Ancient Greece is certainly not a foreign setting to video games. The Mediterranean beauty of the kingdoms of Athens, Sparta, Mycenae and beyond has been exploited several times to create high-level experiences such as God of War, Hades, Apotheon or Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Now, dark spot games tries to fit into this trend with its own game: Achilles: Legends Untold.
We had already tried the demo of this action adventure that was later released in Early Access. After months and months of updates, the game was finally released on November 2 in full version for PC, PlayStation and Xbox. So let's see what we think of this one. Achilles Review: Untold Legends.
Achilles: Legends Untold create your own story
Achilles: Untold Legends tells us the story of achilles, as can be seen from the title. It all begins on the shores of Troy, besieged by the Greeks. Our hero throws himself against the walls and, after defeating Hector, finds a secret passage to overcome the walls and reach Paris directly, who, however, defeats him. Death is only temporary, although it is not short: ten years later we wake up in a necropolis, without fully understanding what has happened.
However, as is easy to imagine, Hades gave us a second chance. and now our task is to save Greece which, after the victory at Troy, fell from grace due to evil rulers and an invasion of monsters such as skeletons, trolls, giant scorpions and more. The story progresses from mission to mission, taking us to meet new allies and making us discover what entity is orchestrating everything behind the scenes, but it does so with little sophistication.
The characters are banal, the dialogue is mainly a list of information about the next objective and I Greek myths and characters are used superficially., with a few jokes here and there or a new boss explaining his identity in half a line before being slaughtered by Achilles. From the first moment it was difficult for us to feel serious interest in the events of the protagonist, who is nothing more than a macho man with the voice of someone who was told he was a kind of cinematic Batman.
Returning to life, Achilles discovers that all his Myrmidons were killed because, once they lost their leader, they were seen as uncontrolled traitors, but his drama is superficial and his desire for justice and revenge it finds no outlet in writing and performance. Ancient Greek enthusiasts who have explored more thematic video games over the years have already experienced deeper plots and realized that many nuances can be given to myths and gods (just think about what Hades does). Achilles: Legends Untold, on the other hand, doesn't even scratch the surface and throws in a bit of plot here and there to keep us going and give us a narrative reason to kill the next thing that moves.
Achilles: Legends Untold is a mix of action and then more action
If the plot does not convince, unfortunately the gameplay does not satisfy either. Achilles: Untold Legends is an action RPG with some soullike influences. This means that by eliminating enemies we gain experience points and level up automatically, but in case of defeat we lose the "exp" and we will have to recover it by returning to the point of death. We will also have a series of checkpoints similar to those of FromSoftware, where we can spend skill points and rest to recover life and restore the inventory (the cures do not recharge, you have to accumulate them in the Bloodborne style, but the game is very generous), paying but all with the reappearance of the enemies.
Skill points must be invested in some type of ballpoint configured as a sky full of constellations connected to each other, a little awkward to navigate and not particularly deep. Half of the constellations have actual abilities, mixed in with simple boosts to stats like life, stamina, rage (basically the points to spend on special abilities), and stats tied to the scale of weapon power. Skills allow you to obtain bonuses such as faster healing or unique movements such as the ability to absorb the life of enemies who have not seen us or perform parries and counterattacks.
The problem with all this is that even on high difficulty Achilles: Legends Untold It's not particularly difficult and the movements mentioned, the most "refined", are just a waste of time. We quickly realized that simply using two one-handed weapons, instead of the initial weapon plus the shield, could take down any enemy. Weak rivals are cannon fodder, especially when from the second half onwards the game focuses on numbers to put us in difficulties by obtaining the opposite result. Our Achilles can quickly gain powers that heal and restore fury simply by attacking and killing. Then there are a handful of special moves, which tend to be very strong. All this added to our high power, among other things in our case with weapons that were clearly not the best we had, meant that many of our explorations concluded without the use of a single cure. Then there are a whole series of items, such as grenades, traps, throwing daggers, with also a related crafting system based on materials, but the exaggerated power of our weapons has made it pointless to waste time with these additional items.
The toughest bosses and enemies. They also do not provide superior combat experiences. Often it is enough to dodge a little and use the same attack, trapping the enemy in a loop from which they cannot escape. In fact, the difficulty problem is not just statistical (i.e. we can get very strong very quickly), but also design and AI. The common enemies simply run towards us to die and the bosses have two or three moves that will hardly be able to put us in difficulty. The only time we have to perform more than a couple of hits to win is when there are enemies with shields that we bounce off (there is a possibility of having access to a guard-breaking blow, but the slowness makes it ineffective) or opponents with the ability to kick us out, which only slows down the fight without actually making it more complex.
It is also the exploration approach not to satisfy. Basically we move around a large open map and the plot tells us where to go to continue with the current mission, generally taking us to a dungeon full of enemies and some treasure to collect. These are simple areas, a handful of hallways and rooms to destroy everyone. There's never anything else to do but fight, and as mentioned, battles quickly become repetitive - there's a lack of elements that break the pace or even small original ideas that give Achilles: Legends Untold a personal touch. As it is, the entire game package is banal and obvious: it may appeal to those who just want to turn off their brains and eliminate hordes of enemies in Ancient Greece, but it certainly cannot be considered a good game.
Furthermore, there are a series of secondary tasks to complete, such as gaps that take us to small arenas with enemies in waves or tombs that give skill points if we deposit specific objects to recover in the game world or by defeating enemies. There are also some side quests, but they do not deserve the attention of the player who does not want to complete the game 100%, which should take a maximum of 20 hours, compared to 10 for those who prioritize the plot.
Closing the game package is a series of challenges external to the campaign, but that use the same character. These are battles in waves with several objectives, which are rewarded with other objects to equip our character and, most importantly, can be play cooperatively. In terms of gameplay, there aren't many changes, but at least the pack size increases.
Achilles: Legends Untold is also not a particularly visually striking game, although without any real technical problems. At least the uploads are instantaneous. in any situation, which is no small feat considering that many times we will use fast travel to move around the map. Finally, it is unfortunate, as already stated above, that the dubbing is of a low level, especially in the case of Achilles: however, as an independent team, it is understandable that the budget played a major role in this case.
Conclusions
Tested version PC with Windows digital delivery Steam Price 22,99 € Holygamerz.com 5.5 Readers (24) 7.7 your voteAchilles: Legends Untold is a flat and overly simple action game. The entire adventure is basically one long wave of enemies that are sent against us or those we are sent against. You run, kill everything and start again. Meanwhile, the plot continues without jumps, as does the entire package, which lacks variety and originality. Even the subject, Ancient Greece, is used superficially, despite the exceptional material he makes available.
PRO
- Instant uploads
- If you want to turn off your brain it can be an acceptable experience.
AGAINST
- Trivial fights
- Most enemies are just cannon fodder.
- Terrible dubbing
- No original idea
