Torchlight Discussion

This must be the first game I've played with Steam Cloud, and the offline warning annoys me, but that's more of a Steam option issue. The game options were limited and almost everything required a reboot, plus Netbook mode just switches most settings down so it's nothing actually unique. The music was VERY music Diablo 2, along with the dialog, which turned me off (if Nintendo made a platformer, not featuring Mario, but clearly reused the same audio, I think most people would call shenanigans as I did here). The music was dark and sinister (or at least it made me think of Diablo, such as that style), which I felt did not match the style of Torchlight. The limited, cookie-cutter types of classes did not really appeal to me, and in truth they did not have much distinctions at all. Many skills were similar and repeated. HP and MP were out of your control. Most stats didn't matter aside from damage outputs. The interface was mixed up and mashed down, making HP amounts hard to read and GP in inventory almost unnoticeable. Health and damage amounts were equally inflated, making it a game of big numbers (surprisingly, gold amounts were NOT inflated, which is where games most often do inflate to give players a feeling of success when finding huge amounts of gold). Combat was cumbersome, difficult to click on moving enemies from range, and difficult to keep my pet from snatching items while I sniped groups of enemies and held Shift (made worse by lack of keybinding options). Areas were bland, repetitive, derivative, and difficult to navigate in some locations due to poorly placed objects. On two different playthroughs, I was able to use height difference glitches in the first boss area to just stand in place and pummel the boss with no difficulty (you'd think they would design a boss area to prevent that kind of thing). Enemies were often based off previous Diablo enemies (crowds that flee [demons], slow swinging giants [gargantuans]), but made slower and easier. Overall, I felt the game was very easy, hampered by the inconsistent controls, and almost oriented to gamers that had not played ARPGs much before. I had to play on Very Hard for much of a challenge. Death was more of an inconvenience than anything, and I found no reason to sacrifice XP and Fame to respawn where I stood, and Gold was nearly pointless so it was a reasonable sacrifice.

The pet was a good idea, but ended up more useful as an item seller and punching bag for enemies, and not so much a lively, original, faithful sidekick I would love, appreciate, and protect. If the pet could be wounded (and need to be healed by the player) then maybe I would care more. It was a welcome change to see blood and critical explosions. The floods of enemies coming from mineshafts was cool the first few times, but became predictable. The fact that enemies never reappeared prevents farming (which I can approve of), but areas seem so lifeless and drab after being cleared; either dead bodies should remain to 'spruce' it up and enforce the idea that dead stay dead, or miners should begin to come back in.

Maybe, being the demo, this was different from the final version. The demo only went to the extent of the first waypoint. My opinion of the game was that the story was not too interesting, and the game would not be that long or different from what I have seen. I personally like Hellgate London, which does the 3-class aspect greatly, making each very distinct, and they should have followed through with some aspects from that game (the makers of Torchlight did Hellgate London AFAIK).

In total, I felt Torchlight was an attempt to make a very mainstream ARPG, appealing ideally to everyone, not so much hardcore existing ARPG fans. I get the feeling they wanted this game to really sell (all devs do, but this moreso than other games), understandable in ways since their last games have not done so well. I do not feel the heart and soul put into this game like I do in most games, even mainstream. I could go so far as to say the game appears to be a cash-in on the fact that they made Diablo games in the past, and many people want Diablo 3 but that will be a while before it releases, so players can feed their ARPG desire on Torchlight.

Understand, I do not dislike Runic and all the companies they have been in the past. Torchlight, however, is not a step forwards. The game brings little new to the table for gameplay, and mostly runs off the addictive qualities of Diablo's loot drops. Admittedly, most ARPGs go strong from loot drops, but for this player, they need more than that. I have played Diablo 2 a few times, never beaten, and I have played Titan Quest many times, restarted many times, likely put WEEKS of my life into that game over the years. Torchlight could probably get a decent amount of time from me, and I did play the demo as deep as I could with all characters. I wanted to give Torchlight a true chance, and I did. I have to say it is not my favorite, one of those games I complain about most of the time I am playing it. I could probably buy it, despite it likely being one of my least favorite ARPGs yet (DarkStone likely being the weakest). However, with no multiplayer and limited replayability, I would be better to save my money, play games I already have to beat (TQ and D2 for similar fun), and likely put my money towards Grim Dawn, which would cost just as much, contain multiplayer, contain a map editor and quest maker, and be more to my liking.

If Hellgate London hadn't been forced out the door, it would've been fixed up and likely sold better. If it sold more, the company wouldn't have had to close down and remove multiplayer support for the game. If it was still going, that would be an amazing game (aside from lacking integrated LAN, but that may have been fixed by now) and I would be supporting the company more. I understand they have to sell games to make money to sell better games, but they have not sold me with Torchlight. Others can enjoy it, but I will pass for now. I don't expect everyone to like and buy Grim Dawn (I wish so, but I don't expect it), so everyone can like and dislike games. I see how players can enjoy Torchlight, but it seems flawed and slightly empty to me, so I will pass.