One hero. One great big monster. One arrow. The key to Titan Souls is the solid job it does of creating simple, distilled tension, as a single strike decides the battle. That makes Acid Nerve's debut game feel fairly short, looking back, but there's actually enough depth here for a solid experience, especially if aiming for 100% completion.

Our protagonist's quest: to kill and absorb the souls of the Titans of the world. Their origins, motivations, thoughts and identity are unknown - and will probably stay that way. There is almost zero exposition and you'll have to infer the story from every (very) little graphical and textual clue you can find. More of the story is revealed beyond the game's Normal Mode. Even having beaten the game twice, I feel I still don't really know any of it.

Each Titan battle is a matter of shooting the Titan's weak spot (which could be any part of it) before it hits your weak spot (which is all of you). Windows for dodging attacks are small, and for landing the final shot, even smaller. Expect to die a lot; I averaged around 20 deaths per Titan on Normal Mode. Despite this, most bosses are primarily strategic fights, and through all the dying you'll realise are simple and mostly deterministic, with fair telegraphing and few attack patterns to account for. It's reasonably easy to learn the patterns, how to dodge them and how to expose the weak spot; half your deaths are spent executing that strategy. Every
battle ends with the screen turning grey and the music cutting out: if you die, you can silently contemplate mortality as the screen fades to black and the boss keeps mashing your battered corpse; if you win, there's the twang of the arrow finding its mark, and the satisfying animation as you rip out the arrow, along with a new soul. That last hit could either be a cool, calculated strike or a split-second Hail Mary - both are equally satisfying.

Fights tend to be hard-fought, improvised skirmishes capped off with a well-timed shot. This gets you through normal mode, but post-game gameplay demands more strategy. If you really put your mind to it, there's more than one way to skin a Titan. Speedrunners can take out most Titans in under five seconds, with normal
gameplay but clever planning. Completing Titan Souls' Steam achievements will reveal clever secret interactions for defeating some Titans. There's further problem solving outside combat too; you'll need some creative thinking to unlock certain bosses, and there's a secret room that I never figured out. If you
don't have skill/puzzle-solving ability/patience, worry not - you have the option to skip a certain number of bosses and still make it to the end. This does stop you accessing the game's true ending, so I recommend putting the time in to see every Titan.

After normal mode, Titan Souls has some more content for you to flex your newfound skill on. Hard Mode powers up each boss so your speed and precision are tested further, and in the best cases the encounter is tweaked so that you have to figure out a new strategy. If you enjoyed Normal Mode I recommend beating Hard Mode too; it's more achievable than you might think. Two more modes challenge your strategic thinking and pattern knowledge further, and these modes can be combined with each other should you want more challenge (I don't know if combined modes can be beaten).

Visually and aurally Titan Souls has a conventional, but clean and pretty style, occasionally breaking away in fun ways. It looks and sounds a lot like you would expect a top-down indie fantasy to, really. The camera is pulled right back to show how small you are, zooming in suspensefully as you draw back your bow. The overworld's mostly ruins and empty plains, with a few secret areas providing environmental storytelling.
Though not always that exciting to look at, the huge Titans are the stars of the battle, drawing your focus and making you pay attention. Some bosses are clearly 3D meshes rather than just sprites, but it somehow fits really well. The soundtrack is pitch-perfect orchestral fantasy fare, sometimes departing into different genres. Amusingly, most pieces are 2-3 minutes long, even though you usually only hear the first 10 seconds over and over. It's worth listening through, as you can't fully appreciate it in normal gameplay.

Technically Titan Souls is well put together, though I feel I took some unfair deaths due to some odd collision detection on certain bosses. Unless you're highly skilled gamepad is recommended, but menuing and combat controls didn't always do what they were told - my gamepad is fairly old, so you may not have this problem.

Titan Souls doesn't totally knock it out of the park, but it's a clever, varied, absorbing and deceptively deep debut suitable for a range of skill levels, and I'd love to see the one-shot mechanic return. I recommend this for exploit hunters and fans of action and puzzles.

One hero. One great big monster. One arrow. The key to Titan Souls is the solid job it does of creating simple, distilled tension, as a single strike decides the battle. That makes Acid Nerve's debut game feel fairly short, looking back, but there's actually enough depth here for a solid experience, especially if aiming for 100% completion. Our protagonist's quest: to kill and absorb the souls of the Titans of the world. Their origins, motivations, thoughts and identity are unknown - and will probably stay that way. There is almost zero exposition and you'll have to infer the story from every (very) little graphical and textual clue you can find. More of the story is revealed beyond the game's Normal Mode. Even having beaten the game twice, I feel I still don't really know any of it. Each Titan battle is a matter of shooting the Titan's weak spot (which could be any part of it) before it hits your weak spot (which is all of you). Windows for dodging attacks are small, and for landing the final shot, even smaller. Expect to die a lot; I averaged around 20 deaths per Titan on Normal Mode. Despite this, most bosses are primarily strategic fights, and through all the dying you'll realise are simple and mostly deterministic, with fair telegraphing and few attack patterns to account for. It's reasonably easy to learn the patterns, how to dodge them and how to expose the weak spot; half your deaths are spent executing that strategy. Every battle ends with the screen turning grey and the music cutting out: if you die, you can silently contemplate mortality as the screen fades to black and the boss keeps mashing your battered corpse; if you win, there's the twang of the arrow finding its mark, and the satisfying animation as you rip out the arrow, along with a new soul. That last hit could either be a cool, calculated strike or a split-second Hail Mary - both are equally satisfying. Fights tend to be hard-fought, improvised skirmishes capped off with a well-timed shot. This gets you through normal mode, but post-game gameplay demands more strategy. If you really put your mind to it, there's more than one way to skin a Titan. Speedrunners can take out most Titans in under five seconds, with normal gameplay but clever planning. Completing Titan Souls' Steam achievements will reveal clever secret interactions for defeating some Titans. There's further problem solving outside combat too; you'll need some creative thinking to unlock certain bosses, and there's a secret room that I never figured out. If you don't have skill/puzzle-solving ability/patience, worry not - you have the option to skip a certain number of bosses and still make it to the end. This does stop you accessing the game's true ending, so I recommend putting the time in to see every Titan. After normal mode, Titan Souls has some more content for you to flex your newfound skill on. Hard Mode powers up each boss so your speed and precision are tested further, and in the best cases the encounter is tweaked so that you have to figure out a new strategy. If you enjoyed Normal Mode I recommend beating Hard Mode too; it's more achievable than you might think. Two more modes challenge your strategic thinking and pattern knowledge further, and these modes can be combined with each other should you want more challenge (I don't know if combined modes can be beaten). Visually and aurally Titan Souls has a conventional, but clean and pretty style, occasionally breaking away in fun ways. It looks and sounds a lot like you would expect a top-down indie fantasy to, really. The camera is pulled right back to show how small you are, zooming in suspensefully as you draw back your bow. The overworld's mostly ruins and empty plains, with a few secret areas providing environmental storytelling. Though not always that exciting to look at, the huge Titans are the stars of the battle, drawing your focus and making you pay attention. Some bosses are clearly 3D meshes rather than just sprites, but it somehow fits really well. The soundtrack is pitch-perfect orchestral fantasy fare, sometimes departing into different genres. Amusingly, most pieces are 2-3 minutes long, even though you usually only hear the first 10 seconds over and over. It's worth listening through, as you can't fully appreciate it in normal gameplay. Technically Titan Souls is well put together, though I feel I took some unfair deaths due to some odd collision detection on certain bosses. Unless you're highly skilled gamepad is recommended, but menuing and combat controls didn't always do what they were told - my gamepad is fairly old, so you may not have this problem. Titan Souls doesn't totally knock it out of the park, but it's a clever, varied, absorbing and deceptively deep debut suitable for a range of skill levels, and I'd love to see the one-shot mechanic return. I recommend this for exploit hunters and fans of action and puzzles.