Quick Look: Daemon X Machina

lmao strong start to this QL. Also, nice Unit 01 color scheme, Ben.

finished this game last night. I reeeeeeeeeally loved the first 6-8 hours or so and the gameplay feel in general, but the last third is bad enough that I can't recommend the game as a whole. it's.... really truly terrible

I love Gundams and I wanted this game to be awesome but I ended up not picking it up. I still think about getting it despite its flaws

Why yes, I do want a good story and characters in my mech game.

PEW PEW PEW PEW!!!

Felt i had seen what the game had to offer in the demo. I really cant stand the character and the banter was pretty horrible. Gameplay was fun for the demo duration, but i couldn't see my self playing this game for a lot of hours.

I love this game

I just got my HORI Split Pad Pro (Daemon X Machina Edition) controller. The "joy cons" are massive.. they fit my hands so much better. I'm pretty pleased with them.

if you are an armored core fan you should play this. it's straight up just an armored core game (but you can't get quite as wild with the customization)

I have been loving this game. Gives me my Armored Core fix. Even tho I also just bought For Answer on ebayas I didn't have that one yet.

I was the lead translator on this game and it's super goddamn rad to see not only a QL of it, but that Ben and Jason seem to be having a good time.

Fills my heart with joy.

@ryougasaotome: that's awesome! congrats on the launch!

I hate that Grief character IMMEDIATELY.

If you don't give your mech Unit 01 colors or RX-78 colors in a mech game you shouldn't be allowed to play it

Is this Mechwarrior

I agree with most critics regarding the game's faults regarding story and the repetitive nature of the game but all that said there is absolutely nothing like boosting hard through a tunnel killing everything in your path, landing without losing a bit of moment, switching to damage boost doing a 180 and opening up every weapon and annihilating the poor mech pilot that dared to chase you down.

These constant grunts are really something. Victory.

Story looks like trash and the missions are way too short. I still think the movement is weak and the customization is closer to a shlooter than an Armored Core

But between this and Austin's review at Waypoint: I am buying this shit. I think my biggest worry was just that everything was a giant wide open arena. But it looks like there are at least some facilities.

Also: that evil AC with a sword and two shoulder swords looked deliciously anime

I didn't think this would be for me, as I never really fell into the Armored Core games. I downloaded the second DXM demo and after a couple of missions I was still mostly indifferent. Then over the next couple of hours, something about the gear progression and bite-sized mission loop REALLY started to click. I ended up loving my time with the demo and buying the game immediately on release.

Jason asked about per-part damage...isn't that actually a thing here? What are the hexagons under the stamina bar?

shame this is switch only i cant afford an entire console for nintendo

unrelated, some videos on the site are a bit quiet and others are LOUD AF, i would presume varying by producer, and it is suuuuper annoying

The customization is proper AC, it has fewer equipment slots than, say, AC5 but simply merges the featues of some of those slots to give the body parts more importance. E.g. you don't have a separate FCS slot but the head part has all the FCS stats so it matters much more which head you pick (I use one with shorter lock on range and a rectangular targeting area that covers like half the screen) and the legs include the land booster stats, the core includes the generator and air booster and the arms have multiple stats regarding weapon handling. All items are sidegrades (except maybe the starter body parts that suck at everything). Though there seem to be fewer parts in general.

Mission length is mostly on par with ACVD, sometimes a bit longer. It's usually one battle per mission. The story is a lot more clear than any of the Armored Cores I've played although it takes a while to go anywhere, a good chunk of the game is just spent setting up the situation and characters involved.

I think the enemy arsenal AI isn't as dangerous as it is in an AC game and a lot of the missions seem to fudge their stats to have more or less HP rather than the even fights you see a lot in AC.

People seem to really like this game and that's cool but I cannot even finish the QL. It's not that the game looks bad but there is so much stuff on the screen at any point, it's legitimately hurting my head. Half the screen is UI elements.

@kdr_11k: And something like Borderlands goes even farther and merges all your parts into your shield and all your gun and targeting stuff into your guns.

Maybe this is closer to what AC5 was (I genuinely forgot there was anything after 4A...). But I am still very much an AC1 and 2 kind of guy and, at least to me, that is what AC is.

As for storyline being better than an AC: That really is not a high bar and I am now kind of wondering if any From game actually did a good job of conveying the story. I remember AC2 (maybe not Another Age) was at least mostly coherent, although what Leos Kline was is kind of ambiguous.

AC1 was a complete clusterfuck (of awesomeness) though, and it does look like DxM is at least channeling some aspects of that with the idea of Merc Central/Raven's Nest possibly setting you up to die.

Quite like the look of the game & how much they focus on the actual characters inside the mechs. That said, good god. That UI is so PS2-era. Do you really need the top 1/3th of the screen covered with your bars? do you really need all that gun-info right next to the reticule? Do you really need a 'who's in my party' hud-element when you're playing by yourself and those names already appear on top of the characters? And the writing seems like it went through 5 translation services before getting implemented. Like what is this Grief guy actually talking about? I'm all for a nice amount of story in my mech games, but it feels like everyone is throwing out one-liners at eachother without actually saying anything.

@onemanarmyy: This doesn't necessarily solve the root of your complaint (that the default UI is overloaded in the first place), but you can customize every aspect of the UI down to positioning, sizing, opaqueness, or even if it's there at all.

Outside of Nintendo's own games and some exceptions, it seems to be a Japanese video game philosophy that it's better to provide an abundance of information rather than not. I mean, compare a layout of a Game Informer article to something in Famitsu.

As for the story... well... yeah. To speak of Grief specifically, the anime prologue to the game shows that Grief and the Terrors mercenary group went through some shit. That is probably brought up later in the game. It's trying to be mysterious, but I can see how it comes off as hokey nonsense.

I'm having a lot of fun with this game so far, even with just the tinkering. After customizing my UI, I went to remapping the controls so I can assign button combinations as a short cut to the three temporary boosts you can activate. This is a very streamlined iteration of the Armored Core series, and it has been so long since I've had a game that scratches that feeling.

Ben did pretty well with some tricky fights. I thought both those times he was going to get his Arsenal wrecked.

@eribuster:

Being able to customize the UI is pretty cool. and if you're able to get rid of certain elements (the party-element and perhaps the additional weaponry + be able to resize & position that stuff away from the center of the screen , it would clean up quite a bit already!

@mathey: BRAP BRAP PEW PEW

@jscovic: how come? i'm on the fence personally. The customization looks really enjoyable but i've heard the missions are a little bland

@abendlaender: You can fully customize your hud. From what is on screen to the size of it. You can move anything anywhere you want. Turn off some stuff. Adjust the size etc etc.

@robertcave: mission design is definitely bland. story is nonsensical and expects you to be emotionally invested with characters you barely know anything about. last couple hours of missions are very bullet-spongey and boring and it has a truly terrible final boss. I also settled on a customization set I liked and wasn't finding upgrades for that playstyle anymore after a point.

I played the whole game in big chunks over the course of 4 days. I LOVED the first two chunks, was lukewarm on the third, and hated the fourth entirely