Achilles: Legends Untold

We've all heard the story of Achilles, or at least the basics. He was the greatest hero of Greek mythology and the protagonist of Homer's iconic work The Iliad. Dipped in the river Styx by his mother Thetis, he was virtually immortal and invulnerable, except for that famous heel, the small detail that ultimately led to his downfall. He was killed with an arrow through the heel by Paris, prince of Troy. A rather useless and somewhat illogical way to die if you ask me, but that's how the legend goes.

In Achilles: Legends Untold we are immediately thrown into the Trojan War and of course we take on the title role of the legendary hero. Since it's a war, chaos already prevails in the game's tutorial, which is quite simple, until you meet his eventual killer Paris in an early boss fight. He is very strong and just like he does in the legend, Paris kills our hero here, not with a well-aimed arrow through the heel but by simply beating the crap out of him until the life meter is empty. I get ready to start the whole fight again against what seems to be a terribly strong opponent, but it quickly becomes clear that you're not actually expected to win here. Achilles dies just as intended and wakes up a moment later confused and disorientated, a bit like after a night out in the happy days of youth.

Achilles may be dead and he has fallen into the realm of the dead, but he soon learns that this is not the end of his story. He gets a chance to go back to the land of the living and rewrite history, if he can defeat all the horrors that lurk in the underworld, that is. Not an easy task, with everything from skeletons, scorpions and cats trying to get in the way. Okay, the cats are completely harmless unlike most other things and it is somewhat unclear what they actually do down in the kingdom of death, in Egyptian mythology there were cats that guarded the kingdom of death and it may be something similar here, I do not know for sure. Probably it is some kind of punishment. You can pet them and it seems to have no consequences whatsoever.

Achilles: Legends Untold is moulded in the Soulsborne template with all that entails. As the Souls veteran I still consider myself to be nowadays, it is something that initially feels positive about and makes me excited to take on the adventure. Something I like about those games is the challenge and that you are not only competing against the games but also against yourself and your own psyche to a large extent. However, it is worth mentioning right now that it is not nearly as difficult as the Souls games and much more forgiving, but you still get beaten up from time to time. Otherwise, there is much that is definitely influenced or more or less directly copied from Dark Souls, upgrading your abilities and properties is very similar and instead of bonfires that act as a checkpoint, there is instead Shrine of Hades that works in exactly the same way. That is, you can rest and regain your health, level up and teleport between different Shrines found along the way. But just like in Dark Souls, Elden Ring and so on, this comes at the cost of resurrecting all the enemies you've killed in the area. Of course, it is also at the last activated one that you then have to start the journey again if you die.

In 2010, I might have thought that Achilles: Legends Untold would have been a pretty neat game. Now that we're approaching 2024, it's definitely not, unfortunately. In its best moments, it looks like a decent Xbox 360 game. The Underworld is quite nicely done in places and some of the textures and environments are certainly not horribly ugly, but Achilles and all the characters are not very well done at all, this is more like Playstation 2 quality animation, sometimes it's even laughably bad at that point. For example, when Achilles bends down to pet a cat and pats it a decimetre above its head with a stiffly cupped, pixelated hand. No, Dark Point Games has of course not had the same financial resources as From Software, but it's still not approved in 2023, I think. After all, there are indie games with a non-existent budget that are better looking.

If you have played Dark Souls or Elden Ring for that matter, the mechanics will feel very familiar to you. It's practically identical in terms of layout. Heavy attacks with the right trigger. Light, fast attacks with the RB button, rolls/ducks with B and so on. It feels very familiar and that makes it easy to get into without any particular starting distance. However, the control is not nearly as fast as in the Souls games and it feels a bit stiff overall. I almost constantly feel that there is a little delay, it doesn't seem to matter whether I'm using wired or wireless control in this case. In particular, the B button that you roll and dodge with is a bit unreliable at times, especially it is difficult to direct your evasive manoeuvres. For the most part, this is not a problem, but when you meet faster and more dangerous bosses, there may be some problems. The camera can't be influenced either, it can't be changed in any way but you have to stick to the angle that the developer has decided here. This is usually not a big problem as it is flexible, but it would have been nice to be able to control it according to your own taste.

When I was a kid I was quite fascinated by Greek mythology, possibly due to the fact that I saw Disney's Hercules about 1000 times in one year at the age of ten. I think the story here is interesting about Achilles' second chance at life and it's clearly what drives the game forward. It is very much a Souls clone but it still has its own identity in that it tells a new story about Achilles. Unfortunately, the rest is not a direct hit, it is fun to kill a few hours and hack your way through the underworld but it is hardly something I will return to. If you like Souls-inspired games, it can definitely be worth trying though, but it's hard to recommend paying full price for it.