Review

Torchlight II

One of the best reasons for owning a PC in 2012 was just released recently. Runic’s Torchlight II not only blows the original game out of the water, it even outdoes its older cousin, Diablo. Yes, let’s get this out of the way right now; Torchlight II is better than Diablo III in the most basic of ways…it’s extremely fun to play!

Torchlight II’s story picks up a few years after the original’s conclusion. The Alchemist, one of the heroes from the first game, steals the Heart of Ordrak and…you know what, lets come back to the story. For good reason, the gameplay takes top spot on my “most important” list. For those that don’t know, Torchlight II is an isometric action role playing game set in a fantastic fantasy world. Over the course of the game you and your friends will explore treacherous environments, complete quests for NPCs, battle ghastly monsters, and collect mountains of loot. Good times!

While these features are nothing new to the genre, Runic has done a great job of making them feel fresh in this title. Not only that, they’ve added new mechanics that are sure to be new staples in the future. First things first, let’s introduce the heroes of the game . There are four in total to choose from: The Embermage, Berserker, Outlander, and Engineer. Each one has radically different play styles. The Embermage uses devastating magical attacks while the Engineer deploys robots to not only heal him/her but also deal out damage to enemies. The Outlander is a gunslinger of sorts and the Berserker is all about crazy, powerful melee attacks. Additionally each class has three different skill trees featuring different abilities, which adds to the overall variability amongst the character types. What’s also cool is that none of the classes are restricted to using specific weapons. Of course, there are benefits to using the weapons your class specializes in, but for the most part you can play any way you want.

Even though there are only four classes, Runic allows for a large range of builds between characters. Becoming a Berserker who likes to blast enemies with large cannons before ripping them to shreds or an Outlander who traps enemies with vines and duel wields swords are both possible options for gamers. There are even basic customization options sprinkled in at the beginning of the game (sex, hair color, etc). Basically, the game lends itself to a large range of play styles and “looks” without adding a long list of starting classes.

For this review I played as the Embermage (although I do have experience with the Outlander class via the beta). After choosing my looks, I was able to pick a pet; an animal or mystical creature that accompanies you on your journey. Jumping into the game with my basic skills and items, I felt generic; not very strong or menacing at all. That changed after I gained enough experience to level up. The first thing I noticed was that none of my skills had prerequisites outside of a required level; the increase in experience correlated directly with an increase in skill level. Meaning, I didn’t have to learn a skill just to get to a better one down the line. This also means I had a lot of options when it came to being a competent mage (remember, each class has three different skill trees). I’ve always been a sucker for characters that utilize ice as an element, so I started with that tree. Before long I was ricocheting freezing bolts of energy off of walls and creating deadly hail storms, laying waste to legions of enemies.

I felt powerful, something that carried on throughout the entire game. Leveling up happens every few minutes and with each level comes more powerful abilities. That said, Torchlight II is not an easy game, even on normal difficulty. Normally in games like this, you’ll either feel unstoppable (on normal) or just barely able to survive (on a higher difficulty). It is expected that you would come up against an opponent that is just too powerful, requiring you to either level up and find better loot or group up with other gamers. Runic has found the sweat spot where there is minimum grinding (you level quickly) and at the same time, the enemies are still able to pose a threat. Even though I could call down pillars of fire that would seek out monsters, I still wasn’t able to just run through all my opponents.

This is due to the fact that you can’t just run up and smack most foes. A lot of them use skills that are detrimental to that approach. For example, there’s a certain bug like creature that has the ability to hover above the ground for a few seconds at a time. While it’s there, you can’t hit it with most weapons (I couldn’t even shoot it out of the air with a bolt of energy). It can hit you though; it uses poison to slowly eat away at your character’s health. Even though this creature is relatively weak, fighting a bunch of them hovering at different intervals can be tough. Strategy-provoked fighting is even more intense when it comes to the many boss encounters. They’ll deploy strong minions, use powerful spells or traps, teleport around a map, and just be an all-around nuisance. Awesome!

Another thing that made me made feel like She-Ra (my mage was female) was the fact that there was so much “good” loot being dropped. I usually have the bad luck of finding a really rare/strong weapon early in a game, making  loot collection super boring for long stretches of time. That was certainly not the case here. On the contrary, I had a really tough time picking which items would best suit my character. You see, there are no plus/minus or blue/red indicators displayed  when items are  picked up. It can be hard to select the battle axe with 150 physical damage per sec and 50% Ice damage over the crossbow with 100 physical damage per sec and 100% Fire damage. Every piece of equipment has layers upon layers of stats to consider. On one hand, I love the frequency of which good loot is dropped; either I get something that’s really useful or I get something that is going to sell for a pretty penny. On the other side, there is no way to quickly look at an item and see if it’s better than what you currently have. This can lead to some frustration. That said, I’ll take the tradeoff; a lot of stats to wade through, yet more useful loot than any other title in this genre!

One of the coolest editions to Torchlight II goes back to the inclusion of pets. Not only does your pet help you fight, it also learns spells, fetches items, and it can even sell loot. No matter where you are, you can put items in your pet’s inventory and send them off to sell it for you. On top of that, your pet can buy basic items like potions and scrolls. A handy timer will let you know how long it will be before your pet returns. My only qualm here is that you aren’t able to see how much an item is worth if sold. The only way to see this is by visiting a vendor yourself. That said, it saves so much time to just unload on your pet and send it away.

There is just so much to talk about but, one thing I must  mention is how the multiplayer components compare to other games in this genre. Up to six players can play on a server together. What’s cool is that, each person can do their own thing; you aren’t tethered to the same quests. The game’s open design is akin to a MMO, so you can play with a person who’s only concerned with doing side quests while you’re completing the story. Though it’s best to stick together (the enemies get stronger with each added player) you do have the option to roam individually if you like. My issue here is that it’s really hard to group up with friends. As of this writing, there is no way to chat with someone unless they are either connected to Steam or they are in your game already. Some people only opened Runic accounts (which is needed to play online), meaning no Steam chatting. This came to my attention when I was gaming with a group of people one day. I briefly lost my connection and had to restart the game. Upon doing so, I tried to invite them back to my game and found out that I couldn’t. I wasn’t even able to say “hey my bad, blah, blah, blah” because I didn’t have their Steam information. This issue could be fixed with an update to include chatting through the game itself, separate of Steam of course.

Finally going back to the story, like the multiplayer, I have mixed feelings. It sounds interesting when you are watching the cutscenes or listening to the lore. The problem is that there is no clear context; it is uncertain as to how the events are related to  your character. It’s like this, if I walk up to you and begin telling you a story about how Bob is finally getting revenge on his neighbor, you’d be lost. Reason being, you don’t know anything about this particular person, the circumstances behind his actions, or why you should even care. I’m just giving you a report on the latest incident. That’s I how I felt when playing Torchlight II (I still don’t know what exactly happened and I’ve spent 25+ hours in game).

All and all, Torchlight II is a great game. Going to war with vile creatures is made more exciting by the fact that Runic used interesting tactics to increase the difficulty. Your character feels powerful throughout the entire game and with each level of experience they are either unlocking a new and awesome looking ability or leveling up a previously unlocked one. Then there‘s the fact that this game features more usable loot than anyone could ever dream of carrying. All of these aspects make Torchlight II an awesome game and that’s true even though I have  left some things out of this review.  I haven’t mentioned how you can swap between two weapon sets on the fly, how the visuals are stunning, how vast the world is or how great some of the quests are! On top of all of that is the fact that the dungeons are randomly generated and the developers are allowing gamers to mod the game (creating their own adventures). Basically, even if you aren’t a fan of this genre, it would be really hard to get bored with Torchlight II.