Yeah, no, I couldn’t keep going.
I started playing Path of Titans on Nintendo Switch, and I just couldn’t. I love that this game exists, but I don’t like what it actually is — at least not at this stage. And no, I don’t have a single issue with any of the Switch-centric shortcomings of the game. It’s kind of ugly on Nintendo’s platform, yes, but it runs fine, so there’s no problem there. Sure, the other versions of Path of Titans are sharper-looking than the Switch edition, but that’s not a big deal for me.
Of course, if you are thinking of picking up Path of Titans on Switch and you do care about the technical aspects, you should know they’re not the best. The game’s textures and detail are rough. Load times are kind of long. And the whole thing is a little stiff. It kind of looks like an early era PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 game, to be quite honest. But like I said, that didn’t bother me, because it still looked okay enough and performed fine.
It’s the playing-the-game part of the experience that upset me… because, folks, this game is dull.
There are quite a few dinosaurs to pick from when playing Path of Titans, especially if you go with the Deluxe Founder’s Pack. I didn’t want to play as a stereotypical T-Rex or Triceratops, so I opted to play as— well, damn, I guess I forgot the name. But it looked like a big ol’ crocodile. Actually, when it came time to name my first dino, I named him BigOlCroc.
I first jumped into Adventure Mode on my own, where I was greeted by a mundane tutorial that taught me how to move, jump, and interact with items. You know, things I could’ve probably figured out if I just played without any direction for about five seconds. Once that was all said and done, I delved into the outer world.
It was… well, pretty underwhelming. There were objectives to complete, but none of them were exciting. These mostly consisted of collecting specific items en masse, digging at dirt, and killing small critters. It was all very mundane-MMO-collection-quest-esque. Another problem was that each objective was spread out way too far on the map. There were entire periods that consisted of multiple minutes where I did nothing but walk. There were no other dinosaurs to fight or eat. There was nothing to discover. It was all sort of a drag.
I spent so much time doing nothing in the Adventure mode that I started to feel a sense of desperation. It was like when you’re stuck somewhere and you just want to leave. Or when you’re waiting for a very important phone call and it takes hours for the phone to ring, only for it to be the wrong number.
I called it quits with BigOlCroc and moved on to the game’s multiplayer mode. Surely I’d find some signs of life there, right? Right? Riiiight?
Yeah, not really.
I had to create another dinosaur for this mode, so this time I went with this upright one that has a beak and talon-like claws. I named him MackDonalds, because that’s how I pronounce the name of the actual McDonald’s burger chain, and I couldn’t think of anything else.
I dove right in, ready to take on the world, and then the same tutorial I’d already completed in Adventure mode was like, “Naw, bro, you gotta go through me first.” So I complied, and I sped through the tutorial, exited that initial cave, and was met with more barren wasteland.
There was nothing really separating this mode from my solo exploits in Adventure mode. The main difference was that from time to time, folks would pop up in the chat. But I never actually encountered any other players — and I was exploring the map for quite a while.
At one point, I even entered into the chat box: “This game world is so barren.” I got a response a couple minutes later from another player. It was something along the lines of, “Servers will be more full in a few weeks.” Yeah, well, that doesn’t really help me now.
I played for what felt like an entire half-day, only to discover that there really isn’t much here. Path of Titans is a neat idea, but it’s so empty right now that it’s damn near impossible to care about and get into. As was stated in our previous Path of Titans impressions, the game isn’t really exciting, and there’s not much of substance to actually partake in. Once you get over the cool fact that you get to control a dinosaur in a prehistoric landscape, you realize that all you’re really doing is moving a dinosaur avatar through empty space.
I don’t necessarily crave social interactions in games, and there are very few multiplayer games I actually enjoy. That said, I was so bored out of my mind playing Path of Titans that I just wanted to encounter another player in the hopes of something cool happening. But sadly, there were no signs of life outside of that little chat box, itself a mostly fleeting documentation of an empty land before time.
Disclaimer: I was given a review code for Path of Titans on Nintendo Switch, but the opinions expressed in this article are my own.
