respawning like in Super Meat Boy ;(
If you try it again in future, play it in rambo mode, because even it’s sounds dumb, it’s the best way to shorten this game. And you don’t have to collect every souls to reach the “wrong” end.
I’ll try that, thanks ;)
Your post is awesome, especially for a first try! I won this game on sg, but I gave up after dying a hundred times to a boss. Some of the controls and machanics are just infuriating, imo. Anyway, congrats on finishing it!
Thank you :)
I don’t think you’ll try this game again (when playing is no more fun I understand), but like I said, you can skip several bosses and still be able to finish the game with the “wrong” end.
Well, I didn’t know about that, maybe I’ll try to finish it someday. Thanks for the heads-up!
It’s a great post, easy and nice to read ^^
<3
I also felt it had potential to be so much more, but, I guess being Indie and such has its drawbacks, still, they could have keep updating the game, like Radical Fish does with CrossCode, or hopefully the studio behind it finds a way to improve, just like Shiro Games did with Evoland 2.
If you liked it, chances are, you’d love CrossCode and Hyper Light Drifter, both are games I can highly recommend.
P.S. Your English seems fine, the post looks looks good and I can’t believe this is your first post (with that formatting)… It’s a whole different level from what I did my first time (I updated all my previous posts to avoid shame).
When I look at his first post, I’m so ashamed for my first(honestly for others too)
Lol I’m gonna blush ^^
If you truly want to be ashamed, look at his posts : http://backlog-deepness.rhcloud.com/users/AoC. He could write a magazine !
Txs for the Cross Code suggestion. I didn’t know this game.
CrossCode seems incredibly perfect but it is still in EA. I prefer wait a complete game when there is a story.
They really took their time but I understood it will be finished this year (I really hope).
Maybe I’ll be tempted by Hyper Light Drifter during the steam sale. Or else I have Evoland 2 ;)
Thank you for the feedback. I still can’t believe the “English seems fine” :)
I really took my time before trying to format. I read posts in “Activities” and member profiles to inspire me (don’t say copy/paste ^^). I’m happy it looks good :)