Find out the truth behind the Trojan War as Achilles in Achilles: Legends Untold! Read on to find out whether its gameplay, graphics, and open world are worth a buy in our review!
Achilles: Legends Untold Review Overview
Achilles: Legends Untold Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Simple, Fun Combat and Impressive AI Open World With Many Locations to Explore |
Player-Centered Camera Makes It Difficult To Spot Enemies |
Achilles: Legends Untold Overall - 70/100
Achilles: Legends Untold is a good Action RPG for those who want to feel the core principle of what a ‘Soulslike’ game is, while still feeling like a total badass. It has simple and fun combat that keeps your attention, with smart enemy AI that will work together to beat you with all manner of tricks and surprises. The story is what one would find in an average Action RPG sprinkled with betrayals and the trappings of Ancient Greece, while the visuals and sound hold up quite a bit for an AA title like this.
Achilles: Legends Untold Story - 7/10
The game’s story is a bit above-average when it comes to your typical Action RPG fare. So you’re Achilles during the Trojan War and you’re besieging Troy to save Helen from the hands of Paris. But you are defeated and sent a decade forward in time to see Greece being in chaos. From there, it slowly turns out that there was a lot more to what the Trojan War than meets the eye. The game also makes a lot about how Greece had fallen from grace, and you can see it from how dilapidated the game world is, as well as the different side-quests you go on across the game.
Achilles: Legends Untold Gameplay - 8/10
Being a top-down Action RPG, I didn’t expect Achilles: Legends Untold to play as smoothly as it did. It’s easy to move, easy to dodge, and it’s easy to use the different skills Achilles has at his disposal. Swinging your sword is just a matter of smashing your mouse button, though you’ll still have to watch how certain enemies will try to flank you or use special unblockable moves to kill you. Status ailments can also spell the difference between winning a battle or dying (yet again), though you will probably not die as often as in other Soulslike games because of how easy the combat is in general. Granted, you’re the greatest of all Greek warriors, and the simple and fun combat will make you feel like a badass.
Achilles: Legends Untold Visuals - 6/10
The game’s visuals are alright. The environments aren’t the most detailed out there, but since the game’s a top-down ARPG, it serves its purpose. The character models meanwhile are detailed to a degree, though we don’t often see the faces of a majority of the cast. The enemy designs, meanwhile, are varied, and the composition of some of the environments looks pretty impressive despite the game’s limitations.
Achilles: Legends Untold Audio - 6/10
Just like the graphics, the audio in Achilles: Legends Untold is decent. There’s a good mix of drums, strings, and other intense beats that are reminiscent of tracks from other games with a Classical Era setting (like the earlier Total War titles). The voice acting, on the other hand, ranges from ‘okay’ to ‘rather bad’ depending on who’s talking.
Achilles: Legends Untold Value for Money - 8/10
Achilles: Legends Untold is a long game, with the developers themselves saying it’s around 20 hours. You can spend a lot more than that in this game because there are a lot of locations to explore, secrets to find, and enemies to fight. Plus, the devs are still working on improvements for the game, as well as patches to major and minor bugs. So players can count on dev support for quite a bit after they buy their copy of the game.
Achilles: Legends Untold Review: A Decent Legend
Of all the Soulslike games I’ve played this year, there was nothing quite like Achilles: Legends Untold because of how it went out of its way to make me feel like a Greek hero. In other Soulslikes, you would’ve been reminded of just how powerless you are with every death that happens to you. But in this game, you’re Achilles - the greatest of all warriors in Greece - so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that you can cut down groups of skeletons, bandits, and soldiers all by yourself. The game really makes you feel like a badass, and that's its strongest point. Or maybe the combat’s just too easy? I couldn’t tell; I was having too much fun killing skeletons.
The genius is in how the game knows when to throw little challenges your way. It doesn’t just throw out beefier enemies for you to mash your left mouse button to kill, but it also introduces enemies that do things like deal status effects like bleed, poison, and burn. So you have to come up with new tactics and come back properly prepared like in other Soulslikes. It gives you these challenges as if through a drip feed, so you feel motivated to progress.
Aside from the gameplay, the openness of the world is rather impressive. Once the tutorial’s done, you can go around Greece, level up, and get weapons while ignoring your main objective. Though there are places that you won’t be able to get into because of an invisible barrier, you can get very lost exploring many of these locations and the cellars (underground levels) you can find in various spots.
Aside from that, though, there’s nothing much else that Achilles: Legends Untold offers that you can write home about. The graphics are alright, the audio’s okay (though the voice acting is rough in some spots, especially for supporting NPCs), and there’s nothing really outright terrible about it. If there’s another plus, it’s that the game can be quite lengthy. Outside of the main plot, there are a lot of dungeons to explore and items to collect, so if you happen to be a completionist who’s into games with simple and fun combat, then you can’t go wrong with this title.
Pros of Achilles: Legends Untold
| Things Achilles: Legends Untold Got Right |
|---|
|
Simple, Fun Combat and Impressive AI Open World With Many Locations to Explore |
Simple, Fun Combat and Impressive AI
At the core of Achilles: Legends Untold is the top-down gameplay. Controlling Achilles is a smooth experience - move using WASD, attack with the mouse buttons, dodge with Space, and block attacks with the CTRL button, just like with most other Soulslikes. The top-down setup isn’t too awkward at all, since you can easily lock onto enemies and switch targets with the Middle Mouse button, while items and skills are activated with Q, E, and the number buttons.
As in other Soulslikes, the combat mostly consists of dodging or blocking enemy attacks correctly by learning their movesets and being patient. However, you don’t take that much damage from most enemies (at least in the default ‘Warrior’ mode), so it’s easy to just mash the left mouse button and mow through mobs of enemies. As you kill more enemies, you’ll gain Skill Points, which you can spend to unlock the game’s big Skill Tree. There are a lot of skills to learn, from improving your Strength and other stats to increasing how much health your potions restore, and others. It doesn’t take long to start feeling like a hero of legend, especially if your gear is fully upgraded.
But just as you least expect it, you’ll come up against an enemy that can do a devastating attack that’s too deadly to take without dodging.
The combat is easy to learn, easy to understand, and even easy to master, but you’ll have to be careful with getting blindsided by the occasional lion that can inflict the Bleed status effect on you, or some of the game’s more mysterious enemies. Also, you might get caught off guard when even the common soldier enemies in the game can work together, with one hopping over another enemy’s shield, to kill you with a heavy sword strike.
Not that any of these come off as cheap; the game gives you plenty of opportunities to learn, as well as the resources you need to adapt to its various challenges like balms to make you resistant to certain types of elemental damage, or oils so you can deal specific kinds of damage against enemies. It’s simple, fun Soulslike gameplay that is perfectly suited for Ancient Greece fans, and fans of top-down RPGs in general.
Open World With Many Locations to Explore
The world of Achilles: Legend Untold is quite big. The starting open world, Greece, already has a lot of hours of exploration available to you right off the bat, since the game will rarely restrict you after the tutorial save for certain spots where there are paths covered in darkness that you’re not supposed to be in at that stage of the story.
Aside from the overworld, various cellars contain all kinds of loot, as well as different dungeons where the best loot tends to be located. These locations vary from graveyards full of skeletons to villages occupied by soldiers to mountain hideouts full of bandits, and all of them have their own special weapons, shields, and other loot that you could collect and upgrade to turn Achilles into an even more powerful hero.
As an aside, I really appreciated how the developers thought of putting portals at the end of major dungeons that bring you right back to the entrance. It’s such a time-saving feature that you see in the other good Soulslikes, especially Elden Ring, and it’s a good thing that it’s here too.
Cons of Achilles: Legends Untold
| Things That Achilles: Legends Untold Can Improve |
|---|
|
Player-Centered Camera Makes It Difficult To Spot Enemies |
Player-Centered Camera Makes It Difficult To Spot Enemies
Achilles: Legends Untold is a top-down game that looks a lot like Diablo. The problem is that the camera is centered around the player at all times, so sometimes it’s difficult to immediately spot offscreen enemies. This results in situations where you don’t know where your enemies are coming from, and they’ve already surrounded you. What could’ve been done is an adaptable camera that pans toward enemies you’ve locked on to, so you can acquire enemies quickly. An alternative is to provide a mini-map where there’s a rough estimation of where the enemies are, so the player can have an easier time finding them.
Is Achilles: Legends Untold Worth It?
It’s a simple, fun top-down Soulslike that’s a bang for your buck
Achilles: Legends Untold is a great AA title that really appeals to fans of Ancient Greece (or classical history in general) that balances challenge and fun with its gameplay. If you’re looking for an interesting take on a Soulslike, then you may want to pick this title up and check it out.
Achilles: Legends Untold Overview & Premise
You are Achilles, the greatest of all Greek heroes, and you are leading the charge on Troy during the Trojan War. You have already felled Hector at the walls of the city, and have entered to save Helen from her captor, Paris. Achilles falls to Paris’ bow, but the hero finds himself alive again in Greece for reasons unknown. Ten years have passed since the Trojan War, the Myrmidons that Achilles personally led have been branded as traitors, and Greece is bathed in blood. Now the hero must find out what exactly happened to his beloved homeland, as well as the truth behind the Trojan War.
Achilles: Legends Untold FAQ
Does Achilles: Legends Untold Have Co-Op?
Yes. You can play 'Co-Op Challenges' where you can invite one friend and gain loot together. The locations you can do these challenges in are unlocked as you progress through the single-player campaign. Your co-op character will also have the same items as your character in the single-player campaign.
Game8 Reviews
Achilles: Legends Untold Product Information
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| Title | ACHILLES: LEGENDS UNTOLD |
|---|---|
| Release Date | November 2, 2023 |
| Developer | Dark Point Games |
| Publisher | Dark Point Games |
| Supported Platforms | PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S |
| Genre | Action RPG |
| Number of Players | 1-2 |
| ESRB Rating | N/A |
| Official Website | Achilles: Legends Untold Website |
