Torchlight: Review so far

[Phædrus2401]

Torchlight: Review so far


Short version: If you liked Diablo, you'll like Torchlight.

Long version: Torchlight is the first Diablo clone I've seen in a while. Most of that breed turned out to be junk, but there were a few diamonds in the rough, such as Nox and Fate. But here's something interesting: a Diablo clone made by two lead designers from Diablo and Diablo II, a couple of guys from the company that made Fate (a successful Diablo clone), and a studio made up mostly of people who worked either on Diablo, or Diablo clones. Understandably, Torchlight has a lot in common with Diablo. Diablo.

Sorry!

But honestly, there isn't a whole lot to say. You control your character from third-person-isometric view (like Diablo), you have randomly/procedurally generated dungeons (like Diablo), you kill lots of monsters (like Diablo), they basically nicked Diablo II's gem/socket system in whole (like Diablo?), you have a main town that you go to to sell your ****, called Tristram--er, I mean, Torchlight (like Diablo), and basically 99% of the game is exactly like Diablo. I'm not kidding.

However, Torchlight isn't JUST Diablo. It takes the best bits from Diablo, Diablo II, and the countless clones of Diablo, and makes them into one, coherent, streamlined game. It's like if Diablo and everything associated with it and all the different clones were different kinds of beer, Torchlight would be single malt whiskey.

One entirely (mostly) new thing is the pet system. Basically, you get to pick a dog or a cat. This pet then follows you around and nips at the heels of anything that gets near it. Past level five you'll barely even notice it. You'd think this would be annoying, but it isn't. It does enough damage that it makes *some* difference in the fight, it has a ****-load of hitpoints so it isn't dying constantly, PLUS, OH EM GEE, it has its own inventory bag that you can put stuff in. And then--GASP--you send it back to town and it sells your stuff! Good doggie! No more going into town every five minutes to drop loot.

There's also a fishing mechanic, where you have to time your click a certain way. This will land you a fish, and feeding this fish to your pet will give it super power or transform it into a certain type of creature. This is occasionally useful in big battles, especially the golem ones.

Plot? Evil dude does evil stuff, you have to stop him. That's about it.

Quests are, well, not very diverse. You have:
A.) Troubador quests: go to floor X and kill unique monster Y and I'll give you stuff.
B.) Treasure quests: I have a wand that makes portals to places! Go through this portal, kill everything, and grab magical item Z and bring it back and I give you money.
C.) Alchemist quests: Find me such and such type of ember R. It's delicious!
D.) PLOT. Crawl through dungeon on arbitrary objectives.

Now, you'd think it would get boring after a while. And it probably does. But I'm level 16 so far, and it hasn't gotten truly boring yet. Maybe by my third or fourth character, yeah, but...

That reminds me. Character types. There's a tank, a shooter, and a caster. Each seems to have a few main upgrade paths to specialize them. So far I've only played the shooter, and her main upgrade paths seem to be: 1.) slow-hitting weapon with high DPS 2.) fast-hitting weapon with high DPS 3.) two moderate-hitting weapons that combine to make high DPS. Fairly typical. I like how they're rocking the steampunk sort of theme with having rifles and pistols alongside bows and such. Right now I've got her using two pistols, and she does a ****-ton of damage.

The environment is nicely varied. Usually they change it up right before you start to get sick of it, which is nice. However, though the graphics and set pieces change the monsters stay essentially the same. There are three types of monster:
1.) Roach (low hit point, low damage, but they swarm)
2.) Caster (low hitpoins, high ranged damage, sometimes encountered in swarms. Often have ressurection)
3.) Heavy (high hit points, high damage, but slow)
You find unique versions of these which are tougher to kill, and occasionally you find a boss. There is no variation in flow of battle, the enemies simply get tougher and occasionally get a new ability. This is fine; but it lacks major variation.

There is no multiplayer, which is very strange for a game like this. One of the major selling points of the Diablo games was their excellent multiplayer system through Battlenet. Torchlight lacks this; however, it does have a level editor.

Graphics look very good, but aren't demanding. It's very colorful, a nice break from the usual drab grey/brown/red of most of these games. Torchlight's minimum requirements are a GeForce 2/Radeon 7000 or better. I don't think anyone has had a graphics card below those requirements in about eight or ten years. Playing on my 4870, of course, it was smooth as pie, except... Screen tearing? I haven't checked yet, but the game may not have VSynch enabled by default, which could be a pain.

Audio is excellent. When you hit or shoot something it sounds very satisfying. The music sounds like the main Tristram theme from Diablo with the rhythm and harmony bits changed up a bit.


Conclusion: Torchlight is a fun game that distills the core elements of a Diablo-style game. In fact, is pretty much is Diablo, but switch up a bit and with most of the annoying bits taken out. But for all it's a great game, I sense a lack of depth. It may be a bit *too* streamlined, *too* much like Diablo. In fact, if this game were sold for a typical retail price of $50 I'd say avoid it. BUT Torchlight is only $20, which makes this an excellent deal. Other games in this price range like Portal or Braid are quite short, but since you can get at least three replays out of Torchlight (one for each class), potentially more, I'd say this may be a better deal even than those games.

So if you liked Diablo and Diablo II, I strongly recommend checking out Torchlight.

[Tiber Septim]

Buy this game!

[RockmasteR]

I bought Dragon Age: Origins and a bit old game Devil May Cry 4 so ummm I'm broke right now
maybe next month I'll think about that... if there is no new interesting game coming up