Titan Souls: Made by a Sadist to be Played by a Masochist

Time To Beat: 3 Hours

Another Ludum Dare game, Titan Souls (created by Acid Studio and published by Devolver Digital), is an interesting attempt on the only bosses genre.

A simple, sparse game, absent of plot details, Titan Souls places the unnamed protagonist in a vaguely NES Zelda-ish world. Full of rivers, trees, buildings, and stairs, but empty of anything living, the player must challenge a number of Titans to advance.

The first area, gated to constrain the player, contains four enemies. Much like Shadow of the Colossus, each enemy would be considered a “boss” in an average video game. Unlike the Colossus, the Titans do not live up to their title, and this immediate failure of the game to deliver is the defining issue, since there is nothing else to do in Titan Souls.

In this first area, one encounters a gelatinous blob, a rolling cube, a brain encased in ice, and a stone colossus with deadly fists. A single hit will slay protagonist or Titan, but the latter are resilient: they are immune to weapons except for a patch as bare as a snail out of its shell. This weak spot glows pink, but it is often protected by armor or the manner in which the Titan moves. And to defeat each enemy, the protagonist has limited tools. She can increase her speed by running, and rolling. She has only one weapon, a single, arrow, which can be launched, and then recalled (like a boomerang) or recovered by hand.

After defeating these four introductory Titans, a gate opens, and a total of twelve new bosses can be challenged. They reside in four regions; a dark forest, a decaying city, a volcanic underground, and a frozen mountain peak. North of the city stands a second, even larger gate, and once the player has defeated a further seven bosses it will open. At last, are two final bosses, a robot who aims lasers from his eyes, while attempting to crush you with his fists, and a ghostly copy of yourself (arrow and all).

Each of these regions, from the opening area, to the varied geography of the larger world, and the final bosses have a save center which is where the player respawns, and it also records the number of bosses alive and dead in each region.

What makes the game frustrating is encapsulated in the title. Meeting each boss for the first time is like looking at the cover of a book. Each boss is a story, which when told, illuminates their weakness and their behavior. By reading the book the player learns how each Titan can be defeated. Each thirty-second battle is like reading a chapter. Each death is a temporary conclusion, but in between death and battle, there remains the tedious return to battle. Sometimes it takes as long to retrace ones steps to the boss from the respawn locations as it takes to fight the boss. This isn't a small issue, considering I died 191 gruesome pixelated deaths while slaying 16 of the 18 available foes. There is nothing in the game aside from the Titans, and so it seems unnecessary to retrace one steps, when it would have been simpler to respawn in the Titan chamber.

There is no payoff, either in the ending nor in the success of dying to a Titan in ten mini battles, and beating it on the eleventh. While the initial three or four of those attempts were experimenting, to understand the boss, the other seven was searching for the perfect combination of timing and luck. But this search felt frustrating, because of the precision timing required.

Titan Souls' combat can be summed up as nasty, repetitive, and swift.

One redeeming feature is each of the bosses are unique enough to distinguish them from each other, and one or two are inventive enough to earn the player's appreciation.

But the Titans are still a poor substitute for either Link to the Past, Shadow of the Colossus. Titan Souls has none of the world building, the detail, the puzzles, or the adventuring of the former. Nor are bosses as intricate. When compared to Colossus, Titan fails to develop the epic them it needs. One might claim the foes of Titan Souls and Colossus are equally deadly, but that would miss the point. The enemies in Colossus look and feel like Titans. They challenge the player through ten minute sequences, requiring complex sequences. The player can suffer setbacks, but can overcome them to win. If Wander is thrown from the back of Valus the game doesn't end. The player begins the climb again.

There are no setbacks in Titan Souls. There is no back and forth. Since a single wound kills, the game, in spite of the uniqueness of each Titan, is as shallow as their 2D graphics.

In conclusion, the Titans of Titan Souls are like a million mosquitoes, pricking the skin, and raising innumerable irritating welts, but when each bloodsucker has had their fill they've drained one's enthusiasm, as well as the game's marrow.