Do you love colourful hack ‘n slash games? Are you a big fan of the Diablo series? Do you like the idea of having a pet goat that can summon zombies and cast fireballs? If so, then I can guarantee that you will love Torchlight 2. While the game isn’t without it’s flaws, Runic Games have managed to craft a tight hack and slash and loot and repeat game that will keep you coming back for just one more dungeon.
Torchlight 2 is the sequel to Torchlight, a game that I have never played. So in effect, I came into this game fresh with only an abiding love of Diablo and Titan Quest. The basic premise of this game is you click to move and attack monsters, loot the map for more powerful equipment, level up your statistics and a skill of your choosing, and then use your newly upgraded character to go attack more powerful monsters and get more powerful loot and even more experience. This may sound like a simple formula but, like most games, it is in this simplicity that all sorts of fun can be had.
From the four classes you can choose from (with the option to change appearances and, shock horror, gender) being Engineer, Embermage, Beserker or Outlander, I chose the Outlander. (because I liked the idea of a dual-pistol slinging cowboy, who I then made female because I could). I also chose a goat as a pet. I then discovered I can teach my goat spells. So I taught him Fireball and Raise Zombie Archers. The inclusion of a pet is genius as you can kit the pet out with spells and items to cover one of your weaknesses and also send it back to town to sell your loot so you can keep adventuring and looting.
The adventuring and looting are simply fun. The games art-style is semi-cartoony with allot of colorful enemies and locations. Each area has very distinct enemies. From the Netherim (or demons in hell) to the Werewolves that leap out of trees, Torchlight 2 never felt like it was a particularly dark game. It always felt quite bright and colourful while you are zooming around slaying things. One of the definite highlights were the boss battles, as each felt quite epic (even if the difficulty level varied quite a bit). There is nothing quite like running into a teleporter and then fighting a giant beast that takes up half the screen and throws lightning bolts around. I really liked the artistic direction that they took with Torchlight 2 and it helps set it apart from the pack.
Torchlight 2 still had it’s fair share of flaws, however. Among these was quite a varying difficulty level as you progressed. You could be breezing through an army single-handedly one minute and the next a troll suddenly does 90% damage to you. Even this was somewhat mitigated in that you can just lose a proportion of your gold to instantly respawn. Another frustration was the difficulty in choosing different abilities to use on the fly. This frustration could also be because there were so many abilities that I wanted to us that looked cool but, alas, any more than 2-3 abilities becomes too difficult to use. Mine were Rune Vault, Rapid Fire (with my lovely twin Revolvers, Dante-style), Glaive Throw and Summon Shadowling Brute, which seemed to make allot of the late game bosses quite easy. The difficulty curve on this game definitely felt like it needed a bit more balance.
These flaws, however, feel like I am just nitpicking. At the end of the day, this is a nice long game that feels like it was crafted with care. The entire game is centred around keeping you engaged and moving, and the mechanics were put there to keep you going through the various beautiful environments. I am sure I haven’t mentioned half the good things in this game (like shared loot, fishing holes for pet upgrades, mods, etc). However, after maybe 16+ hours in the world of Torchlight 2, I am looking forward to diving back in another 16+ hours with some mods and a different character. I am thinking Embermage, myself.
4 out of 5 illuminated waffles.
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