The remastered original, set on two colossal frozen giants locked in battle, with a world so big you can spend hours in the first area. Battles happen in real time and your sword shows you flashes of an ally about to die, giving you a few seconds to change the outcome. Updated visuals and a bonus epilogue chapter make this the best way to play one of the genre's landmark stories.
Gameplay video
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Screenshots & review notes
Why it lands
Revisiting this original entry confirms how ahead of its time it was, and the remaster smooths over most of what aged poorly the first time around.
How it plays
The future-sight battle system still feels tactically satisfying today, giving fights a rhythm that's distinct from typical turn-based or action RPG combat.
Style and score
Higher-resolution models and a rescored soundtrack breathe new life into the titan landscapes, making this the best-looking version by a wide margin.
Who it's for
The new Future Connected epilogue is a nice bonus, and this remains the ideal entry point for anyone curious about the series before jumping into the sequels.
Frames captured from the gameplay video above; notes are our own take on the game.
What it's like to play
This is a remastered version of the game that started the series, with updated character models and a cleaner interface, and it is the most approachable of the three. The world is two colossal frozen giants locked in combat, and you live on them. The first area alone is big enough to spend hours in, and the moment you first look up and realize the mountain in the distance is your enemy's knee is one of gaming's great reveals.
Combat happens in the open field in real time. Your character swings automatically while you choose special moves from a bar as they recharge and shuffle around to attack from the side or behind. The distinctive mechanic is that your sword shows you a vision of the future a few seconds ahead, so you will see an enemy about to land a killing blow on an ally and get a brief window to warn them, interrupt it, or heal through it. It turns fights into a scramble to change a fate you have already been shown.
The story is a straightforward revenge tale that grows into something much stranger and bigger, and it is well paced compared to its sequels. There are hundreds of side quests, most of them simple fetch tasks, which you can safely ignore. This edition also adds a separate epilogue campaign of a dozen or so hours set after the ending. At roughly sixty hours for the main story it is the shortest of the trilogy and the easiest one to recommend to somebody trying this kind of game for the first time.