Titian Quest is an action RPG made by Iron Lore Entertainment and released by THQ. It can be considered the “spiritual brother” to Diablo 2. The story is set in ancient Greece where heroes such as Hercules and Achilles battle with medusas and hydras. The main character is but a mere man off to save your home from destruction and ruin from such monsters and to bring glory to your name.
The game play is point and click; where your character runs, attacks, and uses things in the world. It’s set up with hotkeys for your spells and abilities as well as items and potions from the keyboard. The leveling system allows you to choose a class as you level (instead of at the start) and the variety of choices allow for some fun classes. However the game is nowhere near balanced in the ability and fairness of the classes. As a druid I was allowed to have pets, healing spells, and poison, with my weapon of choice being the bow. The pet was very, very dumb: only attacking things after they got a swing at me. The monsters wouldn’t look at the pet even if it was the only thing attacking it. It seems that the only class to go is a melee one; they had the most powerful weapons and most health to survive the beating that the character always took. The fighting, however, were masterfully done. The graphics in Titian Quest are amazing, with everything 3D rendered. An excellent use of shading allows for the sun and shadows to bring the world to life as well as the game’s perfected physics. What I was most impressed with was when walking through a farmer’s crop the plants would move to either side of my character as though he was pushing them out of his way.
The sound was also well crafted, with the music adding to the ambience of the setting without distracting the player with annoying sounds of random wildlife. The game allows for a great deal of repeatability for different class selections and game play choices. However nothing changes from the story if you have a different person and the game is very linear about where you have to go. The multiplayer was fun, with 2-6 people joining in and playing the story. Various levels can play together as the difficulty of the monsters depends on where you are in the world.
As an action RPG and a basic mimic to Diablo 2 the game doesn’t stand out that much other than its graphics and selection of classes. The story line is pretty decent and walking around ancient Greece with no pants on did give that manly man feeling. The age group for the game I would place around 12+ only for violence: if you enjoyed Diablo 2 this game would be a good one to try.
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