Titan Quest Anniversary Edition Review

Titan Quest originally came out on PC around 2006 published by THQ and developed by  Iron Lore Entertainment. I actually remember the first time I played this, it was around the time the game came out as I was playing games like Diablo 2, Dungeon Siege 1 and 2. I remember plowing hours and hours into the game back then before I moved on to other games like Divinity 2, Sacred 2 and Torchlight.

Well we are now heading towards to the end of July 2018 and in Wales, we are having a heat wave, and I am stuck in an office with fans all around me writing up a review on a game I loved back around 2006/2007, but will I love the game now?

Have to say right from the get-go there is one thing that has upset me where is the new expansion Ragnarök that came out on PC, it is nowhere to be found, this was something I really wanted to dig into if the game was to make it to my Switch. But for some reason, they have not released the expansion or mentioned the expansion will be coming, so THQ Nordic, if you read this, please release the expansion.

When it comes to the actual game the main aspect which is easily noticeable would be the graphical overhaul, gone are the 2006 textures and in its place are somewhat better texturing, in all honesty, they could have done better. The developers have added higher resolutions, better camera zoom, better shaders, and renders. Even with all these implementations the game still shows its age. One thing I did notice was the inclusion of Multiplayer Online, Multiplayer Local, and Multiplayer CO-OP/ split screen, do I need help from others NO, but what a nice added feature. There are plenty of gamers now, that love to game online with friend or strangers, either for the fun of it, or you simply suck at the game and need a little help from time to time.

But wait, before we go any further let me tell you about the game’s story. You play the role of a rising hero who must help all and save the world before the powerful titan’s pilage and ruin it all. With the power of the gods bestowed upon you, that will give you powers beyond any mortal. You do not get them straight away, you will need to work hard, gain experience and unlocked them.

Do you honestly think the gods would make everything that easy, NO, so you must complete quests, kill loads of enemies, survive, gear up, level up and become the hero the world needs, or just put the controller down and give up and go back to playing candy crush.

The game sets you off with a simple idea, create a character, and choose a mastery from the ones below;

• Storm,
• Earth,
• Warfare,
• Spirit,
• Dream,
• Defense,
• Nature,
• Hunting,
• Rogue.

You can find a more information about masteries here and what you can choose after your first mastery. I was stuck between two characters that I created, both were warfare, one was warfare/earth and the other was warfare/assassin. I like both of them, so its hard to choose which spec I prefer more. When choosing your mastery I would choose wisely as you do not want to keep creating new characters all the time so just read up a little and choose a spec that you feel suits your play style.

All that is left to do then is help everyone that needs help, level up, explore the world and kill almost everything, oh yeah and pick up LOOT glorious LOOT and kit out the worlds Hero.

Loot is amazing in games, it is what we long for but one of the worse things about LOOT in these types of games is the amount of loot that drops and the majority of is can be crap you do not want. We all know we are hunting for rare, epic and legendary items, so having the option to turn off certain items showing up on the screen when they drop is a nice feature in the game.

The controls on the switch work very well, I am unsure on the auto aim and attack aspect used for the console versions, but I guess this makes sense as on PC it is much easier to target with a mouse a keyboard.

The music, Ambient, environmental sounds all show there age and it is a shame as these aspects could have been improved easily. If they are not to your liking you do have some audio controls, Master Volume, Music Volume, SFX Volume and Dialogue Volume, all can be muted or set to your desired position, you can even set the ambient music frequency. I, however, did enjoy all the voice acting, instead of having to read everything, but when I tried to read at the same pace the actor was speaking, the scripts where much slower.

The game holds hours upon hours of gameplay for any ARPG fan out there, even with graphics that feel a little outdated even after being remastered. If you are a fan of the original game, it might be worth dropping a few quid down on this version as well, as there is an abundance of improvements added to this version which can be seen here, its a shame modding on the Nintendo Switch is not one of them.

This game took me back and I enjoyed it for some time, but everything does feel outdated. Saying that though I still enjoyed the game for HOURS and HOURS, so what does that tell you about the game. I tested the multiplayer options and they all worked as expected, though there were not that many players online to team up with, maybe when the game gets its full launch this will change.

During my time in the game, I did experience some small graphical errors, drops in frame rate and once the whole system froze. I have not experienced a freeze of the system since the first time, so I can not confirm that it was the game or something else.

Overall, I would still buy this game if you like ARPG or a huge fan of TITAN QUEST, it does show its age, it is repetitive, but personally, I still found myself spending hours in the game.