Perseus: Titan Slayer PC Review

Perseus: Titan Slayer is the latest game by Sicarius Games, and it is a dungeon crawler in the same vein as many of the more classic games in this genre. A top-down, loot-oriented system in which swarms of enemies come down upon you as you carve through more and more of them throughout the course of each run.

Many loot-oriented games tend to be about building persistent upgrades by constantly finding newer and marginally more powerful weapons and armor as you explore the world. Perseus: Titan Slayer is not quite like that. Instead, you are provided with a rather small arsenal of weapons, no real alterations in armor as your character always looks the same, and the persistent upgrades need to be unlocked because Perseus: Titan Slayer is a roguelite game.

 

The roguelite elements mean that every run may operate along similar lines to something like Hades, in which you start each run with whatever weapon you choose to go in with, and then you have to fight your way through each run while getting more powerful as you go. However, unlike Hades, the upgrades don’t appear to do anything major. Instead, they’re all just stat increases that bump up the numbers a little here or there. Maybe an upgrade you find on this particular run increases your damage, health regeneration, or something similar.

This does make Perseus: Titan Slayer a fairly standard dungeon crawler, and it is. It’s reminiscent of other similar games like Dungeon Siege or Diablo. In fact, the UI basically looks like Diablo, with the red orb indicating health on the left and the blue orb on the right indicating mana. Although, unlike either of those games, the roguelite nature means that the game does allow for quite quick attempts and experimentation. You never need to feel locked into a particular playstyle because it’s what you started doing. Instead, you have the chance to try out new things.

Every run in Perseus: Titan Slayer starts the same way. You choose your weapon, and you have a few to choose from, like a sword, twin daggers, or bow and arrow, and you also always get a starting reward of some kind by opening a chest. This means that every run will start with something to differentiate it from previous runs. Then, if you have any upgrade materials from the previous run, you can do permanent upgrades. However, more often than not, you’ll simply be running over to the Pegasus who takes you to the first level.

 

Similarly to many roguelites, you get to partially choose the next room you go to, but Perseus: Titan Slayer is a little different in that you generally choose your route in the beginning and only occasionally get to try out a new deviation in that route. It’s not the best system, but it means that you’re always progressing to some new level that has loot and a chest at the end of it. Sadly, you don’t have much control, aside from the beginning of the run, what you’ll get at the end of each level.

Every few levels, you face off against a boss. The bosses tend to be somewhat easy, but the reason they’ll kill you is because even the boss fights are swarming with regular enemies. It feels somewhat artificial as a way to make the bosses harder, because once you clear out an arena and only have the boss left, they tend to be fairly easy to deal with.

This is where we come to the controls in Perseus: Titan Slayer, and they are rather simple. The control scheme is essentially an attack button and a dodge button. There are also special kinds of skills and magics that you can learn as you gain experience points, such as a spinning attack or a heavy combo. These are usually useful for cutting through swarms of enemies.

 

These aspects can be upgraded, and the dodge is especially useful because it also has an attacking aspect to its design. The dodge rams into enemies and can often push them down. An enemy that has been pushed down takes a few moments to get back up again, and while they’re down they’re both easier to attack and, obviously, unable to hurt you.

However, this is where we need to get to the control configuration itself. Perseus: Titan Slayer is fairly standard in how you can play, but it’s also very un-standard in one of its particular control quirks. PC games typically use a WASD control layout for movement. Each key corresponds to a direction. W is forwards, et cetera. However, that is not the case here. Instead, the game uses the left mouse button, ordinarily the attack button, as the movement button. You have to hold it in to go forward, and then use the right mouse button to attack.

This feels incredibly awkward, so you’ll likely change it in the settings. However, you cannot change it to a WASD layout, you can only change it to a single button that translates to “move forward.” So, if you switch the “move” button from the left mouse button to the W key, then you still need to use the mouse to guide where you’re going. This is in stark contrast to the way things are ordinarily done. The mouse is for looking and WASD is for moving. Perseus: Titan Slayer ties them together. This also turns the dodging into an annoyance because, in most games with a dedicated dodge button, you’ll hit that button and push the direction you want to go, but not here. Here, you’ll just go forwards.

 

It's a system that takes some getting used to, but it also seems like a system that is arbitrarily trying something that is entirely unnecessary to try. Why is it made that way? Why isn’t there eight-directional movement? That’s standard with a WASD layout? It’s almost like a fast-paced version of the old tank controls that 3D games used to have in the late-90s/early-2000s.

If you can get over the weird controls, Perseus: Titan Slayer is a fairly replayable game. As it is a roguelite, you are meant to replay it and try for better loot and a better chance of getting to the end. It’s also here where another interesting comparison to Hades occurs. Whenever you gain an experience level, a god will talk to you. They’ll interrupt the gameplay to say something to you, but it’s all fairly standard and lacks the character you may hope for with such a system.

Perseus: Titan Slayer doesn’t really have a narrative. You just need to go through each run, getting your little upgrades, and hopefully becoming strong enough to kill all the bosses. There are a few ways to improve your character, and there is a special upgrade system that involves mild crafting, but it still never really feels like anything is changing as you play.

Perseus: Titan Slayer is a fairly standard, generic game. It looks, sounds, and plays generic. It should keep you busy for a good few hours and it does have a combat system that has the potential to rope you in, but it isn’t going to break new ground. It works but it doesn’t amaze or excite.
 

Justin van Huyssteen (@LC_Lupus)
Senior Editor, NoobFeed