DAEMON X MACHINA Reviews

Satisfying mech combat. Its no Armored Core but its still fun in short spurts. If you like ice-cream and robots then this is for you.

The story is incredibly difficult to follow, there's so much filler dialogue that really contributes nothing to the story. Played through the entire thing and I was extremely confused by the end. It has a really interesting premise and then just falls off extremely hard when you realize there's really not much to it. The armored core inspiration for the story almost makes it even harder to follow when you get a thousand word essay of meaningless dialogue with every mission, a couple character's voice acting and general writing made my skin crawl to the point where I had to just skip through all their dialogue. Pretty much spent the entire game waiting for it to hit a high note and it just never came, eventually with an ending that had me thinking "What? That's it?" Gameplay is also very bland, very floaty and nothing really feels like it has any weight to it. A lot of weapon classes are just straight up unusable near the end of the game. Most of the missions are a really fast 5 minutes or so and there's a couple that last ages just because of how much ground you have to cover with literally nothing to do or to look at except shoot the occasional wall of turrets. So in other words this game...I'd say hard pass even if you're hungry for more armored core like content, I genuinely regret my purchase on this one.

You may have heard some of the dev team of this game came from FromSoftware and were involved in AC4/FA. Do not expect an AC-like game in DxM. It feels very unpolished in comparison and not much of a step up in terms of gameplay from indie AC-clones. Customization is somewhat lacking when compared to AC. Furthermore the controls and overall movement are not that comfortable and you can only select from a limited list of presets for the inputs rather than being able to map them to any button you choose which is a major failure in this genre considering even the first AC game released on the PS1 let you do this. Overall the feel of piloting the mechs feels weightless and unfulfilling.

[b]Rating: [/b] ★★★ - Good [b]Time Played:[/b] 18.6 hours [b]Gameplay:[/b] • Fast-paced mecha combat with a strong focus on mobility and customization. A similar style of gameplay to 'Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon'. • Arsenal (mech) controls are responsive, allowing for high-speed aerial and ground combat. • A deep customization system lets you swap out and upgrade weapons, armor, and even body modifications for your pilot. • Missions are varied but can feel repetitive after a while. Most involve defeating enemy mechs, escorting allies, or defending objectives. • Game is very slow to start and takes a while to pick up, but once it does, it becomes more engaging; doesn’t really kick in until D\C-rank missions. • The Factory lets you craft weapons and armour, which eventually makes the shop redundant. [b]Story\Dialogue:[/b] • A post-apocalyptic setting where AI-controlled machines have gone rogue, and mercenary pilots (you included) fight to control the chaos. • Story doesn’t really kick in until B-rank missions, making the early hours feel directionless. • Dialogue is slow and often just an interruption. Feel free to skim through the dialogue before and during missions or ignore them entirely. • Characters have some personality in their voice acting sadly diminished by the redundant writing. [b]Graphics\Music:[/b] • Distinctive cel-shaded art style makes the environment and mechs visually appealing but looks terrible on the character models. • Environments can feel empty at times. • Soundtrack is intense and fitting, featuring a mix of rock, electronic and orchestral tracks. [b]Before you Buy:[/b] • This game feels like it had a very small budget. If you're looking for a more polished and tougher experience, get 'Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon' instead. 'Daemon X Machina' makes for an okay alternative. • Default HUD is overbearing. Customize it heavily to make things clearer (Include HUD settings). • You can only pick up one item per dead enemy arsenal, so choose wisely. • Experiment with different weapon loadouts early on to find a playstyle that suits you. • Collect fallen enemy parts mid-battle or post battle before leaving the mission. • Boost management is key. Don’t just hold down the button, or you’ll drain your stamina too quickly and drop to the ground leaving you open. • When doing body modifications, focus on arsenal upgrades. Outer upgrades will mean little as you'll only use your outer for 2 missions. • Completing side missions and exploring the battlefield can yield valuable hidden loot. • Use the Factory to craft weapons and ammo instead of relying on the shop. • Get familiar with the Femto abilities (Boosts damage, armour or stamina) and weapon switching early on. • Game feels too easy for majority of the game. If looking for difficulty try use a weaker mech for a challenge. [b]My HUD Setup[/b] Arsenal HUD https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3450475451 Special HUD https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3450475426 Arsenal Warnings https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3450475387

Great gameplay, dogshit story. If you liked armored core and grinding out mech parts in some pretty fun missions its a good time. but the story is like jumping into the third season of a high concept shonen anime with barely any explanation of whats going on while a carousel of cardboard cut out characters get trotted out in front of you and act like they're in ghost in a shell. gameplays worth it though if you just wanted more armored core

I'm not a stranger to Daemon x Machina. Having thoroughly played this game on the switch, I left it after a dozen or so hours rather unimpressed. Coming back to it again on steam I understand now how misled I was. The game stumbles at times, but the gameplay itself is cathartic. So thoroughly bludgeoned by it's poor switch performance, framerate, and fidelity, that I didn't recognize the treasure within. [b]Controls[/b] Daemon X machina offers what a lot of games don't. A fully customizable controller setup. With the addition of two bind-able modifier buttons the game rewards controller adjustment. And controller adjustment is exactly what anybody playing this game should do. The default controller function is [i]useable[/i]. But in all other ways the default schemes, all three of them, are terrible. Beyond that, the controls are responsive. Barring mech incapacitation, the same string of inputs will result in the same output 100% of the time. Aside from one quirk of switching left and right quickly (which itself enables an attack I'm fond of) and even with that quirk, controlling your arsenal is like a dream. Your limits in maneuverability and agility are hampered only by your speed and finger dexterity. The better you are, the better the game feels. [b]Mechanics[/b] Daemon x Machina is one of those few games in the genre where the balance is such that even the starter mech and early game guns are both useable and good. To the exception of some of the weapons added in later post game updates, the balance for the core of a game is done rather well. This, combined with responsive controls, creates a gameplay environment in which player ability, creates a monumentally massive impact. There are an innumerable amount of complexities in movement, how the fast movement skill "blink" works, landing techniques, lock-on breaking techniques, and more. The game is one of those rare 'game' games that provide endless room to grow. More importantly, it's one of the rare mecha games in which player expression can be observed even if the same exact arsenal is piloted by two different people. [b]Story[/b] DXM has an intriguing story marred by it's poor delivery and low stakes. Stages are filled with a near endless stream of chatter. Lots of people talk about the death of their allies, loves ones, and others. Yet for most of the game, fights play out like the first season of Transformers where everybody gets up after the fight is over and goes home. The constantly low risk of most of the game makes it hard to connect to events when the stakes actually are high. On top of that, the mission structure is filled with a lot of chatter which ends up feeling like filler. Pre mission briefings are filled with a lot of dialogue unrelated to the situation and it became, for me at least, rather draining towards the final act of the game. [b]sound[/b] The music is definently memorable. But while I found the songs enjoyable, they ultimately didn't stand out to me enough to be able to recall any individual unique theme from memory. The majority of the bosses sharing the same theme is a bit of a disappointment. Where the real contention comes from are the effect sounds. Bullets sound like pop guns, machine-guns don't offer an audio syphony, the lasers are weak, bazookas don't sound like what they are. Missile impact and explosions are mild. The effects audio through and through was simply not very good. [b]Conclusion[/b[ Like I stated with my intro, I find DxM to be a fascinating game almost entirely on the back of it's gameplay. It has quirks. But ultimately the game provides an endless playing field with which to improve both the mech and the player. For players interested in a game that actively encourages the player improvement process, you can do a lot worse than picking this game up and tinkering with the controls.

Solid mecha game. First thing that stood out for me is definitely the visuals. The mechs look cool. Everything in motion even at break neck speed is readable and stylish. The levels have the bleak but beautiful vibe on point. And then the music just amps the vibe every time during combat encounters. Next thing that I really liked is combat. For context, the last mech game I played was Mechwarrior Online. That was a slow paced game. Here easy flight and zooming around the battlefield is the norm. But despite that pace fights were easy to grasp and a lot of encounters were satisfyingly challenging. Both melee and gun gameplay felt tight. This essentially played out more like a 3rd person shooter with a soft lock on system. But the lock on system wasn't really annoying or a hindrance to good aim. One thing I had mixed feelings on was the progression system. I don't think it was well paced or wasn't clear enough at the start. Meaning if you just played the story missions, you will barely get any decent starter weapons or mech parts. So you basically build up your mech arsenal from beating other mechs and they then drop a random assortment of their parts as loot. A good thing to note here is that missions are short and easy enough to go through. Think early Monster Hunter like missions of just dropping into a map for short objective or fight. But I had a rough start going through story missions at first thinking that's where decent starter gear was. In actuality, the online missions are where you're supposed to get the best gear early on and even for late game gear. There are repeatable side missions that are just solo called Free missions. But I found that they don't spawn enough mechs to fight and the gear there from the start isn't that good. So I had to do the online missions to get any decent gear in the early and mid game. Good thing though that you don't really need actual players. The online missions can be easily soloed or with AI companions. And the progression is where I found the most fun. I just got excited fighting new bosses and new named mech pilots just so to see what the drop. Last thing to add this point, I really liked the online missions especially the Exploration mode, which is a procedurally generated dungeon of mechs and trap rooms. Speaking of online missions, the community has basically moved on and you'll most likely not find any players as of the posting of this review. There were the ocassional one or two surprise lobbies during my playthrough. But for the most part if you really want to play online for the pvp or co-op modes, ask a friend to play with or check the fan made community discord for match ups. Lastly the thing that I thought wasn't very good was the story. The plots and themes this game tried to put across were decent enough on paper. But the way it was delivered was really boring. Basically you just listen in on conversations from the big named characters. It's shame because what they're actually saying can be interesting. But the format of just a scrolling conversation log wasn't fun. They could've at least shown the cool looking 3D renders of the various characters and their mechs while they talk. Overall, I thought this was a solid experience and got me excited for the sequel in development. Also given this launched for the Nintendo Switch first, this does play great on a Steam Deck.