Titan Quest Anniversary Edition (2016)

Intro

TQ is an ARPG. You walk around the ancient world and kill monsters. You can pick any two out of nine available skill trees to build your character.

The Good

TQ is still a decent game. Being able to pick between 45 possible classes is still neat, the game looks decent enough, all the various ways to kill are fun and the loot is fine.

The Bad

I still encountered bugs and even some rubber-banding. I ran this in 1080p and it wasn't even remotely as smooth as their much newer game Grim Dawn. Also the minimap is far too mini, even when using the "Large UI" option. I don't think you can even play this in 4K unless you bring a magnifying glass.

They implemented some QOL stuff but you still have to pick up potions and even gold (thankfully, you can press A for both). Expanding your inventory still costs a ton of money and the shared stash is still tiny. You basically had to use TQ Vault to properly store/share items and that's still the case. Pathetic.

And while we're talking about third party programs - you still can't freely respec and changing skill trees still isn't possible at all. I have no idea why so many devs have such a hard-on for screwing over their players. You should always be able to freely change your character. There should be infinite storage space. And waypoints should be unlocked for every character.

As for the actual game... it hasn't aged that well. The music is substandard. The atmosphere is barely there, with little in the way of environmental sounds. There aren't any characters you might care about. The story and dialogue are weak. Plus the pacing is quite poor. I only played Act 1 and it took 8 hours at which point i was definitely done with its set of enemies and environments. The minotaur maze at the end is awful. The map doesn't work, it's at least 50% too long and the boss fight leads to another boss fight. I was planning on trying different characters but the maze killed any interest i had.

Conclusion

Worth a try if you've never played it and like the genre, but you'll probably have to use TQ Vault/Defiler to deal with its flaws (if that even still works). Grim Dawn is far superior in every way.

difficult, lengthy, and balance issues and other flaws but Worth consideration if you are nostalgic for D2, and churning up mods/clones for it. the trouble with it is that it simply doesnt pass the hurdle of a D3 test but despite not being Hercules it certainly can more than merely win in an arm wrestling match with D2. The bottom line with the game is it has a great and imaginative use (and appropriation) of mythic lore in layering every sidequest, etc. In this sense its unique and quite artsy. The engine is also quite beautiful at times. And the various locales really do look nice. But D3 is the standard and the game elements really do slug and slog.

Despite its grievances I actually enjoyed this more than GD.