Titan Souls

As 2015 continues to be the year of difficult games with the likes of Ori and Bloodborne stealing so much of our time, Titan Souls offers a comparably difficult, but much shorter variety of the same enjoyable torture.

Titan Souls brings a series of difficult challenges, but it always plays honestly. You will die a lot, you will curse a lot, but you will definitely enjoy it a lot, especially if you like the old-fashioned trial and error dynamics.

One singular great idea is the foundation for a smart and occasionally thrilling action puzzler.

There is quite a bit of difficulty to it as you have to learn each titan’s patterns and figure out how to expose and attack their weak points, and others may just see this as a rip-off of Shadow of the Colossus. If you can get past that, Titan Souls provides quite a bit of challenge, but admittedly could have gone on a bit longer for a $15 price point.

Titan Souls might be Shadow of the Colossus' pixelated version but it knows how to deliver a painful yet satisfying adventure based on a simple premise: kill all the titans you can with a bow and a single arrow.

After my playthrough, I can safely say that while this is certainly no souls game, it’s one worthy of the time of anyone who seeks a truly rewarding challenge.

If you're looking for a stiff challenge and a captivating atmosphere to lose yourself in, look no further.

A smart, original and beautifully crafted small game that will challenge your nerves and your skill. It's maybe a bit on the short side and its core mechanic can be polarizing, but you should definitely try the demo and, if you like it, you should buy it immediately.

The fun in Titan Souls is in finally overcoming what initially feel like an impossible battles. In that regard, it’s a celebration of gaming as it used to be in ‘the good old days’.

Titan Souls aims for achievers – gamers whose greatest joy is to fight hard with any challenges offered. And the game aims pretty well. [Issue#252]

Titan Souls was a tough and a well-fought battle that I enjoyed from beginning to end. Even though it had me raging at times, the thrill of taking down the Titans one by one gave me an immense feeling of satisfaction.

Titan Souls is a ruthless game that blends the concept of Shadow of the Colossus with the difficulty of Dark Souls, in an indie game absolutely unmissable for whoever loves demanding challenges.

A classic action game, bestowed with a solid gameplay. It will be a challenge even for hardcore gamers, but it's a ride definitely worth taking.

A perfect storm of elements come together to make a wonderful and challenging experience.

95 percent of what makes up Titan Souls is boss battles, and fortunately, that's the 95 percent of the game that Acid Nerve nails. Its story is nearly non-existent, and its on the short side, but the quality of the battles against the many Titans mostly make up for Titan Souls shortcomings.

What holds Titan Souls from greatness, then, isn’t the difficulty posed by besting its bosses - or even the lack of narrative elements - but the act of felling the foes themselves. What should be a momentous occasion - particularly following waves of near countless failures - is too often anti-climactic.

Titan Souls is a quietly beautiful little epic. The contrast of the boss fights with the peaceful exploration works to create a world of contrasts, broken but not dead. Or at least not dead until you come calling with a bow and magic arrow. Just be aware going in that the challenge can be as unforgiving as the ruins are serene, and every ounce of skill may still not be quite enough.

Titan Souls made us cry, laugh and despair, and we have come out satisfied, especially by observing our colleagues intent to grope in the dark while we were smiling in front of the ending credits.

Titan Souls is a great action game that surprises for its epic gameplay and its enemies' design.

Titan Souls’ sparse world and lore is merely the delivery device for its creative fights that hinge on your perception and skillful mastery of its simple, yet fluid and responsive controls. Though the experience is short, it’s potent, as weathering every titan’s impossibly lethal storm and finding that one true strike is an excellent and intoxicating retelling of David versus Goliath each time.

One hit point, one arrow and one target; Titan Souls is an exercise in simplicity. It evokes memories of classic games, as you seek the satisfaction of striking that killing blow to a Titan.

Death or victory come quickly because, for the most part, the titans are designed to leave you few opportunities to win. Running around and staying alive isn't an impressive feat because you're no closer to winning.

It requires patience, a keen eye, reflexes and skill - and the ability to accept that you will die a lot. And sometimes it will seem unfair. And sometimes you will want to throw your controller at the nearest hard surface. But Titan Souls is a fantastic game; a fine example of what is possible with a simple idea, stripped-down controls and a dense atmosphere backing it all up.

Titan Souls will not relax you after a hard day’s work. It will make you work harder and harder, until you pull that one arrow out of the grayish carcass of that annoying boss who made you scream and swear like never before.

Maybe it has flaws, maybe it is not perfect, but what Titan Souls really is is a radical, extreme bet on the Speed run & Boss Rush Mode games that probably will convince us not to throw our pad through the windows. It's hard, complicated, yet at the same time so easy if we can figure out the way... Because this is what Titan Souls is all about: To figure out the way to defeat all those giant creatures with just one hit and one point of life.

Titan Souls takes a motif in film that’s so played out as to be empty, and uses it to create joy, triumph, and meaning in a context where we’ve come to expect the absence of all three. It’s an argument for what games can do that other media can’t because of their interactive and iterative natures.

What did I expect? An atmospheric trip thru an exotic world and challenging battles against imaginative titans. And that is exactly what I got. No frills. Just one arrow and one life point.

Tital Souls is a game that asks for perfection. It's a great challenge, a game where you need to try again and again, even though it lacks the immediacy of other skill-demanding titles.

Titan Souls manages to pay a tribute to Shadow of the Colossus, one of the greatest treasures of gaming, offering small and fast-paced titan battles that escalate to glorious one-shot kills. Next time we hope that the developers would add a bit of story background in order to have a proper connection to the world and the battles we face.

Titan Souls can be repetitive, difficult and frustrating, but it can also be the kind of video game in which one solid arrow shot can make a player happy for half an hour.

An interesting, challenging game that failed to make one final step towards true greatness. [06/2015, p.72]

Nerve-wracking duels, nerve-wracking duels, nerve-wracking duels – don’t expect anything more from Titan Souls. It's a strict action arcade which quite successfully imitates the Shadow of the Colossus.

Titan Souls is a solid game that doesn't overstay its welcome, even if it feels like your skill might not be involved in every kill.

An interesting mix between SOTC and a souls-like game. Unfortunately, Titan Souls is very short and the checkpoint system is a little bit broken. "Prepare to die, minimal edition" could be the best quote to describe the game in a couple of words.

Titan Souls strips out all of the bloat of contemporary action games, and boils things down to what should be the best bits. Though it might be a little too condensed for its own good.

In all, Titan Souls is for people who don’t mind struggling to overcome a challenge, but there’s little else to grab your attention. It doesn’t carry the same weight or intrigue as the games that inspired it, but there’s a fun set of battles to test your reflexes.

Personally, I found it a chore, becoming so caught up in my frustration that it became difficult to enjoy the detailed pixel artwork, take in the soundtrack, or even find satisfaction in finally killing a boss. However, I think there are players who will love this game.

A fantastic concept that stays true to its vision, but just falls short where it matters - though will be popular with speed-runners.

Luckily, before work comes joy, and in the few hours that Titan Souls maintains your interest, you prove that you--and the diminutive hero that you play--can change the world with incredible patience, and a single arrow.

There's a kind of satisfaction to be had in beating Titan Souls' meat grinder, but I only found a feeling of triumph at those points where it stepped away from its die-hard tendencies. In a game that usually kills so quickly, Acid Nerve finds its best moments when its willing to spare the rod, even if it's just for a few minutes.

An interesting and unique idea for a game. Although exciting from time to time, it is not exactly well-thought-out.

By betting everything on just one gameplay feature, Acid Nerve eschewed the story and role-playing elements, so the resulting game is just a string of 19 boss fights, awkwardly crammed into the game's world.

Proves that what works as a prototype does not necessarily translate to a final product. [May 2015, p.123]

As admirable as the single-minded design is it feels a lot more interesting in theory than it does in the endless repetition of actually playing it.