Titan Quest: Anniversary Edition (PC) Review

Greek mythology is fantastic. Titan Quest is based on it. Therefore, its storyline is fantastic, too… right? Far from it. This uses the unimaginative route of "Titans have appeared. Kill them!" and, yeah, while the Diablo series was like "Devils have appeared. Kill them!" each title added its own unique twists and bits of lore into the mix, and had superb presentation.

Now, Titan Quest's simple premise could definitely be more interesting, but all NPCs tend to talk like generic MMORPG quest givers… and to say the truth that's what they are. Compare the almost infinite amount of "Manthos: simple villager," to the smaller, but far more memorable cast of Blizzard's dark gothic fantasy masterpiece, and you get the idea.

Even visually, and while this looks beautiful with its high-quality animation (ragdoll physics rock!), vibrant colours, and this version's hi-res facelift, it has a severe lack of character. Greek grasslands, Egyptian grasslands, Mesopotamian grasslands… heck, even the made-by-the-Gods Elysian grasslands look mundane here. Being an ARPG, this is all about the action, though, and, at first, it doesn't disappoint, although it does feel quite slow - and, thankfully, this edition includes a speed setting.

Unfortunately, while most bugs have been fixed, some in-game mechanics have been left intact. Most notably, unlike Diablo II (tired of it appearing on this review?), the controls feel… stiff, with the playable character looking as if hesitating before attacking. It's not that this is broken or anything, but this is supposed to be a 100% retweaked product. Another example of things that, although "fixed," seem to be the same, is the 'Masteries' class system available, which is by far the best feature of this title… as well as one its most disappointing ones.

Similar to Grim Dawn, which was developed by former Iron Lore Entertainment employees, the class of a character is a combination of two amongst the nine available categories. Obviously, there are many combinations, and it's a joy to try them all and experiment with the way the skills of the first work in unison with the ones in the second skill tree, but, classes used to be quite unbalanced, and had lots of skills that were almost useless.

Sadly, while the developer claims that this is not a problem anymore, it is, and is especially evident in non-sorcery Masteries. Even worse, even though this is something that the Anniversary Edition couldn't really fix, there are almost no AoE attacks! This might seem as nit-picking, but no, it's a serious problem, not because it makes fighting the hundreds of enemies harder, but because it makes everything even slower, and certainly destroys the feeling of being an all-powerful hero.

As for the final nail in this, otherwise, marginally enjoyable, coffin, A: it's the most linear game in the genre, bar none, B: the size of some its sections can really put people to sleep, unlike - guess who? - Diablo II which had far more compact and balanced levels, and, C: nothing exciting is going on here. It's literally boring horde of mobs after boring horde of mobs, with even the bosses being nothing more than bigger versions of simple monsters.

The only additions worthy of mention? Multiplayer functionality has improved quite a lot, large parties that play on harder difficulties will face new challenges with receive rewards, and, finally, a full integration into the Steam Workshop, in order to make the creation and distribution of mods a far easier process; and there are tons of mods to choose from, some of which can make this quite the fun ride… in other words: use mods!