Titan Quest – Review

Titan Quest has been one of THQ’s hits from a nearly forgotten past, that was brought back to life last year with the release of a new expansion, nearly 11 years after the release of the original base game. We weren’t sure what the point was in bringing this title alive, as it felt like it was a little too late, even though the expansion was pretty well received. We were quite surprised to see Titan Quest being ported to all major platforms several months ago, with the Switch being the last one on the list. The game was best enjoyed with mouse and keyboard, but it seems that the console port must have undergone some changes to make the game accessible to all kinds of gamers.

Story

Titan Quest situates itself in the well-known ancient Greece, where the legends of the Titans still were very much present in the day-to-day lives of the people. While the Titans were supposedly cast aside by the Olympians, the world finds itself lacking the protection of the gods, as the world is now filled with monsters even the legendary Spartans cannot keep at bay. You, an unnamed warrior, enter the picture and you’ll have to find the source of this evil and progress through hordes of monsters to finally defeat those responsible for the summoning of said creatures. Overall the story progresses through the different quest dialogues, but story content is moved to the background for this title and stays behind a curtain of heavy grinding.

Graphics

Graphically Titan Quest is not half that bad, considering we’re looking at a title that’s around 11 years old. The character design is fairly decent, the enemies look interesting enough but it’s mostly the environments and different cities that passed the test of time, and still look fancy and visually interesting, which certainly gives the game a decent amount of appeal. Nonetheless, even though the game might already have some experience under its belt, the different enemy types get copy pasted all over the game, creating a bland cast of foes, which will certainly bore after a while, given the game is a perpetual grindfest. That being said, while the esthetics still feel pretty fresh, it’s clear the menus have been edited only to a minimum, as they are quite unclear and tiny on both your television set, as well as when playing in the handheld mode.

Sound

The sound design in Titan Quest is actually very good and while it is atmospheric for the most part, it certainly does the job. More than once you’ll wander through an area, with only the sounds of your enemies, the clashing of weapons, and the peaceful tweeting of the birds, which is certainly a plus in terms of how the game defines itself. Other than that, every conversation, be it informative ones or quest givers, is fully voiced, which is simply phenomenal for a game such as this. Not only is everything fully voiced, it’s the cast that is also quite sublime for the game’s setting.

Gameplay

Titan Quest is a somewhat older action RPG, that is very reminiscent of an open world Diablo game. You can’t roam around the world as freely as you’d like, as the further you go without leveling, the more you’ll get your ass handed back to you. Nonetheless, the world is one big zone in which you can traverse, without ever encountering new loading points, safe if you fast travel via portals. Your goal is to rid the world of the monsters that are currently pestering the lands, and like in many other games, you start out as a nobody who eventually turns out to be the savior of the world. The game doesn’t hold your hands, so you’ll have to find your way yourself, even though the main quest is fairly linear, which means if you keep going to new unexplored territory, you’ll end up fine, if you don’t skip quest givers and special monsters.

The game resembles Diablo in many ways. The concept is basically the same, but the setting is completely different, so it’s clear that THQ got its inspiration from Blizzard’s game, without making it a complete clone. In the game you won’t be able to choose a single class, but you can opt to choose skills from different paths, allowing you to build a character to your liking (with certain restrictions of course). Other than that, you’ll be able to place stat points every time you level up, increasing your base stats, which will help you wear better gear.

One gripe with the game was the targeting system, as the game targets monsters for you. You can use the left stick, while holding down the attack button, to choose targets in a general direction but not a specific target. This means you’ll often end up following the auto-target function, which blows balls, or target a wrong creature when trying to aim yourself. More than once we wanted to flee from a battle, but were locked into place because the left stick is both used for moving as well as targeting. In the heat of battle we often found ourselves using the target function instead of the ability to walk.

Other bugs in the game include being stuck when you try to pick up items by clicking the A button. This can be solved by holding the A button to collect everything within a short range. Nonetheless, we found ourselves stuck for a few seconds every so often, making it somewhat annoying.

A very fun addition to this Switch port is the co-op split-screen function. Even if you are nowhere close to each other in terms of progression, you don’t have to fight over who gets to play, as you can simply play together. It’s fun to be able to play like this, even when not actually playing together in-game.

Conclusion

Titan Quest for the Nintendo Switch is a fairly decent port of a game that still plays relatively well for being a decade old. While the menus and the controls aren’t as optimized as one would like in this perpetual grinding game, the game still offers a lot of playtime, fun co-op functions and an interesting setting and superb voice acting. While the current retail price is a bit steep, fans of the original who want to take a trip down memory lane will certainly enjoy this one on the go, as well as those looking for an old and decent RPG. Those looking for something very new and spiffy, with a perfect control scheme will probably not have that much fun playing this one.

Ibuki

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Aspiring ninja.

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