We all remember Space Invaders, right? Well, that’s basically what Titan Attacks is. Time to shoot down some more aliens!
While Titan Attacks isn’t exactly like Space Invaders, it really is very similar. You control a ship and must shoot down the alien ships descending on your screen. Well, usually descending. Sometimes they are bouncing around or screen wrapping but… you get the point. There are 100 unique levels, and every 20 levels you will face down a boss.
The bosses are all over in difficulty. The first time you’re going through the 100 levels, the hardest will likely be the second and last bosses. After that, they all get a little bit tougher (mainly more health, not that you can see their health). Once you beat the boss on level 100, the game does wrap back around to the first set but the level numbers do keep going up. Basically, there’s infinite levels – so long as you can survive anyways. It was hard for me to even survive the first 100 without save abusing!
The hitboxes are extremely awkward, which makes the need for save abuse even higher. While on one shot you might be just fine, try and dodge another the same way? Smack! The rockets with explosions are even odder – there is a hit box to hit you until it’s completely faded out. There’s also basically no invincibility frames so it can be pretty easy to just get caught in a bunch of shots and lose a lot of your shield.
Thankfully you can buy more shields between levels! Of course if you do that, you’re really just making the game harder. You also need that money, which feels pretty hard to come by, to upgrade your ship so that you can actually take on the bosses. It took me nearly 200 levels to finally fully upgrade my ship (including max shield and super bombs) since I was 
getting hit so much. Sure, these aren’t exactly a game genre I’m FANTASTIC at but… money definitely was a little bit too limited I feel.
I was determined to get 100% of the trophies before I put it down. This turned into a several hour adventure, mainly just exiting and reloading my save a lot. One of the “decent” ways to get money – and also one of the things you need to get for trophies – is to capture the aliens. This is a lot harder than it sounds. They are EXTREMELY easy to kill, and if they end up in the middle of a lot of shots… well, either eat the runaway penalty (which is losing how much money you WOULD have got) or lose the shield. Neither is exactly ideal. If I had a nickel for every one I killed accidentally while trying to get through this…
So while Titan Attacks may appeal to some, awkward hit boxes and aggravating bosses will turn away many. I was definitely extremely happy to see that last trophy come up because I knew I wouldn’t have to play the game again. I would probably still be trying for it if save abuse wasn’t an option. The fact you only have one life really doesn’t help its case much either. So unless you really are into this kind of game – and can deal with awkward hit boxes – then just stay away.
Titan Attacks Review Score
2/5
This review is based off the PlayStation Vita version of the game.
