What is Age of Mythology Retold?
Developed by World’s Edge, Age of Mythology Retold is a remake of the classic 2002 game Age of Mythology. For those unfamiliar with this title, it is essentially Age of Empires with a mythological twist. Rather than advancing through the ages with historical armies and taking out your opponent, you choose a god at the start of the game whether it be a Greek, Egyptian, Norse or Atlantean God and you use the abilities and myth units associated with the selected god and civilization.
This game brings a lot of nostalgia with it given that it’s a remake of a 22-year-old game, however, my review of this game will discuss the game as it is rather than constantly comparing it to the old game although there still will be references. This game is being released on Xbox Game Pass on the 5th of September, so I hope you’ll judge for yourself on release as well.
The Good
Gameplay:
The most important thing when it comes to any game is how well the game plays. When it comes to “Retold”, this game excels in the elements of a real time strategy game. You manage your resources as well as your troops, you advance throughout the ages getting various upgrades dependant on your choices and combat preferences, and you ideally defeat your opponent before they defeat you by various means. Whether it be by war or wonder this game will keep you thinking from start to finish.
In my experience of the gameplay, I found it incredibly satisfying how simple it was to age through the game, rather than having to worry about having to build an armoury right away, as well as the freedom given to me in low resource maps to be able to utilize my market in the second age.
The Campaigns
There are 3 seperate campaigns within this game, Fall of the trident, The Golden Gift and The New atlantis. Whilst I don’t personally consider the campaigns for this game to be very important as I much prefer the mutliplayer skirmishes, I personally found the Campaign really fun although not very different from the 2002 Age of Mythology Campaign.
The main difference I found overall was that you utilize myth units a lot more than human units like in the original, and that some of the abilities of the myth units are altered as well.
The campaign is definitely worth it in my opinion even if multiplayer is your primary focus when playing this title.
Changes from the Original
Age of Mythology Retold also comes with some significant changes to the original game, whether it be how much favour you can gather to smaller things like the advancing requirements between ages. These changes ultimately make it so the mythological aspect of the game shines significantly more than the “mortal” aspect. What this translates to in the game is that I am able to get significantly more myth units than I would be in the 2002 version of the game, and that it separates itself more from Age of Empires.
Controls
I play on Xbox Series X so the controls for an RTS game are extremely important as the controller adds complexity to it rather than on PC where it’s essentially just point and click. In terms of this aspect of the game the controls for the most part are rather simple to learn, and everything is shown on the screen in terms of what you need to press.
Whether it’s selecting a unit with A then using the triggers to build structures; to holding down A and getting a group of units together for combat. I found it initially a bit daunting just because I was using a controller, but I picked everything up relatively quickly despite that.
Price/Accessibility
One of the biggest pros of this game is a surprising one in that the purchase of this game, whether you get the premium or standard edition, is a part of the Xbox play anywhere system. What this means is that if you buy the game on the Series X console, the purchase will also carry over to PC. This was great news for me as I am always sceptical of purchasing RTS games on consoles, but with this I was able to get the premium edition on both.
The Bad
The Tutorial
When it comes down to the negatives of this game, they are few and far between. Ultimately the only straight up bad aspect I would consider is the tutorial, For an RTS game (especially one on console), the tutorial is a key aspect of your gameplay experience.
In the case of Age of Mythology Retold the tutorial consists of controlling a few units and going from checkpoint to checkpoint taking out various myth units and soldiers. Whilst the games campaign covers more elements of the game such as building, for the tutorial to only tell you how to move and attack is pretty barebones for those wanting to learn without the campaign.
Things to be Improved
Online Server Filtering options
In terms of what needs to be improved aside from the tutorial which was just spoken about, I would say that the online servers need some better filtering options such as choosing how many players you want to see in a game to join (currently it just has a max player filter, so if you choose 6 players it’ll show all for 6 or less).
Conclusion
Age of Mythology Retold offers significant replay value with hours of fun building your civilizations as well as defeating your enemies either by yourself or cooperatively in teams.
It’s relatively easy to pick up and despite the barebones tutorial, the controls are simple enough that you should be able to learn pretty quickly. Having the game on game pass as well means that you’ll be able to always find people to play with as well as easily being able to get your friends to join in the fun.
Having played the original 2002 version of Age of Mythology since i was a kid, this remake will hopefully keep me entertained for decades to come like the original did and cement itself as the best RTS game ever released.
Age of Mythology Retold was reviewed on Xbox Series X, and is available on September 5th on Xbox Series X/S and PC.
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