

The combat took a lot of getting used to. After all, for a mercenary, it’s just a job.

#TVTROPES DAEMON X MACHINA CODE#
There’s something appealing about this cast of freaks rising to prominence in a broken world, especially in how they seem to have created a certain code of conduct that keeps combat from being personal.
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I enjoyed learning about their backstories, even if it was often full of hand waving and weirdness. I do think it does a good job though with its cast of weirdos. And yet, I felt some of the twists coming, which took away from the surprise. I would say I generally understand the parameters of the game’s story, but it often strays too close to unintelligibility. There’s some really surreal dialog in this game, and most of the Outers are incredibly strange people. It’s delivered in emails from the various powers, in conversations between mercenary Outers, or in briefings from your AI controller Four. Humanity has an established a cordon around the crash site, and a trio of corporation-states hire mercenary Outers to protect their facilities from the Immortals and to shift the balance of power between the corporations as they extract valuable resources from the site of the moonfall. Especially evolved AI, known as Immortals, are seemingly able to corrupt the machines humanity built to protect itself and turn them against their creators. Seemingly as a consequence, AI all over the planet began to rebel against humanity. Daemon X Machina takes place on a devastated Earth, following an event called the Moonfall - in which a chunk of the moon crashed into the planet’s surface. The slow transformation of your Outer into a cyborg is thematically appropriate for the game’s story.

It’s easily the most consistent way to spend money for upgrades, although it makes your intricately designed create-a-character look incredibly stupid with metal bits bolted all over. That cash can be leveraged to customize your pilot, known as an Outer, with various perks. At some point I just started finding parts and just selling them for cash. Most of the parts and weapons you get are harvested from fallen Arsenals, and while there is a store, it requires extensive engagement with a research system in order for there to be anything worth buying. There’s some variety in weapon types, but it feels like at some point I plateaued. That’s where the customization so central to the game struggles. I’d love to build for combat using energy swords, because I mean who wouldn’t, but I found they weren’t nearly impactful enough to justify it. Your Arsenal is at home both on the ground and in the sky, and I leverage my boosters to move around my foes while hitting them with ranged weapons. Personally, I’ve built for speed and evasion. The parts and weapons selected allow the creation of a custom Arsenal to suit a wide variety of playstyles.
