Titan Quest is a dungeon crawler originally released for the PC in the mid 2000’s and now finds a home on current generation consoles, as well. For the fans of the dungeon crawler and loot-hell genre, this will be a welcome addition to your collection. This game bears a resemblance to the Diablo franchise in that multiple enemies and insurmountable odds face our lone hero yet they seems to slice right through the hordes of evil bestiary with ease. Although still good, this game starts to show its age with dated graphics, stale music, and repetitive gameplay.
There are several Acts that span 3 real world locations. Following the main quest line from Greece, our hero travels across the wilderness with towns and rest areas along the linear path. Caves and tombs offer a nice distraction and a chance to grind experience and hunt for the best gear, but honestly, by the time you’ve put 30 or so hours into the game it is hard to find the resolve to explore the outlying areas on the linear path. Side quests are also offered and are fairly easy to complete and often do not stray you far from the main route.
The gameplay is what you have come to expect from the Dungeon Crawler/RPG genre and it follows the formula to the letter. There are multiple classes to choose from including Ranger that specializes in bows, Warriors that use sword and shield, Druids and other vaguely similar magic users. Multi-classing is an option early on so the possibilities are plentiful. The level up system gives you 3 skill points to distribute in the skill tree and points to apply directly to your base stats. The base stats are Health, Energy, Intelligence, Strength, and Dexterity. There are vendors that give you back your used skill points for an increasing cost in gold, giving the player the option to re-spec or get that skill point back that you put in a skill that you thought would be useful, but turned out to be useless.
The fighting mechanics are pretty standard implementing the tried and true method of holding the attack button until everything stops moving. Boss and mini-boss fights will provide a minor challenge on the lower difficulties requiring the player to dodge slightly to beat them. The higher difficulties are locked from the beginning requiring a play through on easy to unlock them. This was probably done to give the player a chance to learn the game but quickly loses its charm as the game is quite long and killing everything in one hit, aside from bosses, gets really repetitive very quickly.
The graphics are standard for this genre. They are decent but it shows its age, combined with the dull colour palate, this game is rather dulling to the senses. The swirling colours and spells like you’d find in Diablo are few and far between, most of the time you are looking at brown mountains, yellow sand, and green grass. The camera does not rotate but can be zoomed in surprisingly close to the character, although at that magnification you cannot see the path or approaching enemies.
The background music is ho-hum. I’d much prefer it to playing in silence but for the most part it’s forgettable. Sound effects in the game are good, though. Featuring wildlife noises like insects, birds, and rodent noises. The voice acting is well done and of good quality but is sparse, only found in towns and the occasional cut scene.
As mentioned before, the game offers three difficulties, the harder two requiring a completion on the earlier difficulty. The story is quite long by itself and if you explore caves and complete side quest, you can expect to spend between 40 and 50 hours on a play through. You could speed run it in much less by running past the enemies but this would leave you under leveled at boss fights. With the gameplay being this repetitive, it seems unlikely that anyone aside from the achievement hunters and the die-hard fans of loot gathering would stick with it until full completion.
The starting price of $29.99/£26.99 is a little steep for the experience. The game is long, true, but the gameplay gets stale pretty quickly. I would recommend waiting for a sale, especially if you have already played this in the past or if you have another dungeon crawler to play.
Verdict
This game offers solid gameplay with tight controls but is lacking in graphics. The game is long but gameplay gets stale long before a full completion. Would recommend if it was on sale, otherwise leave it for the fans of the loot mania and dungeon crawler genres.
Overall Score 6.5/10
Developer:
Publisher: THQNordic
Release Date:
Price: £26.99/$29.99
File Size:
Xbox One copy provided for review purpose.
Available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Steam