Daemon X Machina - Review

Kicking off an E3 presentation, for one of the big studios is a massive deal and when Daemon X Machina did just that in 2018, people had no idea what to make of the loud and bright mech game. Now that it has been released, is this a game that you need to pay attention to, or was the debut the highlight?

What would happen in a world where the moon exploded and a large portion of it fell to Earth, it is with that simple, yet terrifying concept that the story of Daemon X Machina runs with. After the incident, corporations started to attempt to save the world, as exotic particles, which were called Femto, were causing problems for the people that survived. The Oval Link was established, and giant mech suits were constructed to help with tasks out in the zones that people could not survive, but in order to help out more, an advanced AI was created to speed things up, however as all AI’s tend to go, it believed humans were a problem and sought to eliminate them, thus saving the planet. Years have passed and you join the ranks of the Outsiders, a group of people that have been irrevocably changed by the Femto particles and are now ready to join the ranks of Arsenal pilots, but as the latest Rookie, it will take a while to get up to speed.

As you are given missions to undertake, you will be joined by members from other groups, each with their own very unique personality and attitudes and after taking instructions from Four, the AI that oversees the missions, you will head out to complete whatever objective you have been tasked with. It is the briefing where the most story tends to happen, with those members who are thinking of accepting the mission contract, hanging out in the hangar to learn more about the objective. The purpose of these is twofold, not only does it provide you the player more of a chance to learn about the mission, its objectives and any threats you might encounter, it also gives you more context about the various pilots you will be interacting with on the mission. Sadly though, you are just an observer in these moments, as you never speak or interact with anyone, which is a shame, as there are a few times when you can ask questions of Four, which helps make it feel like you are apart of the world, rather than a bystander of it.

While I would love to say that the story is original and worthy of your time, it isn’t original, however the sheer number of characters that the game throws at you, means that you never know how it will go from one moment to the next. In on mission, you could be fighting alongside some pilots, who have taken the same contract as you, then a few missions later, they are the enemy and it starts to raise many questions. Stories about large shadow conspiracies are nothing new and the game does a solid job of hiding the truth behind many veiled folks, but the end of it is nothing to wow, that being said, it is worth a playthrough. In all honestly, the biggest complaint I have about the story is just how many characters there are and how quickly they can swap from friend to enemy and back again, it just is so unrealistic, but the worst part is that the pacing is very slow, so while you might pick things out, it takes far to long for the game to get to that same point.

One element that the game does really well, is that of the Arsenal management, as there are a lot of systems that work together, to help make it feel that your suit is just that, yours. The game gives you a base suit for your earlier missions, but as you start to earn credits, you can start to upgrade it and make it work for your playstyle. The easiest way is to just change the colour, some colour options are just that, colours, but as you play, you will begin to unlock patterns and those can be combined with decals to help you stand out. If you want to upgrade your suit, you can do so in one of three ways, the first is by looting downed Arsenals in the field for parts, with you being able to take one item from their abandoned suit, the second is buying items from the shops and the third is investing in new tech, no matter which way you go, the game never forces any of them on you, in fact it only briefly mentions the research option. The reason that you will want to spend time, getting to know your options is some missions are made a lot easier, if you take the right equipment into battle with you, and listening to the briefing and making that call is something you need to do and while it might be a slow process, you will get used to knowing what you need and then the mission can start.

However, once the mission is a go, things ramp up quite fast, for the most part missions are basic, fly around the world, killing all AI controlled bots, rinse and then repeat, it is a solid formula and works for the story the game is telling you. There are missions that will swap it up, like defending a building or a train, or even making you run around on foot for a bit, more on that in a bit, but most of the time you are just a one-man wrecking crew. As the missions are more about taking down a set number of enemies, there is a lot of shooting going on, in fact sometimes a little too much, but covered by all that shooting, is a real problem, the core gameplay is boring. I would go into missions, with instructions on what to do and then just zip around the world, taking enemies down, a few minutes later and they were all destroyed, the mission would be over and back to base. Even missions where there was a large enemy to face down, were bland, as they just became efforts in attrition, where you just had to outlast the big bad. For those missions that had other objectives, like defending an object, they were not much better, as you were still just destroying things, but you could not just fly around wherever you wanted to.

The mission that first takes you out of the Arsenal, might be a shock to those who have not taken to much damage in an early mission, as you now lack all the fancy moves you are used to at this point. This was the first time I felt like the game was going to offer a real interesting mission, but it did not last as the missions that followed it were more of the same and while the shoot everything missions are fine, I would have really enjoyed more of a variety in between them, to help break things up. As such the passing of time would not have felt like a chore, as spending more time upgrading for one mission, only for it to be over in a few minutes, well it just felt like it was pointless. There are free missions that you can do, to earn extra credits, which help when you want one more upgrade, but they are more of the same, though the choice of which partner you invite, does change up the feeling, thanks to some of the dialogue, I just wish there was more to it.

That same statement also carries across to the games presentation, which are a mix of wonderfully designed mech suits and odd lighting, bright colours and bland character design. The game has a striking design, the menus themselves standout, with their angular look and minimalist nature, but again it is the mech suit design that stands out. No matter what combination of head, legs, arms and more you choose, they all look great, especially when you start mixing in colours and decals, the looks will never stop evolving, the problem is, the human characters are the opposite. The player character is one that, like the Arsenal, is able to be changed as you level up, so getting an upgrade to help you lock onto enemies, will actually replace your human eyes with robot ones, or gaining the ability to double jump, will give you robot legs.

The issue with the visuals is in two parts really, the first is that the lighting is odd, there is something off about it, from the mechs, to the enemies and the pilots, whenever shadows are cast across them, they look really odd. The effect looks like their skin tone is multiple colours, not just varying shades and the impact in the world is just the same, there are times when enemy vehicles look like they are two tone, due to shadows on them. When it comes to the other pilots sure, there are some bright colours on a few of them, but almost every character design can be placed in any random anime and they would fit right in there as well, they are just meh. The problem is, Japanese developers never get the feeling of characters that are not Japanese, it is a problem, which sadly appears here with the black character, his moves and speech are so wrong, justifying it, is something I can’t do.

The voice acting for that character is about the same, but it is not just them, the other characters range from meh to wow that is bad, there are a few stand out performances and that thankfully comes from the characters that are the most normal. Four is the most consistent voice you will hear throughout the game, so you had best get used to it, thankfully, that voice is on a nice even keel, meaning it is not bad at all, as its an AI voice, they could have gone the robotic way, but thankfully they did not. On the music side, there is a lot more rock than I was expecting, which honestly shouldn’t surprise me, but it did, and I am not sure why. The good thing is that the music is well done and catchy, with a large variety of tracks, even hearing the same one a few times in a row, did not become an issue.

Daemon X Machina is a game that is easy to recommend to fans of the genre, but for newcomers, there is a lot to consider, as the game has a lot of mechanics to understand. The story is interesting and has enough twists to keep people entertained, but the cast of characters that help sell it, are largely beyond lame. The missions are generally the same, though the ones that break the mould are very entertaining, but the overall pace of the game is slow, which given that it is about piloting giant mech suits, is hard to accept.

Review code provided by Nintendo