➤ Titan Quest Remastered review 🎮

The hack'n'slash market on consoles is not exactly full of exponents, with rather mediocre titles and light years away from the quality expressed by Diablo III. Needless to go around it, in short: if you are looking for a game in which to slice endless hordes of enemies, collect precious objects, upgrade your character and enjoy more than decent graphics, the only solution is to turn towards the Blizzard title. On PC the situation is not very different even if in past years, especially in the period from the publication of Diablo II to today, many more than valid titles have appeared on the digital stores, such as Torchlight and its sequel, for example, but above all as Titan Quest, a game produced by THQ and for many the only and true anti Diablo in history. In fact, the title developed by Ironlore really had all the cards to remain in the Olympus of the genre, and the hundreds of hours we spent on it at the time of the release can only confirm the undisputed qualities of the production. Today, at almost twelve years old, the reborn THQ Nordic tries to beat cash, proposing a remastered on Playstation 4 and Xbox One put together for the occasion, in the hope of catching some nostalgic and show the new generations what it was capable of. We then threw ourselves again to slaughter monsters in ancient Greece to emerge as heroes, but the gaze of medusa left us petrified on the spot.

The high price of nostalgia

Let's start from the first crucial point: the price. A few years ago, on Steam, the Titan Quest Anniversary Edition was launched, a complete revision of the title that was going to improve some old historical problems and was even given to all owners of the original game. It included the Immortal Throne expansion, fixed a few bugs here and there, and refreshed a game that's still 10 years old. In short, an operation to be rewarded, which showed a certain gratitude towards the fans on the part of the newborn label. Things change quickly and this year, not only does the price rise to thirty euros, but to try to make money there is also a collector's edition containing a mini reproduction of a Spartan helmet and an artbook at the modest cost of about 120 dollars. Okay, you say, you can think of opening your wallet to finance a title you are particularly fond of anyway, but the production effort was so minimal as to completely leave out the latest expansion Ragnarok, thus finding himself in the hands of done, an incomplete version of Titan Quest. The absurdity of the thing goes even further, given that in the PC edition, the expansion is instead included with a discounted price of about 10 euros. Decision-making follies aside, therefore, buying this Titan Quest Remastered would represent more of a leap of faith towards the brand, and although the market is poor in hack'n'slash, throwing your head down in this purchase is not exactly the best choice.

My ideology aside?

Bringing a hack'n'slash to console is not an easy task, let's face it. The controls must be readjusted to the simple pad, the menu and interface must be completely revised and, more generally, the whole way of playing and managing the inventory must be cleaned up, often too tied to the single movement of the mouse. THQ Nordic therefore opts to follow the simpler route, creating retractable radial menus both for what concerns the launch of skills, always clearly visible in the lower part of the screen, and for the management of the menus, from the selection of the inventory when opening the map. The UI is however well understandable and there are no major criticisms to move towards the work done. The skills are easily cast and it is not complex to be able to chain different ones in series, simply by doing a little practice with the rotation of the new ring. What remains uncomfortable instead is the management of the equipment of your character, forced as we will be to move individually from one object to another, wasting time unnecessarily. It is then impossible to move the objects in the backpack where we want, with a button to rearrange everything automatically which often does not work properly, stupidly reducing the already little space available to store the loot. The biggest problem, however, concerns the new management of movement controls and targeting of the target. Titan Quest, as a good self-respecting hack'n'slash, does not skimp on excited moments and furious enemies who throw all their hatred on you, but the slowness in the selection of the target and the lack of fluidity in the movements make the whole title extremely woody and difficult to play. Often it happens to be literally paralyzed without being able to do anything while trying to frame the desired monster among the crowds of opponents, inevitably ending up taking too many blows without being able to do anything. A not insignificant problem if we consider that Titan Quest has always been a fairly difficult game and where the difficulty curve tends to always remain very high, also due to a slow progression in the growth - both in level and in mere power - of the our character. We should have in our hands a game that flows smoothly without a moment of pause and instead this remaster fits and becomes tangled by itself, coming to offer an experience that is anything but exciting mitigated only by the online mode in co-op up to six players.

PlayStation 4 Trophies

It's not too hard to take home platinum on Titan Quest Remastered. To get it, simply play the entire campaign by completing all the secondary and main missions and then do two more runs in the additional difficulties, simply remembering to chop everything you encounter on the road. Vent your anger towards the gods!

Insufficient homework

Then all those technical devices are missing to make a remaster valid and worthy. Although it has been nearly twelve years since launch and inevitably the design of some creatures and armor is "old", the style is still quite appreciable and the game as a whole manages to defend itself well. Certainly you shouldn't expect monsters with superfine polygonal modeling or overly sophisticated animations, but for a game with all these years on its shoulders it must be said that it could have ended much worse. However, what has not been fixed in the least and which, on the contrary, is aggravated by the new management of the camera is the pathfinding of the enemies who often lose sight of the target, get stuck in the elements of the scenario or remain helpless to be pulled at the most devastating. spells. We defeated bosses simply by holding a button without them responding just because we were out of sight, and we saw minions and creatures get stuck behind fences without knowing how to get around them. To aggravate everything, it takes very heavy occasional slowdowns, senseless given the game engine so old and long loads that weaken an already not particularly exciting experience.

Comment

Tested version PlayStation 4 Resources4Gaming.com

5.0

Readers (7)

6.6

Your vote

Titan Quest Remastered is an unsuccessful operation. In the face of a solid and well-made game, we could almost say one of the best hack'n'slash ever, we see a porting job done with disarming carelessness. Our advice is therefore to avoid the console version and possibly recover the Anniversary Edition on the PC, often sold on sale at ridiculously low prices. The productive effort is absolutely not enough, for a remaster to leave on the shelves.