Titan Souls

Titan Souls' creative fights and fluid controls make for intensely satisfying and rewarding one-hit-kill combat.

Titan Souls stretches its simple structure to its breaking point, but before that time comes, it's an intriguing game and a fair but fun challenge.

This is a game built with love and thorough attention to detail. It is a startling debut for a young team who demonstrate an enviable clarity of design. But it falls short of greatness, perhaps because its main ingredients of hulking foes and one-hit kills cannot harmonise over the course of an entire adventure.

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

Titan Souls finds its best moments when its willing to spare the rod

Simple, strategic combat and an assortment of unique bosses make for intense bursts of gameplay that will keep you coming back for 'just one more go'. And another. And then one more.

You need an abundance of patience and a tinge of masochistic tendencies to enjoy it, but Titan Souls is a refreshing return to the brutal boss battles of yesteryear

Whatever time was wasted traipsing across the same screens repeatedly, I sure as hell don't regret the twenty-odd perfect shots that happened along the way. The beauty of Titan Souls is that if you enjoy the demo, you'll find more of the same in the full game, with consistently inventive enemy designs.

My normal difficulty run through, save for some exasperation at the final two titans, did make for good pacing. 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. The moments of opportunity are designed to put you in harms way -- surely killing you should you miss the shot -- doubling down on an intense thrill. The quickness with which these things kill you leaves you always feeling unsafe. That you often have to stare down these charging killers, like drawing an arrow against an oncoming train with a baseball-sized weak point, is exhilarating.

Our first hour with Titan Souls was fantastic, but after that the cracks start to show. It's not a bad game, and the atmosphere is excellent, but you'll get to the end knowing that it could have been better. The lack of information about the world makes you feel like you're just roaming a random castle or tower, like those Mega Drive roguelikes where the only goal was to get to the end. The length and price just help to make this excellent idea more unattractive.