Titan Souls

A unique indie experience, but not what I expected. Titan Souls has been on my radar for quite a long time now, from all the way back when it released and a plethora of gaming youtubers like jacksepticeye played it. Even though I never played it myself back at the peak of its popularity, it always persisted in my mind and now a full decade later I've finally come around to experiencing it myself, and honestly? I don't get it. The core concept is novel even by today's standards, dying in a single hit has been done to death at this point yet winning in one hit is a unique yet risky idea I've personally only seen done in this game. Due to this mechanic the boss fights are more like action puzzles than they are actual fights, with each attempt you make giving you a tiny bit more information about a boss' behavior or how to actually attack their weak point, all culminating to a perfect victory in which you swiftly and gracefully float through each fight in a matter of seconds to deliver that killing blow. This very gameplay loop is, in my opinion, the core selling point of Titan Souls. That soft endorphin rush which washes over you once you beat a fight that had you stumped, and its a great selling point on paper, however... As I progressed through the fights I found myself increasingly bored. The "1 hit 1 kill" loop becomes stale awfully fast. While what I said in the previous paragraph is true its also really hard to ignore the fact that a lot of the (very few I'd like to mention) bosses in the game are just completely uninteresting, with some of them giving you few to no context clues as to what you are supposed to do in order to "solve the puzzle", whilst others are so straight forward and unintuitive that I'm struggling to remember what they even did because I killed them too fast. I also had some minor issues with the fact that the gameplay is purely restricted to the bosses and lacks any sort of overworld puzzles and the lack of a map makes moving around from area to area a little confusing and even lead to me getting lost once. But its not just the gameplay that struggles imo. The world, while intriguing, is vast and empty and largely lacks a unique aesthetic or any sort of distinct visual story telling. And on the topic of story telling; even though I'm someone who has been incredibly interested in the occult and specifically the kabbalah in the past, I found the dark souls-esque obtuse cryptic lore-based story telling to just be an afterthought more than anything and I'm struggling to see how anyone would understand any of it unless they did external reading on the subjects depicted so as to give context to the events of the game. But lets just say you don't care about all that and are only interested in the story being directly told. Our character has committed some sort of faustian trade for the arrow they are carrying and are seeking the "titan soul" (whatever that is) because...? Our actions are depicted as morally grey or even egotistical because...? What does any of this mean? There were titan slayers before us and the one we end up fighting is an allusion to the old testament story of david and goliath and is 1 of only 2 bosses who's names are translated before unlocking truth mode. Literally what does any of this ♥♥♥♥ mean? I'm being 100% honest here. The clearest answer I can ascertain personally is that the story is about the pursuit of gnosis. Why? ♥♥♥♥ if I know Anyway I'm getting off track I'll just wrap up the review: The game is good, I know I just complained about it for 600 words but it really is. If it looks even remotely interesting to you I believe it could be a good way to waste a couple hours on a weekend especially with how cheap it is on sale. However, if you approach it like I have, I believe it could leave you disappointed as it is my opinion that the game sort of fundamentally fails as a boss rush due to a combination of questionable game design choices and lacks any sort of unique qualities or standout moments, besides the "1 shot 1 kill" gimmick, which would set it apart from other similar indie titles of its time like Hyper Light Drifter 5/10, might be good for you P.S. btw don't bother with the special edition or whatever its called, its just the game + the ost and to be completely honest it's one of the most boring forgettable soundtracks I've ever had the displeasure of listening to