Daemon x Machina is the latest upcoming Nintendo Switch exclusive that will release at the start of next month. Created by Marvelous First Studio and published by Nintendo, this third-person action shooter is set to bring in a lot of spectacle on the hybrid handheld. I played it for a couple of hours in handheld mode and I must say I certainly had fun.
Improve your Arsenal
Without spoiling the story, you’re a mercenary who’s capable of flying an Arsenal, a futuristic and extremely powerful mechanical robot. Before you enter your Arsenal, you’re able to customize your character to your liking, ranging from gender to scars and tattoos. It’s always nice to have a great character customizer in the game and it’s good to see the team really paid attention to this, resulting in a lot of freedom and options to create the character of your dreams. Once that’s done, you can enter the HUB where you’ll eventually hook up with other, but for the sake of the demo, we tried some of the first missions.
The missions are set on a small portion of the map, offering a lot of variety in environments. We were fighting in the desert moments ago while the next fight takes place in a city. The game combines a cel-shading technique with impressive 3D textures to really create something new. After playing Astral Chain, this isn’t the prettiest game in handheld mode but it certainly still impressive. The colors, the explosions, the number of characters, it’s still all pretty amazing that it’s possible on such a small console.
Take over the battlefield
At its core, Daemon x Machina is a third-person shooter featuring gigantic mechs, meaning the gameplay itself is rather straightforward. It’s your job to find your targets on the small map and shoot at them as fast as possible. There’s no need to aim since the game features an auto-lock mechanic that gets more and more precise the closer you are to your target. This might sound strange but it really works incredibly well. Thanks to this, you’re never losing too much time locking and changing your locked target, instead, you can simply blast your way to victory. The reason why the developers implemented this system is that there are tons of enemies on your screen at ones. It starts rather slow, but the more you progress, the more enemies appear, making it harder and harder to survive. The automatic lock is a lifesaver when it comes to those situations.
But that’s not all. If you want to survive, you’ll need to upgrade your Arsenal from time to time. Using its weapons with both shoulder buttons, it’s important to upgrade and change these weapons depending on the danger you’re facing. While playing, you’ll be able to gather loot on the field, which can be, if you’re lucky, very rare and thus extremely strong. I haven’t seen a lot of this deeper layer in action since I simply didn’t unlock a lot of weapons at this point but I think upgrading and collecting better weapons will result in hours of fun eventually.
Some extra polish wouldn’t hurt
Although I had a lot of fun during my first hours with this action-packed game, I was a bit disappointed at the same time too. The game could definitely look a bit more polished, especially with its smaller battlefields. Maybe I’m too spoiled from playing Astral Chain but compared to that title, Daemon x Machina isn’t able to pull off the same level of graphics in handheld mode, which is a shame. Of course, it’s more than just the visuals and the gameplay itself is entertaining but I’m a bit worried for the rest of my adventure. Besides graphics, I’m also curious if the missions will be able to grab my attention in the long run and I’m hoping things won’t get too repetitive too soon.
So, at this point, there still are some uncertainties that got me worried but on the other hand, I did see some rather spectacular plot development while playing so I’m really curious to see where this will go in the end. It’s not the best exclusive at this point but I’m having a lot of fun discovering everything.
Early conclusion:
Daemon x Machina does a lot of things right, including the combat, fluent controls, and upgradable weapons. But, on the other hand, it’s all a bit empty and I’m curious if the story and its missions will offer enough variation to keep me hooked. At this point, I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt since I’m certainly having fun with it and I’m enjoying it a lot in handheld mode. That being said, we’ll see how things evolve later on in the game. Be sure to check back later for my full review and conclusion.
