RPS Feature Boss
Repetition and gruelling difficulty aside, Titan Souls [official site] has little in common with the From Software series that the second part of that title nods toward. It’s slightly closer, in form and feel, to Shadow of the Colossus, the beautifully crafted boss battle bonanza from Team Ico. While I was scrapping my way through this often-splendid game, I was also reminded of Towerfall, Zelda and Smash TV, and yet the whole package is not quite like anything else. Here’s wot I think.
We’ve been dying in Titan Souls [official site] for years now. From its beginnings as a scrappy game jam game to its fancied-up modern incarnation, it has a rock-hard core of rewarding care and learning in super-difficult boss fights where you only have one arrow and only one hit will kill you. And it’s pretty great fun.
With the full game’s release approaching, developers Acid Nerve have released a demo which neatly recreates that original prototype, showing how far it’s come. Find it on Steam.
RPS Feature Boss Hog
Presumably calling the game The Legend of Colossus Souls was considered just that little bit too direct. To be fair, naming the obvious inspirations here doesn’t do justice to Titan Souls’ own invention – a combat system which is so simple and taut, yet from which the game conjures a series of elaborate and ever-inventive boss battles.
Originally made for a Ludum Dare competition (you can read Nathan’s impressions of that early version here), Titan Souls has now blossomed into a full game due out early next year. A sprawling, derelict world of overgrown temples, icy rivers and fiery caverns now awaits, and within lurk around two dozen gargantuan foes. It takes the mournful feel and monstrous populace of Shadow of the Colossus, and presents it from the pixellated perspective of the Zelda games of yore. And, as with Dark Souls, you consume the primeval soul of each megabeast you slay. The combat shares that series’ lack of compromise, too: you will die and die again facing each of these monsters, every time getting a bit wiser to their weaknesses, a shade more adept at avoiding their attacks.
Titan Souls began life as a Ludum Dare entry created in just a couple of days, but the allure of epic, 2D boss fights is strong. The game which Nathan called “Shadow of the Colossus meets Dark Souls” has now expanded into a full game, and there’s a new trailer below.
