Titan Quest Anniversary Edition Review (67alecto)
One of the best Diablo II clones out there. This game originally came out in 2006 - 16 years ago as of the time of this review. The first DLC, Immortal Throne came out about a year later and added a 4th Act. 10 years later, they released the Anniversary Edition, and to go with that the following year, they released Ragnarok which added a 5th Act.
To the surprise of everyone, in 2019 they dropped yet another DLC - Atlantis. This is an optional area that you can access once you reach Act 4. It isn't part of the storyline, but it added more items, some new skills, and a few other changes. Even crazier, in 2021 they surprised everyone with one more DLC - Eternal Embers. This is for Legendary characters and basically serves as an endgame quest line.
As far as the game, if you're familiar with isometric ARPGs, this one hits all the notes - skill trees/skill synergies, attribute points, shared stashes, gambler merchants (if you have the Atlantis DLC), reskilling merchants, upgradeable runes/relics which can be socketed into items. Really, about the only thing that it doesn't have is enchanting. The closest thing they have is a once-per difficulty level quest in Act 5 that will upgrade an Epic or Legendary item once you complete it.
Once you hit level 2, you can select your first mastery (basically a themed skill tree such as Earth, Nature, Hunter, Warfare, etc). When you level up, you don't get an increase to health or mana - instead, you get 3 skill points and 2 attribute points. The skill points can be used to either unlock/upgrade a skill, or level up the mastery itself which boots 2-3 attributes and your health or energy by a little bit. The attribute points can be allocated to strength, intelligence, dexterity, energy, or health.
At level 8, you can select a 2nd Mastery, and as you would expect with 8 base masteries, and one each added in Immortal Throne, Ragnarok, and Eternal Embers), there are over 50 possible class combinations. With the Ragnarok DLC, when you create your character you have the option of selecting "Accomplished Warrior" which will start you out at level 40 in Act 5 with some gold + all the skills and attributes you would have earned (including bonuses from all quests in Acts 1-4). With Eternal Embers, you can create a Legendary character the same way.
With all these classes, you can go pure mage, pure hack n' slash, leader of an army of summons, or any combination you can think of in between.
The theme is the Ancient World - you start out in Greece, fight through Egypt, the Orient, the Greek underworld, and finally the North. Eternal Embers adds a 4-act ques tline that sends you back to the Orient.
This game is definitely worth your purchase - from the seemingly never-ending DLC, mod support in the workshop, and the sheer variety of play styles provide tons of replay ability.