When I first wrote about Diablo 3 I subtitled the article with: “Or how to lose track of time”. If I wanted to do the same for Torchlight 2 it would probably be: “Or how to lose track of what’s going on on the screen”.
The first Torchlight was an entertaining game despite being very simple on the story side of things. The slightly exaggerated comic style graphics and colorful yet dark dungeons created an immersive atmosphere which kept me motivated. The only drawback: there was no co-op. In fact, there wasn’t a multiplayer mode at all.
If you’ve read my Diablo 2 posts you can probably imagine how delighted I was when I read the anouncement about a sequel and in particular that this sequel would feature a multiplayer co-op mode. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. However, once it it was released I was still into Diablo 3 and only had my iMac for gaming - there was no OS X version of Torchlight 2. So it took some time until I finally got hold of a digital copy of the game (for Windows on this machine) but here I am presenting my verdict on it.
One thing that really pops out after just 10 minutes of gameplay is the speed at which level ups occur. My character is somewhere around level 40 and my guess is that I’ve roughly finished 2/3 of the game. That is unusually fast progress. In addition to that it is very easy to find or even buy sets of gear. Where Diablo 3 makes it unnecessarily difficult (still no luck) Torchlight 2 seems to make it a bit too easy.
Secondly, the speed at which one runs through the world is amazing. Due to the increased size of the maps this is kind of necessary but in the long run it somehow detaches me from the game. To me it feels like ploughing through the terrain as fast as possible as if to finish this ordeal and be done with it. The way the story is told only adds to that. There are short movies which are neatly done but the main context is delivered through text, of which not every conversation is available as spoken audio. And again, this presentation just adds to the feeling of this being something I have to work through rather than being able to enjoy it.
Torchlight 2 is about quick action not big talking and quick action it delivers. I haven’t yet played it much alone so most of the following is based on multiplayer experience. The first few hours are actually very entertaining but the more the game progresses the more powerful skills you learn. I make that sound like a bad thing, right? Well, it somehow is. The skills and their visual effects are nice. However, at a certain point not only you as a player (including the ones your are co-oping with) but also those jerks with an attitude towards you start pulling off tricks of magic. Since there are seldomly only two or three enemies attacking, you (or one of your peers) select a skill that targets a big area in order to hurt or destroy as many foes as possible. Now this is where the fun ends. As visually appealing as this is it completely clutters the screen and makes it impossible to fathom who did what from where. In those big fights I always ask myself: “Where the hell is my character and that stupid cursor so I can reorientate myself?” This is very frustrating and, as mentioned before, makes it seem like work you don’t like.
This is a big dealbreaker. The fights are just chaos. In those situations I use a rapid fire skill, push the Shift key and perform 360’s until the bad guys are gone. I don’t know what I’m shooting at I just want it to go away. Another thing I don’t like is shopping (I’m a man after all…). Seriously, it is nice that two items can be compared by hovering over something in your inventory or a store and it automatically shows the traits of each item side by side. Unfortunately this is done in a rather unpleasent way. It’s like a blinking ad on a website that just cries for attention. The attributes are shown in huge different-sized boxes placed randomly on the screen. Diablo 3 did that much better. And as a bonus the Blizzard implementation shows whether this is an up- or downgrade.
So is it all bad? No! It is an entertaining game without any depth. If it were a shooter you’d compare it to Serious Sam. The boss fights are very engaging and in this regard I’d say Torchlight beats Diablo. A boss really takes beating like a boss and unless the visual effects and number of enemies cover all of the screen the action is intense and exciting. Still, if sticking to the shooter comparison, Serious Sam offers a better overview over all that’s happening - and I’ve already heard a pretty good Quake 3 player say: „I never had to run backwards that much in a game before“.
I had high hopes for Torchlight 2, especially since Diablo 3 was sucked dry from too much playing. Although the start of the game with the quick level ups and early finds of special gear like sets encourages to continue playing, the later stages of the game lose their feel to all the mayhem that is happening on the screen. The more narrow levels of the predecessor, which are rare in v2, had more appeal to the game as a whole. But maybe the single player is able to deliver equal fun as Torchlight 1 did without other players wreaking havoc.
