Welcome back to the Tale of the Wu, a Titan Quest (plus all the expansions) playthrough from the very beginning with a brand new character: Yu the Wu.
My name is Zak Ludick, I am writing to you from Cape Town, but a ARPG player can come from anywhere and an ARPG player goes wherever he needs to go in order to grab that next quest, level or piece of equipment!
So who is Yu? Yu is the character's name. What is a Wu? Well that is a character using the brand new Nedian Mastery and the Original Earth Mastery together. There is a LOT of Fire. Yu has come a long way and things are REALLY starting to heat up!
Last time on the Tale of the Wu Part 3 I had completed Act II in Normal by defeating both the second Telkine encountered in the game as well as a giant Sand Demon. An artifact was used to open a portal and POOF!
I am in Babylon!
Spiders in the Hanging Gardens! But what is that next to me?
Greeted by a merchant and a priest when going through a portal and a waypoint for you to portal to. The Priest exclaims "By Inanna! I thought none of the portals worked!" Or some such.
I needed to check on this Inanna and this was peculiar. This is the name used by the ancient Sumerians for the Goddess of Love, Fertility AND War. Much like Venus or Aphrodite. However, the Babylonians used a different name, the much more well known "Ishtar". That this Priest used this name... is somewhat out of place.
Right, you did not come here for a history lesson or its conjecture into a fantasy world where several mythos were meant to make sense. But it is interesting. Egypt and Sumeria co-existed during some of its time, this checks out since I just travelled from Egypt. But if we take into account that we met King Leonidas in Act 1... yeah let's not go there!
Onward to battle!
I got myself the summon creature from Earth - The Core Dweller. At this point I got fed up with taking all the pretty graphics on the lowest setting and bumped it up slightly.
This things look nice and snazzy now. Yeah this is Babylon alright, bearded sphinxes and such. I am accompanied by my Core Dweller and Terracotta General to tie up foes in close combat while I blast them with Breath Attacks, blasts from my staff and Shen-Pao - essentially a Magical Grenade.
Inside the Temple, you find a massive doorway or seal that has been smashed open. This is never a good sign. You are on the trail of yet another Telkine, who has uncovered the Sickle of Cronus, a weapon of great power. Apparently great for opening doors you do not have keys to!
Step through and... CHIMERA!
Well, OK... that was not so tough. Did I mention that for a Mage, the Wu is a very resilient character... but he needs to constantly drink potions... like some sort of alchemical alchoholic?
Right so I skipped some screenshots of areas after you get through the Chimera. You travel along the Great Silk Road until you get to the Great Wall of China! It's a little broken though and monkey-men and tiger-men and PENG are everywhere. I wonder if the Sickle did this as well?
I traveled back along the Silk Road so I could show you the vibe in this place...
Back to the Great Wall and there were little Peng, large Peng and then a Giant Peng that was really giving the Chinese soldiers problems so you smite it! What was fun here is that you can literally throw Shen-Pao all the way down there as far as you can see. It travels in an arc and explodes on contact with a foe.
Sometimes things like this happen in the game. When enemies are slain, they fall to the ground and there is a bit of ragdoll physics as they are thrown by the last thing that hit them into a direction with body parts loose but connected to certain points.
Here the Tigerman's arm got stuck in the wall somehow while his body falls. This then stretches the body to keep the two points connected.
In this game you can GIB an opponent. Meaning that you can go back to an earlier area with your developed character and hit them with far more damage than they have health. When this happens the go flying like crazy.
I once hit a vulture in Egypt where its head got stuck under a dead branch decoration, but his body kept going upwards, stretching his neck out to an insane length. Their bodies cannot break so it just kept going. It took just a second but its body landed in the top of a palmtree and it stayed there with it neck stretched between the two points! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Right, here we start seeing Draconians. Their warriors, especially the Lancers are awful. The archers can also breathe fire and that's awful. Worse yet are their Magi who possess a skill that stuns you. Usually, this is all it takes for a Draconian party to destroy you.
Thus, these are some of the toughest opponents in the game! Do not underestimate. Kite them and kill off any and all members of their party if you can do so without taking on the whole lot all at once.
And dodge the Magi's balls of magic that stun you!
Some of the scenery is really pretty. I have gotten as far as Chang'an. This was actually a really big area that I covered in one post. Despite all the sand, I suspect that this piece alone equals the length of game time as Act II in Egypt!
Until next time!
Cheers!
@zakludick
