Achilles: Legends Untold Review

When I hear the name Achilles, I immediately think of Troy starring Brad Pitt. He struts in, says a few badass lines, and kills Bogrius in one swift, smooth move. There is more to the movie (a lot more - it is almost 3 hours long) but that is one of the coolest openers. Achilles is THE legendary warrior of Greek history even with that whole heel thing. So how come there have been no video game depictions until now?

Developed by Dark Point Games, Achilles: Legends Untold is an ARPG in the likes of Diablo with a touch of soulslike combat. You play as the titular Achilles and, after being killed by Hector (role reversal!), awaken several years later with a new purpose: saving Greece from men, monsters, and gods. If you are familiar with ancient Greek history or perhaps played God of War, you will recognize many times thrown around. Is it accurate? Maybe, maybe not but this is a video game so who cares.

Achilles controls are similar to most ARPGs so if you have any experience with Diablo, Path of Exile, or Torchlight, you will immediately feel comfortable traversing around the map. You have light and heavy attacks with the ability to block, parry, and roll. While most enemies can be hacked (literally - there is an excessive amount of blood and body parts flying all around during combat), you will encounter many that are a bit more stubborn and need some finessing. This is where that souls-like combat rears its ugly head but its drastically toned down (this should not be what turns you off of the game). Achilles has plenty of real estate to work with and is extremely agile. If you cannot parry or do not feel comfortable risking taking a hit, just run. Run around the enemies, run towards others and perform a jumping attack, or run away. If that does not work, you can always throw your shield or unleash the mighty foot (This Is SPARTA!) amongst other abilities Achilles picks up along the way.

As for the gameplay “loop,” Achilles follows a main questline with random sidequests to be found in most areas you discover in your travels. A waypoint arrow appears on the map pointing you in the direction of where to go but there are always five other directions to pull you whether it be chests, rifts, sidequests, or Shrines of Hades to restore. Shrines of Hades are your one-stop shop for spending skill points, and resting, which will restore health, reset enemy spawns, and top off your consumables (there is no inventory in a sense - for example, you can hold 8 health potions but any additional ones picked up gets banked until you rest). Experienced earn from quests and killing enemies levels you up and Achilles can spend points in a massive skill tree. Skill points can be reset at any Shrine but at an increasing cost of Drachmas (the in-game currency). Shrines can also be used to teleport to any previously discovered Shrine. Rifts are mini-dungeons. Killing everything inside closes the rift and grants you an additional skill point. Shrines also serve as a spawn point whenever you die. Similar to Souls games, you lose all experience when you die but returning to the place of your demise allows you to recover that experience. While an interesting concept (or obnoxious depending on how you feel about the Souls games), it falls a bit short here. When you earn enough experience, you automatically level up. The only experience you lose when dying is for that current level. If you were just off wandering and not working on anything in particular, hoofing it back may not be worth your time, not to mention, you may respawn across the map had you not stopped at any shrines during your scavenger hunt.

Taking a page from Diablo, Achilles will find a ton of weapons across Greece. You can equip one-handed weapons and shields, two-handed weapons, and even 2 one-handers. Dropping the shield does remove the ability to throw a shield (duh) but it has its benefits. Some other abilities require certain weapons to be equipped so you have to be mindful as the game just opens up the ability slot if incompatible. Weapons scale off certain stats like Endurance and Strength which makes the reset skill tree come in handy. They also cause debuffs like bleeding, burning, and poison with some enemies weaker than others to certain elements. There are no loadouts to store weapon combinations but opening the menu does pause the game if you feel you need to exploit an enemy’s weakness mid-combat. All weapons (shields included) can be upgraded at the blacksmith provided you have the resources (you will have an abundance especially if you are prone to distraction and not focusing on the main quest).

Unfortunately, all these seemingly great systems come to a grinding halt on the Switch (and in docked mode) with some abysmal framerates and all-around jank. I only experienced one crash (to Home) but the game locked on me more times than I could count and froze me out for 5-10 seconds at a time (super fun when you are in combat by the way). Loading in and out of areas like rifts and using the teleport became far too tedious as a result. Even opening the menu and switching between tabs was a process (so much for the in-game crafting or tweaking your weapons upon entering new areas). Generally speaking, I have a habit of doing everything in any game BEFORE I even look at a main quest (I over level games quite often) but here, the jank put me in such a foul mood that I had no issues focusing on the main story.

As someone with hundreds of hours in both the Diablo and Torchlight franchises, Achilles: Legends Untold has everything a fan of ARPGs could want in a game. You can easily add 10+ hours onto the main story just by clearing the entire map. There is even a New Game+ that opens up after defeating the final boss and in-game modifiers that can be triggered at any Shrine for an extra challenge. It is a real shame that the game runs so unbelievably poorly on the Switch. Honestly, if you have the means, buy the game on Steam. I cannot vouch for Steam Deck's performance but the game is sitting at a Very Positive rating with close to 1500 reviews. Maybe I will revisit this on the Switch 2 and enjoy what should be a fantastic experience.