Review — Titan Quest: Console Edition

Embark on an epic journey filled with loot and hordes of enemies, that also features also deep customization system.

Titan Quest is a classic action RPG released for PC in 2006. Who would have guessed that almost 12 years later, we would be playing this game on our current generation consoles. Often touted as one of the better Diablo clones, it became a cult classic on PC. But will it stand as strong today on the Xbox One and Playstation 4?

A Long Journey

Titan Quest was published by the now defunct THQ, but after its bankruptcy the license was acquired by Nordic Games (now THQ Nordic). Last year, the game surprisingly got a new expansion called Ragnarok. The Console Edition comes bundled with this new expansion and the previous Immortal Throne giving players hours of hack & slash fun.

The game takes place in Antique times and your journey starts in ancient Greece in a small village called Helios, being ravaged by mythical beasts. As you set out to learn the reason why these beasts attack, you venture through the land and learn about the probable cause, the lesser Titans called Telkines. Your adventures take you further than you might imagine, as you’ll be chasing these Telkines all the way to Egypt and China. The two expansions even allow you to descend into the Underworld and venture up north to Norway.

Gods and Monsters

What makes Titan Quest stand out, is the setting of the game. No fantasy or Gothic horror here, but rather a story drenched in Greek, Egyptian, Chinese and Norse mythology. This means you’ll be facing tons of mythological creatures and wield weapons and gear from ancient times. By incorporating these different regions, there’s also a great variety in the places you’ll visit. The game also opts for an alternative to the typical class system. Instead you get masteries (like Warfare, Nature, Rogue, Dream) with their own skill trees, of which you’ll combine 2 to create your own specialized character.

Looking at the remaster, you can’t deny that the levels look rather great and it feels like they’ve done more that just up the resolution a bit. The character models look a bit dated on the other hand, as does the interface of the game. The font also is a tad too small, making it hard to read the text. Other than that the game looks great for being 12 years old. And using a controller works rather well to for the bigger part. At least it does away with the annoying point a click-system from the PC version.

Imperfection

While the game looks good and the controls are well-adapted, there are some issues with this console port and some issues with the game in general. Looking at the port aspect, the first problem arises with the button-pushing concept using a controller. There seems to be a problem with the registration of the input when pressing buttons. Many times, when I pressed the up Arrow, which had assigned a healing skill, didn’t trigger the action, resulting in unnecessary deaths. This problem also arose with the joystick movement or other buttons. Another major issue is the auto-targeting system. There were times where the game targeted an enemy at range while I was being swarmed by other enemies. The only way to undo this, was to run until the target enemy was off-screen, so that the system could pick another target. This issue has some seriously negative impact on the experience.

Then, there are some issues I had with the game itself. The biggest issue here is that even for an action RPG, Titan Quest can quickly feel tedious and repetitive. Once you think about it, you’re actually just walking along a path, pushing mainly 1 button to enemy after enemy. Leveling also goes very slow, which result in a game that feels very “grindy”. On top of that, the game is much more linear than you think, you’re basically walking down one long path, occasionally taking a small detour to butcher a village of monsters of explore a cave. The respawn system is also a bit weird, in the sense that monsters don’t regain health when you die. So in bossfights, you can basically get a few hits, die and just run back to continue the fight.Considering the extreme difficulty of certain bossfights, this frequently was my way to go in the game.

The game features online co-op functionalities for up to 6 people, but sadly, you’re lucky if there are even 20 people playing the game at the same time. You can also join a session of someone who is way higher or lower in level than you, creating a big imbalance. So friends are the way to go if you want to play the game with other people. And that you’ll only be able to do online, as the game as no couch co-op. This is a feature sourly missed in a game like this on consoles, which is kind of regrettable.

This console port might not be the ideal remaster of the PC classic. But despite all its faults, it does offer some fun moments for those who like this genre. Since it was first released 12 years ago, it isn’t as streamlined as say Diablo 3 or Path of Excile, and it does feel outdated at times. It might be a nice nostalgia trip for some or a new chance to play an old-school classic, but it might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

3/5

Reviewed for PlayStation 4