Titan Souls

Titan Souls, an action-adventure game from 2015, was created by developer Acid Nerve and released through publisher Devolver Digital. It launched on Windows, OS X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Android. Critics generally received the game well, and it is often noted as an early title in the Soulslike genre, which draws direct inspiration from the Dark Souls series. The story places the player between Earth and a world beyond, where the Titan Souls exist as the spiritual source of all living things. These souls lie scattered among ruins, guarded by idle titans. A lone hero, armed with only a single arrow, gathers shards of the Titan Soul in search of truth and power. Gameplay is a strategic, open-world, 2D top-down action-adventure. The player has just one arrow and can survive only a single hit. The goal is to defeat twenty giant monsters called Titans (twenty-one in hard mode), which also die in one hit but have a single, specific weakness. Players must learn each boss's behavior to find that weakness. The challenge comes from needing to stand still to charge and shoot the arrow, and then retrieve it, leaving the player vulnerable. Development drew inspiration from Dark Souls, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Legend of Zelda. The game began as a Ludum Dare Game Jam #28 entry under the username Claw, where it placed first in Overall, Audio, and Mood categories. Over six months, it was ported from Adobe Flash to a new engine, with enhanced graphics, improved performance, a new soundtrack, and an expansion from three to sixteen titans. At E3 2014, Devolver Digital announced it would publish the game. After E3, three more titans and a story were added. On March 25, 2015, an April 14, 2015 release date was announced. The Game Jam prototype was remade in the new engine on April 2, 2015, with better graphics, an improved soundtrack, and new bosses, and a demo was released before the full game. Abstraction Games handled the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita ports. The game launched on April 14, 2015. Abstraction Games later announced that an Android port was also underway, which released 30 June 2015. Reception was generally positive, earning a 74/100 on Metacritic.