Summary: Steampunk Diablo 1.5
Multiplayer: No
Completion: 15 hrs first time, 5 hours subsequent
Cards: No
Cloud: Yes

Torchlight is a 3D overhead action RPG set in a steampunky cartoony universe. If you've played Diablo II, Torchlight will feel very familiar, especially considering a large makeup of the team consists of the Diablo crew. Thus comparisons between the two are inevitable.

Your character comes to the town of Torchlight, a mining town that excavates a hot commodity known as Ember. As with all mysterious forms of power, Ember appears to come at a cost, and it is up to you to investigate. Pretty standard story, it's just there to provide an excuse for you to go hunting for monsters and loot.

You are offered three basic classes - a melee fighter, an archer, and a mage. Each class comes with three skill trees. Though some skills, generally passive ones, are universal to all classes, so it's more like every class has two trees. Skill allocations are permament. There are no synergy bonuses in this game, so once a skill becomes obsolete, it becomes wasted points. On the other hand, if you are gunning for speedy playthroughs, then it's a good idea to spend points early on.

Enchanting items provides a nifty way to add small bonuses to the items you find for a small fee. However, each additional enchantment increases the odds that EVERYTHING will be stripped from it. I am totally against this design. I wish it instead stripped the item down to its base form. You could spend hundreds of hours making one awesome heirloom, only to have it accidentally disenchanted because of one button press. It doesn't help that I'd swear the quoted disenchant chance is bogus. If my math is right, you should theoretically have a 73% chance to succeed on 5 attempts with the regular enchanter, not counting attempts that result no change. It feels like I failed more than that.

Torchlight has a rather fascinating retirement system. After you've beaten the game, you are given the option to retire the character at any time, and choose one item to gain enhanced stats. It's a neat method to encourage replaying, and I would have loved to take advantage of it, but each playthrough of the game just feels so long and samey, that I couldn't bring myself to do it.

One thing that bothered me about the game is how short buffs are. A haste buff for example lasts for 8 seconds, and then you have to recast it. Considering you have to briefly stand still to cast it, it's rarely worth the effort. Class buffs are more potent, but they require frequent recasting as well.

Torchlight is a pretty game. They did a good job on modeling, and it's got some nice cartoony aesthetics. The music is very Diabloesque, considering it was written by the same person. I did encounter some annoyances with the game engine. Shooting up and down stairs is oddly problematic, as your shots will often stray off or hit the stairs instead of the target. Summons also have a tendency to gather into a wall to try to attack something. Some npcs have curiously large interaction ranges, thus when you exit their screen, you end up talking to them because you clicked too close. Other than that the game runs pretty well.

I give Torchlight a 7.5/10. While I don't deny the game is well-done, the sheer repetitiveness of killing dozens of enemies the same way often made me zone out and go into autopilot. It doesn't help that the later floors stretch for so long, and there's few methods to speed things up. Diablo 2 suffers from this as well, to some extent. Torchlight is a good game if you need to scratch that Diablo itch, but some part of me would also just rather play Diablo 2.

Summary: Steampunk Diablo 1.5 Multiplayer: No Completion: 15 hrs first time, 5 hours subsequent Cards: No Cloud: Yes Torchlight is a 3D overhead action RPG set in a steampunky cartoony universe. If you've played Diablo II, Torchlight will feel very familiar, especially considering a large makeup of the team consists of the Diablo crew. Thus comparisons between the two are inevitable. Your character comes to the town of Torchlight, a mining town that excavates a hot commodity known as Ember. As with all mysterious forms of power, Ember appears to come at a cost, and it is up to you to investigate. Pretty standard story, it's just there to provide an excuse for you to go hunting for monsters and loot. You are offered three basic classes - a melee fighter, an archer, and a mage. Each class comes with three skill trees. Though some skills, generally passive ones, are universal to all classes, so it's more like every class has two trees. Skill allocations are permament. There are no synergy bonuses in this game, so once a skill becomes obsolete, it becomes wasted points. On the other hand, if you are gunning for speedy playthroughs, then it's a good idea to spend points early on. Enchanting items provides a nifty way to add small bonuses to the items you find for a small fee. However, each additional enchantment increases the odds that EVERYTHING will be stripped from it. I am totally against this design. I wish it instead stripped the item down to its base form. You could spend hundreds of hours making one awesome heirloom, only to have it accidentally disenchanted because of one button press. It doesn't help that I'd swear the quoted disenchant chance is bogus. If my math is right, you should theoretically have a 73% chance to succeed on 5 attempts with the regular enchanter, not counting attempts that result no change. It feels like I failed more than that. Torchlight has a rather fascinating retirement system. After you've beaten the game, you are given the option to retire the character at any time, and choose one item to gain enhanced stats. It's a neat method to encourage replaying, and I would have loved to take advantage of it, but each playthrough of the game just feels so long and samey, that I couldn't bring myself to do it. One thing that bothered me about the game is how short buffs are. A haste buff for example lasts for 8 seconds, and then you have to recast it. Considering you have to briefly stand still to cast it, it's rarely worth the effort. Class buffs are more potent, but they require frequent recasting as well. Torchlight is a pretty game. They did a good job on modeling, and it's got some nice cartoony aesthetics. The music is very Diabloesque, considering it was written by the same person. I did encounter some annoyances with the game engine. Shooting up and down stairs is oddly problematic, as your shots will often stray off or hit the stairs instead of the target. Summons also have a tendency to gather into a wall to try to attack something. Some npcs have curiously large interaction ranges, thus when you exit their screen, you end up talking to them because you clicked too close. Other than that the game runs pretty well. I give Torchlight a 7.5/10. While I don't deny the game is well-done, the sheer repetitiveness of killing dozens of enemies the same way often made me zone out and go into autopilot. It doesn't help that the later floors stretch for so long, and there's few methods to speed things up. Diablo 2 suffers from this as well, to some extent. Torchlight is a good game if you need to scratch that Diablo itch, but some part of me would also just rather play Diablo 2.