Titan Quest - Best Diablo Clone Ever

Written by Rolf

I suppose the term Diablo Clone does not do the game justice, as it is not intended as such. Titan Quest is simply an awesome game. It even has an awesome expansion, Immortal Throne. Unfortunately its developer, Iron Lore, does no longer exist, so I can write about it without being accused of commercial intentions.

Waiting for Diablo

Diablo 2 has always been one of my favorite games, if not the number one. I had blindly bought D2 after having played the original Diablo and was not disappointed. When the expansion, Lord of Destruction, came out I immediately bought that, too. I love the fast-paced action hack and slash and I tend to prefer a character that can deal with large groups of monsters at the same time, like an assassin specialized in lightning traps or a multi-arrow amazon or basically any sort of area of effect (AoE) damage. Toons like the paladin has its charms, but in the long run, I grow weary of having to deal with trash mobs on an individual basis.

Right now I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of Diablo 3, which I will, again, buy without playing it first. Of course Blizzard has posted some preview movies on diablo3.com which give a good impression of what to expect. I hope it is as entertaining as Titan Quest, although I'm afraid my expectations might be somewhat too high then. But they have been postponing the release date for ages already, so my expectations are being crushed enough as it is.

Update: May 15 announced to be Diablo 3 release date!

Similar alternative

I don't think many people, Diablo fans in particular, know about Titan Quest. Personally I had never heard about it until last year, when a guildie in World of Warcraft told me about it. I decided to try it, because I trust his opinion and was not disappointed. Since then, I have spent countless of hours building different characters and farming loot.

Titan Quest (including the expansion Immortal Throne) resembles Diablo 2, but only vaguely. It is fast-paced action from a third-person viewpoint with a 'fixed' camera angle looking north. There is one story line with dozens of side quests that take you through 4 acts, based on ancient mythology (Greece, Egypt, Babylon), filled with hundreds of different monsters that all have a random chance to drop loot from gray (worthless) to purple (legendary) quality, which you can use to enhance your own character.

Cool features

What is really sweet, I think, is that monsters are actually using the items they will drop if you kill them. So if you see a skeleton wielding a big blue saw-teethed sword, you know he will drop Rimescythe.

One other, really convenient functionality that was added in the expansion, is a shared bank, in the shape of an egyptian caravan driver with a camel. So if your fighter character finds a nice caster staff, he can put it in the shared bank space and it will be accessible for your caster character to take out and equip. With Diablo you needed 2 PCs with each their own copy of the game to exchange items. I really hope Blizzard will look at this and implement their own version of a shared bank.

Classes and character progress

Each character starts out exactly the same, the only thing you can choose is a name and gender. You will kill some easy monsters and be level 2 in a few minutes and then you can choose your first skill tree. At level 8 you can choose the second (and last) skill tree. There are 9 different trees to choose from, so that is a total of 45 different character specializations. Some combinations are more viable than others, but each combination will work and requires its own play style.

Each tree has its own buffs, debuffs and attacks. The Nature tree has healing spells and allows you to summon wolves to fight by your side. The Earth tree has a tanking pet and mainly fire spells. Storm revolves around cold and lightning spells. The Rogue tree involves poisons, traps and melee damage. Hunting is about the spear and bow. A combination of Rogue and Hunting is called Brigand and you can either use a spear or a bow that will shoot poisoned arrows that will damage and slow your enemies.

I have a level 72 Conqueror (Warfare + Defense) that has been farming epic and legendary gear to equip new characters. Right now I am levelling a Brigand that is ripping through most groups of monsters in Act 4, Epic difficulty. As with Diablo, Titan Quest has 3 levels of difficulty (Normal, Epic, Legendary) each of which you need to complete before you can advance to the next level.

What I don't like about the game is the fact that you can get one-shotted by boss monsters if you don't have some degree of resistance to their attacks. On Normal difficulty this is usually no problem, but on Legendary difficulty 5 of your 10 different resistances are reduced to -100%. If you don't have any lightning resistance, you will be insta-killed by Typhon, Act 3's end boss. I suppose it is an aspect of the game, to manage different sets of gear, but I have never liked the idea of resistance-gear checks.

To sum things up, if you like Diablo 2, you will love Titan Quest. Be sure to pick up the game and the expansion Immortal Throne from the budget shelf in your favorite game store. Or rather, order them at Amazon as I don't expect many shops to have them in store.

Links:
- Skill calculator by StoneDonkey
- Equipment database at GameBanshee
- Official Forums at TitanQuest.net
- Lots of videos at TitanQuest.net
- Skill cooldowns at GamersHell.com