Daemon X Machina: Prototype Missions

[TheGoodHoms]

When Daemon X Machina was first unveiled at E3 last year I was instantly intrigued by it's fast paced giant mecha action. As of today, a limited time demo became available for download on the eShop and I just finished playing through the 4 sample missions offered so I thought I'd share my feeling about the game from the preview. Feel free to share your thoughts on the game as well, just keep in mind that the Prototype Missions demo is not representative of the final product and everything we talk about could completely change.

Pros - Lots of fun customization options for both the player avatar and the mechs. The controls need a little getting used to, but overall really simple.

Cons - Combat is really tricky, I found aiming while moving difficult especially with small fast moving targets. Enemies don't react to being damaged and as far as I can tell have no health bars making it hard to judge how much damage you're actually doing. On foot combat is embarrassingly ineffective compared to the mech and you should never use it.

[Slumber]

I've been waiting for a good action mech game.

They don't come around as often as they used to, and with FromSoft putting Armored Core on the back burner(Though apparently they're still working on a new one), the one constant in the genre had gone dark.

I'll be trying this out tomorrow.

[Ayra]

I gave it a short spin last night (didn't have time for more).

On the positive side, I really like how characters look (decent character creation), and the portraits in particular are godlike. The battles are quite fun too, especially how you zoom when on the ground.

On the negative side, I sometime felt like I didn't have enough fingers to control everything I needed to. "Okay, I want to block while shooting my gun and missiles, and I need to keep the camera aimed at the enemy robot, while dashing and rising. So I need to press and hold ZL, L, ZR, A and X while maneuvering both analog sticks somehow." Maybe I'm just not used to shooters though! I'd love if the minimap could also indicate if an enemy is higher or lower than you.

The gameplay loop feels very "Monster Hunter" unfortunately to me, with the tiny roaming hub and mission and reputation thing to progress. It's not my favorite style, but the story has potential.

By the way, did anyone figure out if you can actually repair your mech once it's knocked out? Sure you can fight when you are on-foot which is pretty cool, but you are extremely limited and trying to fight anything but simple tanks is a death sentence. It feels like an extended gameover sequence; did I miss anything?

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

2 hours ago, Ayra said:

On the positive side, I really like how characters look (decent character creation), and the portraits in particular are godlike.

same character designer as Awakening/Fates, Yusuke Kozaki.

to be honest, i always liked his art style. the way he draws usually gives enough personality to his characters by itself, wich is something not every artist can do properly.

 

as for the game, i believe that Daemon x Machina is pretty much the spiritual successor( for now ) of Armored Core, as much as Left Alive takes the legacy of Front Mission, with the difference that Daemon would be the "anime" version of AC.

however, FromSoftware already said before that they're currently working on 2 new titles, so i have my fingers crossed for Bloodborne 2 and Armored Core 6. we'll see what happens.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Downloaded the demo, I'll try it out tomorrow.

 

For those who aren't aware, there is this old and pretty informative interview

 http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/12/interview_daemon_x_machina_producer_kenichiro_tsukuda_on_cooking_up_an_authentic_mech_game_for_everyone

another brief read: 

https://www.siliconera.com/2018/07/21/daemon-x-machina-makers-talk-about-how-they-create-their-mecha-designs/

 

There was an interview I can't find with the mecha artist Shoji Kawamori which was for something else, but I can't find it. He seems to be a notable name in the mecha genre, if Macross qualifies as a big name in it. And I recall reading the interview that he said designing mecha for games is a bit different from designing them for anime. Namely that you need to put effort into making the backs of mecha look nice in video games, since with the camera position behind the mecha, you'll be spending a lot of times looking at this side of them.

[Slumber]

10 hours ago, Ayra said:

On the negative side, I sometime felt like I didn't have enough fingers to control everything I needed to. "Okay, I want to block while shooting my gun and missiles, and I need to keep the camera aimed at the enemy robot, while dashing and rising. So I need to press and hold ZL, L, ZR, A and X while maneuvering both analog sticks somehow."

I don't think it's just you, since I've heard this from a few people. That said, it might be one of those control schemes that just needs time getting used to.

Armored Core was the same. After like, 15 years of playing it, it makes more sense now, but early Armored Core was kinda hell on the fingers. And another FromSoft game, the Souls series have similarly cumbersome controls. But with these games, there's a certain point where they just click, and the controls make sense.

Here's to hoping this is similar.

Edited February 15, 2019 by Slumber

[Interdimensional Observer]

23 hours ago, Ayra said:

On the negative side, I sometime felt like I didn't have enough fingers to control everything I needed to. "Okay, I want to block while shooting my gun and missiles, and I need to keep the camera aimed at the enemy robot, while dashing and rising. So I need to press and hold ZL, L, ZR, A and X while maneuvering both analog sticks somehow." Maybe I'm just not used to shooters though! I'd love if the minimap could also indicate if an enemy is higher or lower than you.

 

Not to mention they don't let you equip weapons to the remaining three (or was it two?) slots in this demo, that'd be even more buttons.

As for the size of the hub, this was just a demo, they probably didn't want to bother inserting a fuller version of the hub they've made. It would be very lacking if a single room with a few uninteractable NPCs was it.

 

On 2/14/2019 at 12:05 AM, TheGoodHoms said:

Cons - Combat is really tricky, I found aiming while moving difficult especially with small fast moving targets. Enemies don't react to being damaged and as far as I can tell have no health bars making it hard to judge how much damage you're actually doing. On foot combat is embarrassingly ineffective compared to the mech and you should never use it.

Actually there are health indicators on enemies. It just takes the form of a number, as it goes down, the enemy weakens. A bar would be better though. And I'm pretty sure the Horizon Arsenal hit 0 many times and then regained health before dying. Or rather, I depleted a segment of it and then that unlocks the next health segment, making it look like they got healed when they didn't. I wish I could see how many chunks the enemy had though, actual health bars would be nice and much more easily seen, just include an option to turn them off if they looked cumbersome.

 

I've played through the demo, lost once to in the 3rd order. Those enemy manned Horizon arsenals are relentless, the first time I guess I aggroed both of them to go after me and I died after desperately falling just short of a heal unit. Second time around I only got tagged by one and even then had an NPC help out part of the time. Destroying the one forced the other to flee. 

Anyone know if there is a full-sized map I can access from the pause menu? I couldn't find additional heal units just buzzing around the giant Immortal in the 4th order. Still didn't die despite being sub-30% for a good while.

I bumped into the Outer Suit modification room after the 4th Order, kinda neat how it actually radically can modify your body, emphasizes the "ex machina" part of things. Although I do wish they let you turn those cosmetically off and on if you've learned the relevant skill. Having a skill tree where you can only pick one from each level with restrictions on where to next sounds fine to me by the way.

 

I'm not used to this kind of game, but I like it. I'd take the gamble with the full version.

Edited February 15, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

19 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

There was an interview I can't find with the mecha artist Shoji Kawamori which was for something else, but I can't find it. He seems to be a notable name in the mecha genre, if Macross qualifies as a big name in it. And I recall reading the interview that he said designing mecha for games is a bit different from designing them for anime. Namely that you need to put effort into making the backs of mecha look nice in video games, since with the camera position behind the mecha, you'll be spending a lot of times looking at this side of them.

he also worked on other animes like "Patlabor" and "Ghost in the Shell", not to mention he designed stuff for both Armored Core and Ace Combat as well.

thing is, he never really took big credits for his works in the mecha genre except for the fans of his designs, hence why he's not well known to the public as much as other artists such as Yoji Shinkawa.

16 hours ago, Slumber said:

Armored Core was the same. After like, 15 years of playing it, it makes more sense now, but early Armored Core was kinda hell on the fingers. And another FromSoft game, the Souls series have similarly cumbersome controls. But with these games, there's a certain point where they just click, and the controls make sense.

the games from PS1 and PS2 always had very odd configurations for camera controls, but at least in the latest titles you could actually customize the controls on your own in order to improve the overall performance of the mechs while moving/shooting. then things changed in the PS3 era, and finally we got camera and movement controls on both analog sticks.

Demon Souls, Dark Souls and Bloodborne have always borrowed heavily from AC's basic mechanics, especially things like stamina management, weapons switching and weapons builds. they may have had different names and uses along with other features, but the core mechanics were always the same since PS1 days.

Edited February 15, 2019 by Fenreir

[GreatKnightEcho]

I liked the demo. The combat was fluid and fun, and the controls, while slightly wonky, never really got in the way. But there were a few problems:

-I often found myself running out of ammo without any way of recovering it, specifically in the two final missions. And since I didn't find any melee weapons during my playthrough, I just kinda had to sit there until my teammates either died or beat the main objective. 

-Friendly AI's kinda stupid. During my first attempt on the boss (the one where I ran out of ammo), my teammates just bum-rushed the boss instead of killing the minions so I could get ammo and got themselves killed multiple times. Eventually I just restarted. 

-Out-of-Mech combat is actually useless. Sure, it could have theoretically allowed me to kill some weaker enemies during the boss so I could get ammo, but I was afraid I was gonna just get fucking obliterated by a crapton of bullets or the megalaser the boss fires.