“Titan Quest” Review

Titan Quest has long been loved on the PC for its blending of mythologies into one whimsical and unique Action-RPG setting. After more than a decade, Titan Quest finally makes its way to consoles. The transition hasn’t been flawless, but…

Titan Quest has long been loved on the PC for its blending of mythologies into one whimsical and unique Action-RPG setting. After more than a decade, Titan Quest finally makes its way to consoles. The transition hasn’t been flawless, but for the most part it translated very well to the consoles.

What Is It?

The mythical Titans have escaped from their prison. The Gods of the world are unable to contain them. It’s up to you to create a hero and take on the task of finding and defeating them once again. It’s a simple premise, and one that ends up working remarkably well. You’ll meet up with mythical and historical figures in your travels, and fight monsters out of Greek, Chinese, and Egyptian mythology. From Centaurs to Jackalmen, the variety of monsters you’ll face is remarkable and one of the game’s strongest points.

Why Should I Care?

Titan Quest on the PS4 is a remarkably faithful port from the PC version. There have been some enhancements since the Anniversary Edition update to help the game play better on consoles. The first and most obvious of these is the monster targeting. Attacks have a vision-cone type of effect. So it’s relatively easy to zero-in and stay locked on the enemy you want to attack. Holding an attack or skill button down and moving the left analog stick will allow you to fine tune your focus on the enemy you want. The system works remarkably well once you learn this aspect of it. If you simply hold down a button or mash attacks, the game will auto-target the closest monster. Early on this is fine, but learning the fine-targeting will help you get the most out of Titan Quest’s combat.

Unfortunately, the game has some usability issues that should be looked into. Much of the UI text is absolutely tiny. The recent God of War received an update to increase the size of some of the text in the UI and Titan Quest’s text is often even smaller than that. In the Inventory and Stats screen for instance, your character’s attributes are absolutely tiny. Given that there’s so much unused screen space, it could have been made larger and easier to read.

Another issue is the inventory management. You’ll be doing a lot of this. It uses the traditional mechanic of each item type taking up a certain amount of space in your inventory, and that inventory being a grid of fixed width and height. There are games on consoles that have ditched this system in favor of inventory categories. While a more modern inventory system would have been nice, what’s present here works. It does, however, remind you that you’re playing a game that came out more than a decade ago.

What Makes It Worth My Time And Money?

The biggest issue that creeps up in the game is the wildly varying monster difficulty. Other games have different levels of monsters. From the lowly grunts to the uber-bosses, Titan Quest has this as well, only with a much steeper difficulty curve that kicks in far sooner. You will be exploring the world or a dungeon, dealing death as you go, and then you’ll run into a pack of monsters that will destroy you in less than three seconds. The difficulty ramps up even more when you face a boss, as you’d expect, but you’d also expect to have had enough time to prepare for that boss, gaining levels and adding to your skills, health, and energy. Often times, you won’t have that time, and you’ll need to go around grinding until you can level up enough to stand a chance. Challenge is one thing, but this feels a tad unbalanced.

It’s also worth mentioning that the recently released expansion for the PC version is not included in the console release. Titan Quest: Ragnarok added new items, skills, and an entirely new area, also made some substantial balance changes to the game. Why it wasn’t included here is still a question to be answered. Will it be made available later? I certainly hope so.

While Titan Quest may have some dated mechanics, they don’t detract too much from what was, and still is a great example of the Action-RPG genre. Whether you plan to play the game alone or online with a friend, there are many hours of fun ahead of you.