Chances are you’re at least familiar with Torchlight. Ever since its release on PC some time ago it’s been generally referred to as the pseudo-Diablo everyone’s been playing while they wait for Diablo III. And with good reason, as it follows the dungeon-crawling, loot-hoarding formula perfectly and even adds some of its own touches along the way.
You arrive in the town of Torchlight to find it under siege by hordes of monsters pouring out from tunnels in the nearby mountain. After briefly assisting two other heroes in holding off an attack, you start your descent through the mines, Necropolis, ancient ruins and so on, as you attempt to discover the cause for the town’s plight. There’s a little mystery, some betrayal and a whole heap of killin’ to do.
Just in case you’ve never managed to play any of the games in the series that has influenced Torchlight so heavily, here’s what you’re missing: You start a new character (choosing one of three classes in this case), trudge through the depths of a hellish dungeon full of unnatural beasts, mercilessly slaughter said unnatural beasts, gain levels, upgrade your character’s abilities via a handy-dandy skill tree and grab tons of loot along the way. Some equipment has slots you can fit gemstones in for stat bonuses, some belong to named sets and will give you even more bonuses when you equip matching items from that set, and all of your gear is broken up into tiers of rarity (white, green, purple and yellow/gold).
If it weren’t for the admittedly pleasing and colorful polygonal graphics, it would be quite easy to think you are playing a certain other isometric dungeon crawler. This really isn’t a bad thing, as Diablo a fantastic game that’s never been available on the Xbox 360, but chances are if you’ve killed the hell out of the titular demon (or Baal for that matter) your mind won’t be blown. I wish I could say that it makes up for the “been there, done that” feeling by offering up a more robust and functional co-op mode thanks to Xbox Live, but Torchlight is sadly lacking any form of multiplayer. It makes all the loot gains feel rather empty and meaningless when you can’t show your gear off to anyone. Plus, being able to plow through Hardcore Mode (where death is permanent) with a friend would be awesome. It’s something to look forward to in the sequel, but you won’t find it here. And that sucks.
Even so, the mimicry is totally fine because it’s almost perfect. And because dungeon crawlers are typically exceptional, all of that fun and loot addiction is just as prevalent in Torchlight. The three character classes (Destroyer, Alchemist and Vanquisher) feel like a mash-up of the myriad of classes from Diablo II. The Destroyer feels like the offspring of the Barbarian and Paladin, focusing on melee damage and defense boosts, as well as attacks that can buff himself or debuff his enemies. The Vanquisher is a sort of hybrid between the Assassin and Amazon, making use of ranged attacks as well as traps and various status effects. Finally there’s the Alchemist, my character of choice. He combines the minion-summoning and mind-warping spells of the Necromancer with the elemental manipulation of the Sorceress. Freaking awesome. I named him Galstaff, and anyone who gets the reference will have earned my respect/admiration.
Despite all of the similarities, there are actually some gameplay differences between Torchlight and its love-interests. Weapon enchantment is a rather big focus, giving you the option to trot back to town and pay (or use a shrine if you find one) for a chance to randomly add some extra bonuses to your gear. The flip-side to this, aside from not knowing what you’ll get, is that sometimes the enchantment won’t take and you’ll destroy your item. So that’s something to think about. A second bit of not-the-same comes in the form of various portals you can open, find or activate via quest-giving NPCs that will lead you through some mini-dungeons. I know Torchlight isn’t doing anything new with this idea, but these little excursions can happen a lot more frequently than they did in… that other game. They’re a nice little distraction from the main story arc and offer up a good chance for some rare loot mongering.
Finally, there’s your pet.
It may sound weird, but your pet in Torchlight is a very big deal. Very big. This animal companion will follow you everywhere, fighting right alongside you. It won’t single-handedly kill a boss for you, but it certainly helps. You can also teach your pet two spells of your choosing once you start finding the right scrolls. No need to adjust its AI or give it commands, it will just use the spells when it can. But by and large the most impressive aspect of your pet is that it’s also the perfect pack mule. You can hand it whatever gear you aren’t using (up to 50 items) in order to free up some much needed inventory space, but even better than that, you can also send your pet to town in order to sell the stuff you don’t want. You know what that means? It means no wasting Town Portal scrolls just because your inventory is full. Instead you can just give the crap you don’t need to your pet and send it on its way. It’ll come back in a minute or two with your money while you keep up the delving.
Obviously, concessions had to be made when bringing Torchlight to a home console. Using a controller just doesn’t feel as “right” as a mouse and keyboard, and only having four buttons to assign spells and abilities to (RT, Y, B, LT) feels rather constricting. You can press Up or Down on the D-pad to swap between two quick-slot loadouts, but even that only allows for a total of eight abilities. It forces you to be a little too picky with the skill point distribution, as once you learn a ninth “press a button to use it” ability you’ll have to swap another one out for it. The inclusion of a third loadout would probably make a huge difference.
I also ran into a couple of technical issues. Well, not issues, per se. More like “things that bothered me.” The enemy getting stuck in the corner, then dying and dropping loot in said corner and having my character unable to reach any of it was most likely an isolated case, but it still sucked. The other thing, which incidentally is the one that drives me up the wall, is how it’s really irritating to try and pick up loot as an Alchemist. Picking up gold is automatic; when you walk close enough to it, it’ll just magically jump into your coin purse or whatever it is these folks hold their cash in. Loot, on the other hand, needs to be close, and you have to press A to pick it up. This is simple enough in theory, but it goes to shit when there are more than one or two friendlies in your vicinity. This is because you’ll automatically “target” them if they walk in front of you (which your minions do all the time), effectively deselecting the loot on the ground or chest you were about to open. It’s annoying when it happens a few times in a row, irritating when it happens a few dozen more and downright infuriating when it takes you five minutes to access your stash in town because a couple of NPCs keep wandering by and you keep accidentally talking to them.
Those gripes are both very minimal in the grand scheme of things, however. Torchlight is really a great game overall. There are lots of places to go, thematically speaking, plenty to kill and the ever-present draw of Stuff to keep you playing until a few hours after you realize you should have gone to bed five hours ago. Shame about the lack of multiplayer, though.
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Things We Liked: It’s one awesomely well-done and polished dungeon crawler. Your pet is a godsend. Plenty of complimentary skills to go around. Each class feels distinct and panders to a different play-style. Each class is also lots of fun to use in its own way. Using fish (caught by water ripples) to change your pet into other creatures.
Things We Disliked: The plot isn’t too terribly interesting. Not enough quick-slots. Picking up loot is way too much of a pain in the ass sometimes. The lack of multiplayer makes the game feel somewhat incomplete.
Target Audience: Oh come on, you know who you are.
(Torchlight (XBLA) – Developer: Runic Games. Publisher: Microsoft Game Studio. Available for Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade – Original version available for PC. A copy of the game was provided by the publishers for review purposes. Unfamiliar with CFD!’s review system? Read our newly revised explanation here.)
