A Light Unto Thy Path - Torchlight (PC)

By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman

I was a little apprehensive getting Runic Games’ Torchlight, as it basically seemed like a streamlined version of Diablo made for a more casual crowd. While normally I’m proven dreadfully wrong about my preconceived notions of a game after playing it, this time I was pretty much right. However, the simplicity really works for game.

Though many games of this genre can be labeled as Diablo clones, Torchlight takes this identifier to the extreme. The game is basically Diablo in colorful, non-gritty clothing with the only major differences between the two games being: your pet NPC, the fishing minigame, and the lack of online. I find this totally acceptable, as most of Torchlight’s development team were former members of Blizzard North (the folks that created Diablo). This is more of a case of a group of developers and designers trying to refine an old project they had as opposed to some indie development team trying to turn a quick sale by making a game based on a commercial success.

"For some reason all the press pics I had of this game were from the demo/pre-release build, as the HUD at the bottom is severely abbreviated."

In case you’ve never played Diablo, its sequel or its numerous clones, the game is pretty much a fantasy based hack and slash with RPG elements and a heavy emphasis on loot gathering (treasure, weapons, armor, spells, etc). Basically, it’s like Gauntlet with RPG elements and equipment (and if you’ve never played any version of Gauntlet, then you’ve seriously lost all rights to be visiting this site). The game starts with you creating a character in which you choose your character class and the species of your pet (you also name your character and their pet; however, you rarely if ever get to see the names you’ve chosen in game making this pretty moot).

Characters come in 3 archetypical flavors, you have: your standard magic user (with low strength and health, but high magic offense and defense skills, the female archer/ranger/rogue (fast, agile and specializes in ranged weapons) and the barbarian (high melee damage and health, but lacking in magic). The three types seem a bit unbalanced as doing a barbarian run is significantly harder than doing a mage run and the female player character seems there more for sex appeal. Luckily, there are various difficulty levels which balance out the discrepancies between the various classes nicely. There’s even an option to add “permadeath” to your character (hardcore mode) meaning if your character dies, then it’s a permanent game over for you and you’re forced to draft a new character.

"Maybe I subconciously only gathered pictures of the destroyer (barabarian class) because that's the character I chose for my run."

The gameplay is very formulaic and near exclusively follows the pattern of: killing a champion baddy (a beefier variation of the dungeon monster du jour) on one floor, gathering a piece of magic ember on the next floor, and taking out a boss with a group of cronies on the floor after that. The heart of this game is pretty monotonous with the variation in level skins and themed enemies to be its only change of pace. Very few times I’ve found that the change of enemies actually warranted a change in strategy (with the only truly notable time being the area with the enemies that drain your magic points with some annoying area of effect spell). However, the game has kept me coming back through its loot system.

If you like collecting stuff, buying things, or getting various junk in the mail in real life, then you’ll love the loot system. More often than not the baddies in the game drop equipment, spells and items for you to take and use. However, this stuff is mostly inferior to what you’re already carrying. Though, finding those ultra rare items that are ridiculously superior to any item you have in your inventory (and also has your character looking like a total badass) makes your hours of dungeon running totally worth it.

There's also a fishing minigame to help break the monotony of the game. Not only is the fishing game a nifty little diversion from killing hordes of goons, but it also offers you a chance to win rare items and fish that upgrade your pet. The game also has some extra dungeons in the form of item fetch side missions and leveling/looting spots, in case the main dungeon is really getting to you.

"This was one of the best shots of the pet NPC I could get. It's a dog..."

The graphics in the game are pretty nice compared to a lot of Diablo clones on the market now. The design approach is similar to The Incredibles, but a lot stiffer. The locales are varied enough to make it not look like each place is just a palette swapped version of the last. In fact, each area’s skin also reflects the map layouts in a big way (ie: the deep caverns being a series of small “islands” and the inner fortress having a large prism like shape). The game does get a bit shadowy sometimes, making it very hard to see what you’re fighting. However, this could just be a style issue, since this game does take place in a 35 floor mine.

"Like I said, some of the areas get kind of dark."

The sound effects are pretty generic, but do the job. I do wish that the nag feature in this game would back off a little, since I really don’t need to be reminded that my pet is hurt and fleeing every 15 seconds or so (even if it has fallen into a cycle of regenerating a sliver of health and getting beaten to death directly after). If you’re a fan of the Diablo music, they apparently have the same guy that made the soundtrack for those games on the Tochlight staff. I honestly, didn’t think too much of it, but if you’ve been following along, you’ll know that I only like really simple chiptunes (music made with a prmitive 8 or 16 bit soundboard) and licensed music by well known artists in my games.

Throughout my playthrough of this game many people have asked me if it’s worth the retail price of $20. At first, I was telling people that they’d be much better off buying the Fate box set (another action RPG with extremely similar elements by the same lead designer). However, as I started to get deep into this game I started telling myself things like “Don’t sell that gun, save it for your gun girl play through.” This speaks volumes about the replay value of this game, as most of the time my games are retired to the legacy shelf directly after finishing them. While the lack of online may seem like a deal breaker for some, it is rather refreshing to play a game of this type on your own and not having to worry about sharing drops or building you character in accordance to the team’s needs (though I guess you could just draft a new character on Diablo and not log into battlenet). Still with its high replay value and general addictiveness, Torchlight is well worth the $20.

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