Torchlight 2 Review

PC game review

General Game

Torchlight 2 is an indie rpg game that comes off first as a simplified/cartoony version of Diablo. You start your journey off by choosing one of the 4 classes available; Bezerker, Embermage, Engineer, or the Outlander. Each class in this game has a very different play style and all offer a role if you choose to play online in a party. Much like the first Torchlight game you start off with one preset ability and as you level up will unlock talent points and attributes to spend. The talent trees in this game are done much better then in a lot of other rpgs. Torchlight allows you to spend points anywhere in the tree as long as you are the appropriate level. This can let people play the ultimate hybrid character that fits their play style with out wasting hard earned talent points in useless stuff at the beginning of a tree.

Each class has more then one play style which is a great bonus. Maybe you want your Engineer make robots but uses a two hander? or your Embermage to have tanky frost armor but chain lightning to kill their enemies. You can play almost any spec / hybrid you are interested in and use it when playing through the game on normal difficulty with almost no issue.

Combat

The combat plays almost identically to the last game but might just be a little smoother and faster paced. A great thing about the torchlight games is that they offer you an action bar to put all of your abilities on then you have the ability to key bind it to exactly how you want. Mind you most people will only use a couple abilities. The game still feels really smooth with the left click to move and right click to use a set attack if you want a simpler combat.

One complaint I would mention about the combat in the game is that quite often you can find yourself among a cluster of enemies and might want to move to the other side of them to have an escape route. I found myself just sitting there attacking instead of my character reacting to my movement command, due to auto attacking in the direction I want to move taking precedence over moving. There is a solution to this problem, the tilde ( ~ ) key is default set to "move where your mouse is" so by using this feature you can avoid the auto attacking problem. Its an annoyance that even though I am not clicking on an enemy I still auto attack, but this is quick fix!

Multiplayer

Multiplayer in Torchlight 2 is amazing, and awful. First off finding a server to play on is easy and joining your friends is simple as long as they have told you what they have named their game. You are able to have a friends list which is a nice feature besides the fact that the ONLY thing it does is tell you if that friend is online. Its unfortunate that they still haven't implemented a "join friends game" option.



Once you are in your friends game, there are a few great things about the multiplayer scene.
1. Twice as much loot! as long as everyone is willing to mention what dropped on their screen
2. A lot of passives and even some abilities are shared for the whole party. A great example of this is Engineers force shield ability which gives them a shield protecting them from a set amount of damage. This ability can shield everyone in your party which is great when your friends who are squishy and have no other way of protecting themselves.
3. Able to progress much faster since clearing high level mobs can be killed easier (with exceptions)
4. You have the ability to port onto anyone else in the game. This can be great when you die and have to go back to town (as a cheaper way to res) and are able to pick up exactly where you left off. Saving you a lot of running back through already cleared dungeons.
5. Its just plain more fun, when you have someone to talk to!

The only negative thing about the multiplayer is how the enemies scale when there are more people in the group. This has been a problem with some other online rpgs in the past since mobs (enemies) are given to much stats to counteract more players and player buffs in the party. I found on my play throughs with my friends on veteran difficulty that single player is do-able, two people is do-able and sometimes easier, three people is a nightmare, and four player is nice as long as people are bringing different things to the table like buffs.

A boss that I was able to solo in around 3 minutes took my party of three over 10 minutes with multiple deaths. This was just due to the amount of health and armor bonus the mobs are given when you have more people. Mind you, this is really the only bad side to playing online and as long as you play with two or four people this isn't a huge issue.

Gear and Items

The best part of most rpgs is that feeling of progressing your character through the game and getting gear upgrades. Lets admit it we all love seeing those plus stats despite how small the upgrade is. Torchlight does a great job of making sure you are always comparing and finding new gear! An awesome part of the game is that the weapons you use can actually determine your play style. A great example of this is the Outlander class which essentially plays like a hunter/archer type character. If you use bows you have max range, pistols are close range but fast, and cannons are slow but provide some splash damage. This really lets you not only compare stats but also keeps your play style in mind making finding that one type of weapon so much more satisfying.

Some items in Torchlight are class specific items, this can often lead to them having some awesome stats or charge boosters for that class. Even if you aren't that class the game has two stashes that you can access in almost any base. There is a private stash to hold things for that specific character you are playing on, and then there is an account wide shared stash. So finding that awesome two handed sword on your Embermage doesn't go to complete waste, it actually gives you some awesome upgrades to look forward to when leveling the next character.

Everyone who plays rpgs will know that its a never ending battle to have enough bag space to either carry all your gear, or keep all your expensive items until you can come across a vendor. The torchlight series has one of the greatest solutions to this issue I have ever seen. When you start the game off you pick a companion pet to join you, which one you choose plays no difference to how they work other then what they look like. Pets attack for and can be fed fish to transform them granting them other abilities in combat to help you out by tanking, damaging or maybe slowing enemies. Your pet offers you basically a second bag that you can store items you have picked up. You can then send your pet into town to sell what they are carrying in their pack, allowing you to keep on fighting and obtaining new gear with out having to keep dropping portals to empty your bags. These trips to town usually take your pet 2 minutes to complete depending on where you are. So even if you are dependant on your pet to fight, you aren't waiting for ever just to get that few hundred gold from your junk. Before you send your pet you can give them a shopping list for things like potions, portals, or scrolls which comes in handy when you are in desperate need of a refill!

Final Analysis
Game Score: 8.5

This game is defiantly a solid experience, the only thing that holds it back from getting a higher score would be the fact that this type of game is so much fun to play with friends. Which currently Torchlight just doesn't do the best job at allowing the multiplayer experience to be accessed and completed as easy as it should be. If the multiplayer was touched up a little bit I would easily say this is one of the top rpgs that has come out in a while. Torchlight does a great job at being a game you can play for hours with out getting bored, or come on and play for 20 minutes and still fill like you've accomplished something. Explore all the classes, mess around with specs, and enjoy all the never ending upgrades you will find in Torchlights NG+.

of course if you have any questions or suggestion, feel free to comment and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability.