Mythos Reviews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on May 28th, 2011

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Where Mythos falls flat is in its messy, excessive design. While its segmented nature evokes Diablo II's structure, Mythos spreads its dungeons too thin by having a ton of insubstantial, personality-less ones. You select them from a map screen at each town portal, with over ten per portals to choose from. But there's usually only four or five quests associated with each dungeon. Why have over a hundred dungeons when you could have just as easily condensed them into a smaller number of good ones?

You'll occasionally find mild gameplay differences between the dungeons, like flame traps, but even with these very occasional wrinkles, there's no reason for there to be this much chaff in the game. High-level characters can gain access to more satisfying, substantial dungeons, but by then it's too late. You shouldn't have to sift through this much crap to get to the good stuff.

Of course, this all relates back to the fact that this game was created from the shambles Flagship left before they folded. The resulting re-development that Redbana had to do was probably stitching together disparately completed pieces in a way that was MMO-friendly-- and it shows. Not only is there a lot of wasteful, incomplete dungeon ideas thrown in here, there's also a lack of polish everywhere. There's a lack of continuity between many of the areas, with teleporters and world maps stitching together every area. While many of the town areas connect in sensible ways, the dungeons are accessed through a map screen at each dungeon portal. And with so many dungeons at each one, it's hard to feel like they're more than just art assets that you're magically transported to. Weird design flaws also showcase the seams of being rescued from development hell. While reaching Level 13 unlocks the town of Fort Hope, there's nothing to do there but buy better potions. All the NPCs refuse to give you quests until you are an even higher level, short-circuiting any feelings of progression a player may have gain from reaching this new zone. Why lock off an area only to let players find out that it's useless until much longer after they've unlocked it?

While the promise of Flagship's original concept is still evident in the video demos (like the art direction and character design), the spirit of that design doesn't seem to translate to the finished product, which feels generic, uninspired and insipid almost as if much more of the game was randomly generated than the dungeons.

Torchlight fans will probably be pained to see many similarities between the two games too, but where Runic Games gets it right, Mythos's take pales in comparison.

Pretty much any gamer with a couple of MMOs under their belt will be able to pick up Mythos and get to grips with it quite quickly, but that's not to say it's made easy for you.

Despite a short tutorial section at the start, the game doesn't lead you through the gameplay concepts at all well which is compounded by an interface made up of a mess of ill-conceived ideas and poorly executed design.

While it's all very nice to be able to craft new items and even upgrade existing gear by way of random enchantments, the routine for doing so requires far too much dragging, dropping, clicking and general faffing.

At times the screen can be completely consumed with check boxes and options and achieving these apparently worthwhile goals becomes a laborious task that breaks up some otherwise fun combat. The three-pronged skill tree works a little better, but again it misses clarity and logical execution.

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