Titan City

First and foremost…

The amount of effort that has been put into Titan City is obvious, particularly when it comes to the breadth and depth of options in character customisation. There are a range of stats and skills that can be improved and these aren’t merely useful in battle, but in all sorts of neat little game play mechanics appearing throughout.

In terms of its story and setting, however, Titan City is extremely plain and unoriginal. Its inspirations (which the maker freely lists) are obvious, taken from familiar staples of the cyberpunk genre like Shadowrun and Deus Ex. TC revolves around taking jobs, hacking, bodily augmentation and high technology. But while Titan City is happy to remain firmly rooted in the genre’s comfort zone, it narrowly survives its dependence on tropes by getting the basics of the format right and with a pleasing level of polish.


Of the world…

Titan City could be transposed with just about any classic cyberpunk setting. Shady mega corporations rule, there has been a devastating war, its streets are populated by the usual cast of hackers, jackers, gang members and put-upon police. In the midst of this setting reigns the ever familiar ‘Web’ (i.e. ‘matrix’), through which the player is made able to enter the digital world and physically infiltrate computer systems. As a mechanic this is done very simply, but with very fun results.

The game opens on a character selection screen and (for now?) the only available option is a career hacker named “Johnny Li”. While his skill set soundly echoes those of any cyberpunk ‘thief for hire’, the most fun in TC is to be found when playing as Johnny’s avatar in the Web. Battles on the outside against gang members are a little slow and repetitive, so much so that repeatedly escaping from them fast became preferable to seeing them through. On the inside, Johnny’s duels with personified security programs are, despite having the same ‘attack, get attacked’ format, much more fun.

This is because they serve a definite purpose. To reach their quarry, the player must navigate Johnny through simple mazes, overcoming computer defences in quick fire battles to unlock gates and access different important nodes. Each enemy is given a colourful explanation that details its strategy and purpose, which complements the world-building aspect of this project very nicely. Rather than have a time limit on each digital break in, Johnny is unable to heal whilst in the Web and this creates an air of tension without making the player feel pressured.

I had to skip the first 'hacking tutorial' because it wanted me to do a skill called "Lag Spike" but I couldn't - nor could I do anything else. It may be a bug the maker wants to look into. Anyway - reset, restart and:



To briefly cover appearances, Titan City’s look is average, possessing a mix of strong, standard and sometimes weak design elements.



The tileset(s) used for Titan City’s veneer is attractive, but underused. Some gorgeous details suffer from being too far apart on either side of wide, sparse areas. The large gaps between points of interest made the city feel more like a village in the sense that there was an abundance of space. I appreciate that this may be the result of the tileset’s limitations, but some of the details struck me as cursory at best, with random piles of tyres serving to fill what would otherwise be plain and empty lengths of road. For me, a cyberpunk setting is crammed with detail and very claustrophobic, so while Titan City on the whole looks good, it didn’t feel much like I was in the future or in a particularly cyberpunk-esque environment.


Of the story…

Beyond the opening scenes, TC’s story suffers from a lack of focus.

I’m not a fan of the info-dump as a means of scene setting. Others may disagree, but even the equivalent of text transformed into dialogue between two characters in a cutscene is a preferable introduction. The prologue was just about rescued by a particularly fitting backing track. I count it amongst TC’s strengths that it shows how invaluable a well composed or chosen soundtrack can be in creating or suggesting atmosphere. Some of the chosen pieces were jarringly inappropriate, such as the RTP ‘victory fanfare’, which broke the flow of cyberpunk ambience with its high-hearted orchestral clamouring. Otherwise, the music was brilliantly chosen (or made – I don’t know) and has extremely apt undertones of John Carpenter and Kraftwerk.

The first segment of the game proper sees Johnny embark on a job (or ‘gig’ – nice lingo) to steal something from a hostile gang. “Slash”, a character Johnny is talking to on his mobile phone, guides him through the basics of game play via a fairly well written mix of tutorial and exposition.

I won’t spoil anything, but after this opening chapter, all sense of there being a plot seemed to fall away.

The risk for any RPG Maker game that attempts any degree of being open-world is that it may suffer from a distracting lack of direction. It was always easy enough to find out where to go and what to do next, but I hadn’t been given enough information about Johnny as a character to care about ‘why’. The early game felt too much like going through the motions, heading from A to B to C. Before I had any strong grip on a sense of narrative, I was doing what felt like minor side quests. Side quest content is fine and encouraging, but only as a means of adding depth to a strong, core story. Without an overarching sense of jeopardy or relevance, Johnny’s odd-jobs made me feel like I was running errands for the game. Perhaps I missed something, which I readily admit is possible, but at the same time something as important as the story shouldn’t be so easy to overlook.

I got a sense that the maker was preoccupied by the complexity of mechanics attempted, which is understandable. Complexity is good, but I’d also add that too many skills to manage and too many tutorials to read early on was slightly overwhelming. It might be better to introduce each skill via a section of game play interwoven with the story rather than via a text tutorial.


Of the population…

I mentioned earlier how TC’s flavour text does a good job in the field of world building.

As an aside, I noticed that a strangely large number of the titular Titan City’s denizens were mercenary educators, offering to train me in certain skills for money. In my opinion, it would be better if this kind of learning was done via the Web. It’s a better fit with the theme of high-tech computer interfacing if there’s some kind of ‘Knowledge for money .com’ arena to visit. Doing it that way would also free up more NPCs to add extra life to the city with their perspectives and experiences.

I was, for example, genuinely interested in what the nurse/lady in the Chop Docs had to say, standing as she was ten feet from a floor covered in blood smears. All she did was offer to train me in certain skills, but the things she must have seen in there would have made for far more interesting content.



In closing…

The heart of the piece is its mechanics, which are thorough and interesting, but detracted from somewhat by the story’s blur. I played until a pair of enemies overwhelmed my supply of Trauma Kits and killed me.



What I came away with was a positive impression of Titan City, one that suggests a lot of potential. Titan City made me want more, but I’m going to wait for newer versions that will (hopefully) have taken account of the points raised.

No doubt a title to keep an eye on. I look forward to its next incarnation.

Some final thoughts:

- It looks as though the cast of playable characters is going to be huge, but having too many might spread the content too thin.

- It may be worth the maker investing time or, if possible, money in including exclusively custom battlers. A unique style on this front would really ‘up’ TC’s aesthetic.

- A simple solution to the story’s lack of presence might be to have Johnny quickly acquire a new phone and use it to get back in touch with Slash, who seems to be the player’s moorings to the plot.

3/5