Titan Quest

I have been playing this game since it came out in 2006, before even Immortal Throne was announced. I was 9, and had to share the computer with my mom and younger brother.
Let me tell you, this game is STILL AMAZING. Yeah, the engine has hiccups, but I'm amazed it still runs on newer machines. My whole family played this game RELIGIOUSLY, and when Immortal Throne was released, we bought it immediately and played it for years. It brought my family together during some of our most stressful times, to be honest.
Since then, seeing that it has STILL been updated and added on to? That makes me so very happy. I never thought I'd see people getting to experience just how amazing this game is, let alone get to see new classes and content added on.
If you're looking for a technical review, here it is:
You'll have to mess with settings to keep it from crashing or developing huge glitches. It's an 18 year old game, what do you expect?
Gameplay is a lot like other ARPG's, especially with the class-mixing system and skill point allocation. It's not super "innovative" if you've played other ARPGs. But you have lots of story, rich lore, and gameplay time.
Performance? Hypothetically speaking, if one were to steal a computer from your local high school (that probably is still running Windows XP), you could run this game just fine with it. It takes next to nothing to run the game. It runs on 1 singular cpu core if that tells you anything, and (unless you mod it) doesn't even approach using 4gb of RAM. doesn't matter what video card you have either. your CPU could have integrated graphics and this game wouldn't skip a beat.
Please give this game some patience, and love. Iron Lore and THQ Nordic deserve tons of respect and love for not only bringing this game to Steam and every other console, but updating the game and adding DLC well over a decade later for the players who loved this game before and continue to love it now. I feel like a happy kid again being able to play this game. And as long as the developers give this kind of love to the next iteration, I'm hoping that one will be played decades from now as well, maybe even by my kids.
I'm very definitely biased, don't get me wrong. But I'm sure you'll like this game and I hope you keep it alive.

This is perhaps one of the best ARPGs I've ever played. Just to give some history, I've Played Diablo 2, 3 & 4, Torchlight 1 & 2, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing 1, Grim Dawn, and Path of Exile. This one is right up there with Diablo 2 and Path of Exile. Actually, it's better than that IMO because of the quality of life improvements and my personal pet peeves which this game doesn't trigger in the slightest.

This game isn't tedious, which means no back tracking unless you're really trying to farm a specific type of mob. Respawn points don't take long to get to, which means when you quit and mobs respawn, you don't have to run through them to get to where you want to go because you'll be right there. You aren't wandering around a zone for hours in repetitive terrain trying to get somewhere specific which is helpful if you have to quit the game in a hurry.

Titan Quest won't overload you. Each area has about 2 optional quests that you won't have to go out of your way for to complete. Usually, you'll complete them easy with map exploration or on the way to your next objective. Speaking of exploring, so far the entire map has been seamless (other than getting on a boat and traveling to a new area). No loading screens when entering a dungeon, settlement, etc. As I mentioned before, unless you quit and reload, monsters stay dead.

The skill trees for each class choice are unique, engaging, and executed well. You won't find them in any ARPG you've played before. Not to mention there are a lot of builds that work well with one another.

Now let's talk about the negatives as compared to other ARPS: Well, there really aren't that many. You can make the argument that the game play doesn't feel fresh and the graphics aren't on par with other games of this genre, which is fair considering the date when Titan Quest was first released. With that said, if you still enjoy Diablo 2, you'll enjoy this game as it improves upon it in so many ways. Just to be clear, most of the ARPGS I've played are more recent than this, yet there is a reason I'm playing Titan Quest and not the other games I've mentioned.

The only real negative I have for this game is the dialogue. For whatever reason, the written dialogue scrolls faster than the voice acting which annoys me. If that's where you draw the line, then oh my god don't play this game, it will end you!

Titan Quest does the genre justice. If you enjoy ARPGS, this is a must play, a hidden gem even as it's often overshadowed by the Diablo franchise and Path of Exile. I was going to wait until I beat it to leave a review, but the first 15 hours has been so fun, I couldn't help myself. This game is worth your money regardless of whether or not it's on sale.

This is the best game in it's class IMO! Very good gameplay loop with areas and enemies that are diverse. I love the loot system (think old school Diablo 2) where rares and mythics feel like rares and mythics. When you find a good piece of loot it feels important and exciting. Love the ragdoll physics on enemies when you become OP! Love that drop what they are using or trinkets can only drop from their perspective enemy (Turtle shells only drop from turtles). Even up to 2024 the grind and game building stands up to the big guys like D4. Great mastery system with tons of options. I Can't stress enough to give this one a go over the competition. I've been playing it since release and they have been releasing expansions up into 2021! I have purchased it 3 or 4 times over (Consoles, Anniversary editions Etc) and am very excited for TQ2!

Probably in the top 3 of best ARPGs I've ever played. Often considered the predecessor to Grim Dawn this game uses the (if done correctly) amazing class system of choosing two separate masteries to create your class. There is a lot I could say about this game but I'm going to start off with the negatives first.
-The Cons-
1. This is not your modern ARPG
Before anyone jumps on me and calls me out for not being a "true" fan of the genre or anything, I actually PREFER this. I LOVE that this game is not your modern, 1 button pressing, legendary loot at level 10, inconsequential builds ARPG. This to me is NOT a negative but it must be stated because if you are NOT interested in putting at least 10+ hours into this game you probably will not see what I see, and 10 hours is kinda low to be honest. I will get more into this when I talk about the classes/builds but just know you probably won't feel like a "strong" or "special" character for a much longer time then you'd be used to coming from modern ARPGs. Couple this with the hard bosses (Typhon WILL stop your run the first time you playthrough, that's fine, enjoy it, start a new character if you'd like, don't stress), rare loot drops, most abilities have cooldowns unless meant to be your autoattack, and you're going to be drinking potions like your life depended on it because it normally does.
I know this is a negative point but I must say from my perspective I'd really give this a try still. The bosses are meant to be slow burn events, loot is meant to be exciting when you get it (and many people have beaten the game with yellow, or uncommon, only gear), ability management USED to be a part of ARPGs and I'd wager the genre has gotten worse for moving away from this, and while drinking endless potions can be annoying 'E' and 'R" are your best friends.
2. Quality of life
While MOST of the quality of life features I can overlook the two I cannot defend is the game "remembering" what difficulty you last played on (many times I accidentally play on Normal with my Epic+ characters). Speaking of I'd actually commit ARPG blasphemy and say that APRGs SHOULD move away from the 3 difficulty system, while I understand the point of it and don't MIND the idea of running older zones with harder mobs, I just think forcing the player to "start over" 3 times is quite archaic. This is admittedly very minor but it is very annoying, however this game also ESSENTIALLY has no stash and this is a genuine concern.
The stash system in this game is SO extremely minimal that if you have even 2+ characters and would like to keep gear for either future runs or just for any sort of collecting you will run out of space probably by Act 3. There are work arounds TQ Vault is a great resource after I ignored it for years I now use it all the time. This is definitely a genuine complaint with the game that I can't defend or argue against.
-The Pros-
1. Classes/Builds
Arguably every ARPG lives and dies by its classes/class system. I could probably write a 100 page thesis on why classes are important for ARPGs but this isn't about that, it's about Titan Quest, just know that I cannot understate how important it is to have a compelling class system and Titan Quest definitely does.
So this game has a total of 11 masteries, with DLC, you as the player at level 2 choose your first mastery that can be leveled up to 40 with new actives and passives after leveling up your mastery. Once your character has leveled up to 8 you choose your 2nd mastery which then creates your class. While your class doesn't generally affect any stats (masteries do 'class' doesn't) most people understand what you're trying to do when you mention your class (for example if I say I'm playing a Conqueror veterans understand I'm probably building auto attack heavy character).
All this to say, just surface level, there's a lot of playstyles, but then I'd even argue each class has multiple niches to them. Want to play an archer with a lightning orb pet? You can. want to play a trap placing dual wielder? You can. Want to play a fire mage with wolves? You can. (disclaimer you CAN not saying all these builds can push Eternal Embers Legendary, I simply don't know)
Then we have.
2. Itemization
The gear/class system of this game makes SO MANY interesting combinations of fun things to do. I remember the moment I fell in love with the itemization of this game was the moment I found a shield (can't remember the name, sorry veterans) that had a chance to on block create a huge temporary pet ON a character that used shields and pets. There's many examples of this but especially in Epic+ there's many items that will seemingly validate your builds you've been working on.
Again, loot is rare and specific loot is even more rare, but there are so many items out there that validate dozens of different builds to at least make it TO Legendary, probably further.
5. Everything else
From the setting, to the enemy diversity, to the boss battles, to the heroic monsters, to the massive content available. This game truly is special and as I said before is top 3 ARPG of all time with a MAJOR argument it could be number 1.
P.S. I hope TQ 2 is half as good as this.

Played it religiously in school. Still looks great, with an amazing setting and atmosphere. But the gameplay was repetitive, and the story was mid.

Such a classic.
I remember not being able to come far in this game when I played it nearly 20 years ago, but still loved it quite a lot despite getting my ass handed to me. Revisiting it after a long time definitely doesn't make me like it any less too, still a fantastic game, even though it does feel a bit dated now. I still haven't tried all the classes though, because there's just so many to choose from, but I definitely intend to. In case you're wondering what that means, this game basically lets you choose 2 so-called masteries, which are something like specialisations/talent trees, and each unique combination of two masteries results in a different class for your character (there's a total of 11 masteries, so due to a lot of possible combinations between them, quite a lot of classes are available). I also love that there's no seasonal stuff like in many other ARPGs, here you have your character and you have it forever, it ports to higher difficulties and everything if you want to continue playing it, you don't have to make completely new characters for each of the new seasons and similar stuff. My only gripe with this game is that the higher difficulty isn't directly available if you want to play it. Some of the content is also only available on the highest difficulty, and to be able to play the highest difficulty you first need to beat the entire game and the expansions on each of the lower difficulties first. Basically you have to beat the entire game on normal difficulty first before you can do epic difficulty, and only after beating the entire game on epic difficulty as well you're allowed into legendary difficulty, which is very time consuming, especially if you intend to do it on more than one character. But generally I absolutely can only recommend this game, it's great and lots of fun. I've played through the entire campaign with another person recently, so I can also say that multiplayer works great as well and is super fun

Titanquest genre is ARPG but kind of a slow burn one, maybe not in 500h per character sense but it will feel like it. It is bit old in the end, but i wanted to give it a playthrough anyway so here i'm. Oh and also to mention i played without any DLCs, because i already have Grim dawn and i feel like i already have enchanted and better version of this game.
But i'm not going to review mister big Grim dawn, it's Titanquest and i believe that it has couple good things about it and ehm... Some disgusting ones.
So i will start with those bad ones! I freaking hate level design of this game and how samey they feel, you have forest, forest but white or dork, cave, ice cave, tomb that layout is square x10. There are few good areas that look neat especially the boss arenas and perhaps some of the later ones... And it's kind of a bummer because this game has many different places you go through like Greece, Egypt, Orient, you even go down to kick Hades ass, but yeah a lot of areas just feel, like i just walk and walk with no end, good example is that Minoan Labyrinth, corridors that look the same, same enemies i fight over and over just tp me into the boss fight, i don't care anymore, too much boring layouts and needless walking.
Along with the levels you going to encounter similiar working mobs, i'm not saying they have same models they just do same function, you going to meet rattle meh bone skeletons multiple times, archers and some other ones, i honestly don't remember i only have bosses in my storage mind, you only maybe start paying attention to mobs after you get chain stunned into oblivion, if your hp goes down drink liter worth of potions and you either die or move forward, whatgives, perhaps DLCs would help or it's just an age thingy, but pair it up with issue above and it start being an problem.
But we are going to move on from that part, because i want to share that idea of attributes in this game sucks, it was most likely a problem of my underleveled journey, BUT! I couldn't wear anything, without big attribute investment, even when i was meeting the level requirement or i had items to help with that, at some point i said to myself that i have to stop using one-handed and just main staff, which is... Two handed? Only, i don't know there are no wands in this game, i wanted to go for shield(earth and defense mastery) but yeah, i dislike having extreme limited choice of gear and i went for fire damage, so i had choice of only taking fire staff, attributes requirement could be tuned dow
Did i already mention that game is slow? Game seemingly likes default attack for early game, sorry whole game and it elevates the slog experience.
Yeah, uhh right
If you read so far, i know you might be thinking "Why this dude put a positive blue review on this thing? This bobby fella clearly doesn't like it", but don't worry i'm moving on to goody things of Titanquest now.
And i begin with progression, character progression, i like it and nothing in this game feels meaningless, except maybe attributes, levels? You get upgrade, items? Upgrade, Enchantments you put on items? Also an upgrade. They feel important and they can fix issues of your character, it doesn't feel like my character is attached to gear or i can put whatever the fuc i can on my character and it will work, it's an important aspect of ARPG and this game does it noice, even when some things are hard to get, they are still farmable and despite it being long it will feel rewarding at the end.
Loot drops are not too terrible either, i mostly managed to find items i wanted, some elemental dmg trinkets, needed stats, !movement speed!, resistances for some of the fights.
Difficulty is good as well and not a point and click adventure, you going to get slapped, you will have to avoid things and i mostly died because of my own fault and not some bullshittery that game decided to pull off, some debuffs don't feel fun to deal with but are managable.
And speaking of avoiding attacks, bosses are great in Titanquest, they have their rad models, unique arenas, movesets and even enviroment hazards to deal with, i love that a lot of work been put into those guys, i for example didn't even know that engine can handle boss tossing rocks from enviroment, it's bit jank but i cannot say it's not cool at least and that's exactly how they feel to fight with, compared to walking sim to get to them. It is one of major points why i gave this game positive.
Sound design is okay, i didn't find anything out of place except bass-boosted level up sound, music fits and always feel on point with the theme of the location, nothing bad in here and i even liked couple, especially ones with vocals. Voice acting is stellar, i don't care about other opinions, in my thonk brain i believe they are memorable("Your goods are safe with me :)" ) and i feel joy whenever actors try their best to sound unique, different emotion seethe through dialogues and i always wondered how the next smith or merchant will sound like, it's more comedy compared to other ARPG titles that are usually grim and serious, refreshing, is nice.
I think that's about it, i know why people like this game, if i played it while back i would clearly enjoy the game more, right now i just find myself pulled to other titles, still not too bad playthrough, it's nice to see developers learn from mistakes and improve over time, couple people that done this game went to make Grim dawn and trust me they learned.
I recommend to check but it's not mandatory, be wary it's not pristine.