Age of Mythology: Retold PC Review
Summary: Age of Mythology may have been a risk some 20 years ago, but remaking it was a no-brainer. Retold feels familiar but fresh, and the changes made all feel like they only improve on one of the franchise's best entries.
5
Heroic
If there’s something I’ve learned about Age of Empire fans over the last few years, they’re happiest when playing the classics. Despite a decent reception to the series’ most recent entry, the almost 25-year-old Age of Empires 2 (in its Definitive form, of course) still has a ludicrously healthy online player base, and the fact it still receives regular updates and DLC is a testament to the following the golden age of RTS’ still has. Age of Mythology: Retold looks to continue this trend, reimagining the franchise’s weirdest entry to suit the modern palate – and boy, does it deliver.
As the name suggests, rather than drawing from history’s greatest wars and conquests for its subject matter, Mythology focuses on the legendary sagas of the Greeks, Egyptians and Norse. While the same rules as the rest of the series apply (grow fearsome armies and defeat your enemies), Mythology incorporates many new aspects such as god powers, hero units and beasts drawn from the storybooks.
Each civilisation is made up of Major Gods, who each have their own unique abilities, units and technologies. Age up, and you’ll choose a Minor God to unlock further new units and powers to utilise to your advantage. Follow Zeus, for example, and unlock a lightning bolt that defeats most enemies instantly. Pick Hera as your fourth Minor God; call upon an entire thunderstorm to lay waste to waves of enemies.
Utilising god powers is one of the first areas you’ll notice a massive difference between Retold and the original Mythology. Instead of being one-use, players can use Favor, Mythology’s unique resource usually reserved for purchasing myth units, to reuse powers as often as they like. This is also the area I was most sceptical of, after all, many of these powers are purposefully overpowered, but I was pleased to find that the amount of Favor required to reuse powers is almost universally high, and it only increases with every use. Rather than negatively affect the game’s strategic elements, I found that forcing me to think about whether I wanted to create a bigger army of cyclops’ or save for a destructive asteroid added an extra layer of challenge.
Speaking of challenge, I love how difficult Retold can be. Currently combining both the base game and the Titans expansion (with the China DLC somewhere on the horizon), there are around 50 campaign levels currently on offer, and playing missions on Titan–level are some of the toughest experiences I’ve had in the franchise. Enemy AI has had a vast improvement, and I often found myself surprised at the tactics that would be employed against me.
To help combat any swings in difficulty, Retold includes a few new features that again help define what separates this from a typical remake. In particular, similar to Age of Empires 4, Retold includes optional villager queues on both PC and Xbox. I was sceptical at first – as a seasoned desktop Empires player, the idea of letting the computer control my villagers for me was an uneasy thought – but I soon found that when things got tough, I started to feel comfortable letting things play out themselves back at base while I concentrated on the battle at hand. Of course, the PC version now also includes controller input, and while I did give it a go, finding it surprisingly intuitive, I don’t think I’m quite ready to put my keyboard and mouse aside just yet.
Retold’s real test, of course, will come when the game fully launches and multiplayer matches take off, especially as the game, built on the same engine as the Age of Empires 3 Definitive Edition, still has those horrible build limits in place. It’s easily the worst part of the game, especially coming from a Player vs Player fan whose whole strategy usually involves clever building placement, so being limited, for example, on how many houses I can build, is a frustration I’ll just have to get used to again.
Luckily, I’m having so much fun with revisiting Age of Mythology that I can easily overlook the game’s few ageing quirks. It’s all just so well balanced – create an army leaning too heavily on myth units and watch as enemy heroes quickly decimate your troops, use your god powers too soon and find yourself quickly overwhelmed by surprise attacks. Unlike other Age of Empires tiles, Retold is packed full of nuance so unique to the game that it’s hard to not immediately fall in love with its endless character.
The game looks and sounds fresh too, all while retaining its signature style. Character models look fantastic, having been rebuilt ground-up, complete with new animations and re-recorded voice lines. The amount of work that’s gone into the Retold’s visual refinement is best exampled by trying out the game’s new close-up zoom function, which allows you to get right up to both the action and the game’s new, beautiful character designs. I also love the new orchestral, sweeping soundtrack, which perfectly complements Retold’s setting. I do, however, think the game’s visuals will be the area which splits opinions the most. Does it look like a modern game? Absolutely not, but would this still have been Age of Mythology if it didn’t have its eye-popping, bright palette and almost cartoonish character designs? It all goes hand-in-hand with the game’s overall, over-the-top theming. Fantastical, frantic and most of all, fun.
But what’s perhaps most exciting about Retold is what the future could possibly hold. The recently teased roadmap already confirms more content is on the way, and with the game launching with the new Freyr god pack, it’s clear the developers have big plans for the game going forward. Two new modes are also promised, with the Freyr pack already teasing Mythical Battles, similar to Historic Battles in Age of Empires 3, and a challenge-based mode called Arena of the Gods also on the horizon.
Age of Mythology may have been a risk some 20 years ago, but remaking it was a no-brainer. Retold feels familiar but fresh, and the changes made all feel like they only improve on one of the franchise’s best entries. This is the series at its most fun, and with so much to look forward to – and so much potential – this could be exactly what the real-time strategy genre needs to get its much-needed renaissance.
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