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Dark Point Games went for a trinity of entertainment giants as their inspiration behind Achilles: Legends Untold - Diablo, Dark Souls and the movie Troy.
The devs succeeded in emulating or paying homage to all three with varying degrees of attention. If I had to rank them, I would say the game is Diablo first, Dark Souls second and Troy third. There is nothing wrong with that particular order, especially if you are a fan of Diablo but personally, I would have loved to see more Souls DNA in it.
Story
Achilles: Legends Untold's story kicks off strong with obvious inspirations from the movie and the presentation is done extremely well as it is evident the game was on a budget. However, the positives quickly begin to dissipate as more voiceovers appear, with many not having all that much quality.
The voice of the protagonist, Achilles, is a mixed bag - sometimes he starts mumbling the words which is hardly what you would imagine for a hero of old. On the other hand, I do have to point out one fantastic detail Dark Point went for as the voice actor actually sounds like someone with Greek accent, which is a detail often overlooked in modern games. It wasn't that long ago that I was reviewing Expeditions: Rome where, for some reason, the Romans sounded so British that I expected my Primus Pilus to ask me for a second monocle at any moment. If some VO quality had to be lost in order to get the territory-appropriate accent, I would say it is worth it.
As for the writing itself, it begins strong with a good twist to introduce us to the Legends Untold but then falls off quickly as the plot becomes predictable. While a predictable plot is not necessarily bad, it is actually terrible when the story relies on multiple twists, of which the game has plenty. This led to the attempted plot twists becoming exposition snoozefest, obviously detracting from the experience.
Ironically, both Souls and Diablo series have good stories behind them and so does Achilles: Legends Untold, but only one of the three didn't find a way to present them in an intriguing way.
Gameplay
While storytelling is an important part of a video game, the main draw of action RPGs is gameplay. With two titans of the industry serving as inspiration, Achilles: Legends Untold borrowed from both, although the gameplay loop ended up reminiscent of Diablo more than Souls, despite the devs efforts in the other direction.
Combat mechanics are taken directly from Soulslikes - light, heavy attacks, stamina bar drains with attacks, sprinting and blocking, bonfires are called Shrines of Hades etc.
During the prologue, combat is highly similar to Souslikes but as soon as you get to Greece, you can easily outscale your enemies and just grind hordes in a single swipe, a la Diablo. This simplifies combat encounters and takes the soul of Soulslikes away, which is why it ends up feeling like Diablo for the most part.
On that note, much like Diablo, Achilles: Legends Untold has exciting looter mechanics, although it manages to shoot itself in the foot. Namely, weapons scale with four different stats - Strength, Endurance, Precision and Wrath and depending on which stat the weapon favours, you may want to invest more of it to deal more damage. Respeccing your stats and perks is easy and you can do it as much as you want but it is limited by the weapons themselves.
Namely, upgrading a weapon requires a whole lot of coins and I only managed to loot enough for maxing out roughly three weapons in total during a single playthrough, without ever upgrading armour. In other words, when you find a good weapon, it is best to commit to it until you find a very significant upgrade. This also removes the need to respec as you probably built attributes to fit the chosen weapon already.
I found bosses and boss-like creatures to be exciting when it comes to their mechanics but the aforementioned outscaling trivialises the encounters. I ended up killing bosses in three or four attacks but this might also have something to do with the difficulty setting. It currently has two of them - Warrior and Hero, corresponding to what I believe is Normal and Hard. However, the Normal setting seemed a bit too easy but it was too late to go back by the time I figured it out.
The game allows you to play it with a controller or keyboard and mouse but I wouldn't classify either of them as the better one. Instead, the best way to play the game is with a mixed input in order to work around their drawbacks.
With controllers, it is easier to navigate combat in general but keyboard and mouse are miles ahead when it comes to navigating menus and UI. On top of that, most of the significant loot is hidden in the runic chests that require you to throw a shield at three different runes. Aiming at them is a child's play with the mouse but can become incredibly frustrating with the controller.
Additionally, sometimes the game fails to register your attack input which is annoying when you sprint into a group of enemies, hoping to mow them down but then Achilles just ends up standing in front of them for no reason at all. However, when you play with both controller and KBM, it actually turns into a fun ARPG romp with a Diablo gameplay loop.
Graphics and performance
The game performed smoothly for me, although it does have really modest requirements, with an RX 580 listed as a recommended GPU. With that in mind, my PC with Ryzen 5 3600 and RX 5700 XT handled the game smoothly with north of 120 FPS at almost all times. There were only a few instances where some stuttering occurred but this is nothing major as it happened once per five hours on average.
Meanwhile, the game looks beautiful regardless of whether you are invading Troy, going through Ancient Greece's architecture or venturing through dangerous swamps, woods and or meadows.
Verdict
While the game has numerous flaws, it is also a game that has many strong points. The combat is addictive and dopamine hits from getting powerful items and upgrading them are significant, which means Achilles: Legends Untold is a fun time and more importantly - time well-spent.
With so many fully-priced AAA titles around that I now regret spending time on, Achilles: Legends Untold is a refreshing wave that the gaming scene needed, at only a fraction of the price. It is $25 / €23 / ₤20 and with a 30 per cent discount during the launch week it becomes even cheaper. Given that a single playthrough took me ~15 hours, the game is well worth the price, especially if you factor in New Game+ which is there right from launch.
The Good
Addictive, quick gameplay- Beautiful graphics
- Pretty good spin on Achilles' legend
- Satisfying loot
The Bad
Storytelling is sometimes on the nose- Controls are messy at times if you don't mix
- Voice acting is a mixed bag
