Torchlight Review - 8/10

Next on my chopping block is a game by Runic Games called Torchlight. Yet another decedent of grandfather of action-RPG's, I was drawn to this game due to it's Diablo II nature. Would I finally find a game that lives up to the classic?

Synopsis:

Torchlight is to Diablo II like I Can't Believe It's Not Butter is to Butter. After playing 5 minutes, it can be quickly noticed how much this game takes after Diablo I, Diablo II and the visual aspects of WoW. In many regards, it is simply a carbon copy. It does however, offer a few of its own ideas, most in the name of player convenience.

Torchlight is set in a mining village named after its title, the main quest taking place in a dungeon that expands and changes for over 30 levels and ends at the bottom.

My play through is with the class Vanquisher, on Hard. I finished the campaign and planned to play the extra dungeon for longer, but stopped when the game entered a crash loop.

Pro's and Con's

Graphics Engine

The graphics engine OGRE was not developed by Runic, but it was a strong choice for this type of game. A limited but effective physics engine is also present on top of this which seems mostly employed in "knockback" effects which was amongst the strengths of Torchlight. This gave attacks made by a player or monster an empowering feel, which, when applied to a dungeon crawler game alleviates boredom well. The graphics are made to be cartoony and are very similar to the comic book artistic style of WoW using strong base colors. I would say however, Torchlight is more willing to use darker tones. It ends up with a somewhat upbeat gothic feel. Visually I thought Torchlight was quite pleasing.

Sound

From the moment I entered the town of Torchlight and my ears were filled with the plings of an acoustic guitar I could hear the influence brought by Diablo I and the music of Tristram. I later found out that the composer was the same person. While Diablo I had great music, I feel Torchlight not taking any steps to create a separate atmosphere to be concerning. The sound effects, especially those related to combat seemed to be spot on. Wacking or Shooting sounds were highly satisfying giving the player a sense of "doing damage". Item drop sounds were however limited and often were drowned out by the rest of the music so the game misses out on some audio cues for the player. The dungeon music also became droning after a while but I did enjoy the ambient noises for the most part in each dungeon texture type. Overall the sound for the game was good but with very little innovation.

Style

This is probably one of the weakest points for Torchlight, in that it has very little in the way of style. While there was some funny characters involved (like a robot bard or Gar who spoke nothing but gibberish) the fact that they had nothing but repetitious dialog made sure their characters never developed into anything interesting. The main characters of the piece had very little interest and were as 1 dimensional as possible sticking only to their initial perceived purpose. The corrupt bad guy whose story never expands, the NPC heroine who needs to stop him "because that's what she's there for". The art and the sound feel very borrowed as well so there's no style points there either.

GUI

The visual aspect of the GUI was done quite well, with maybe an exception to the minimap. The letters were clear and bold, the skills were easily identifiable in the "skill belt" down at the bottom and everything was artistically pleasing on the eyes. The menus had the same artistic style as the rest of the game, sporting that cartoony comic feel while still being organized and everything being easily indentifiable. My deconstruction of a few things I feel didn't work out is still in order, however. The minimap overlay was faint, making it a tad hard to read. The radar version didn't seem to present with the right scale of information. The health and mana indicators were a bit hard for me to notice at first, compared to the large globes Diablo II presented but I got used to it.

The only major issue was the hotkeys. Using a number to link to a skill is fine, however, the fact that pressing that assigned number would make the skill a 1 time use rather than a bind to a mouse key made its use for spamming it limited. The game instead offered a one time TAB button to change what the right click did. In honesty, the games skill trees worked with it okay since a lot of skills were passive or buffs/summons that only need to be cast once in a while but I find the design to be limiting. What if I do end up with 4 offensive skills I want to quickly switch between in combat? Having to press 4, then left click, 4, then left click over and over again gets a bit annoying and makes it harder for me to position my character while I do it, since when I press the 4 I've dedicated to using the skill instead of movement. I prefer the Diablo II method of F keys (Although number keys are just as good) and them all binding to either left or right click for constant use. This didn't really hurt Torchlight too much, but it would hurt expansive skill trees.

Overall Gameplay Experience

Torchlight is fun and well structured. I really think the game does exactly what it sets out to do. Stick to a concise dungeon crawler formula, add a few conveniences and just stop while you are ahead. The game is definitely fun to play for a while, especially if this genre appeals to you but it is entirely possible to find the lack of deep substance diminishing the overall experience and causing the joy to peter out on your own time.

Breakdown Of Gameplay

My favorite part, and lots to talk about when dissecting the good and the bad in Torchlight.

One important aspect of action RPG is not letting the eyes get bored. Torchlight did this quite well by having only a few levels of each terrain type before mixing it up into something very different. Each terrain had its own color patterns and general feel. The way to access secret areas was changed up and that to me was a very playful and elegant idea. In Diablo II, most peoples least favorite Act is Act 2, and probably because for 80% of it you stare at sand while running around trying to find something. Wether or not it takes more time to do than the other acts, it sure *feels* longer. That's why changing things up is important. Also, an instant sense of accomplishment and progressive joy is sent to the brain when one clicks on a set of stairs and the terrain is completely different than the last 3 levels and creates constant new desires to continue forth. (Sometimes also inspiring fear and worry, as in, oh crud there is lava everywhere this can't be good). Either way, it sparks an emotional response and I was happy with Torchlights execution of it. (But really, it just mainly copied Diablo I).

I want to re-mention the Knockback and the limited physics. While physics are not entirely noticed in a 3rd person top down compared to an FPS, they still add to the feeling that when you do something like bash down an enemy, that you are *really* doing that. Diablo never offered that, with every enemy death causing him to drop in place on the ground. In torchlight you can knockback kill something sending it rolling off a cliff and never seen again. The screen would shake ever so slightly as if your blow was so strong it caused minor tremors. These small additions to combat were among my favorite parts of Torchlight.

Character progression was interesting in Torchlight. The stats were made to be extremely simplistic in what they did, but difficult in knowing what you need. I thought this was a great approach. Three of the skills, Strength, Dex and Magic all just directly increased the damage of the weapon type they effect. Little thought came into it once you knew what weapon you wanted to use. I used ranged weaponry so Dex was my major dump point. Everyone, however, could benefit from defence. What really made it interesting was the items requirements. Armor was not all based on strength or defence, making one stat better than another automatically. Armor could be found using any of the requirements, therefore any of the stats could still show some use. However, the breakdown to this is, the most effective thing to do is still max out the stat you use for weaponry and defence and simply be more picky about what armor you use, and in the end game, just get the best stuff requiring those. While your exploring however and don't have gear to pass down, that is simply easier said than done. I think the system makes for an interesting first time playthrough in that you may spend points all over to meet certain requirements, but very linear on subsequent playthroughs.

The skills in Torchlight, for the two classes I observed seemed to be far too packed with passive skills that overshadowed active skills. Worse still, each class seem to have the same ones. None of them were fine tuned to specific situations either, making them all valuable to the overall success of your character. The problem with that theory is that it limits the feeling of choice. It took the "what kind of character am I going to make" and turned it into "What passive skill should I raise first?". Active skills are really what make a character in the end. But to be fair, Torchlight did have enough so that you could try different things, but not enough complimenting skills to try different skills.. differently. Basically, the ideal thing to do is to pick one active skill you want to attack with, raise that to max and raise all the passive skills to max as well and call that a character. I think in the end that allows for as many characters as there is active skills, but no creativity allowed to the player who wants to try iterations and combinations of skills.

The item system mimicked strongly Diablo II's execution, with a few allowances added in. I noticed a prefix-suffix naming convention, however I noticed no such system that forced only so much from each of those catagories. Any item ability could find itself on an item in any combination. This allowed items to be more varied I thought. Items could also be enchanted (having a random enhancement added to it) any amount of times for a scaling amount in gold. I am all for constant enhancement, but making it limitless has obvious issues. The clear one, allowing items to become overpowered. The second, not being able to throw it away because of the vast fortune you spent on it, even if you find a new item with base abilities that suit your fancy a lot more. I would think it more practical to allow it to be enchanted MANY times (somewhere around the notion of 10-12) and then say, "that's it bubs, end of the line". With enough prefixes and suffixes floating around you are going to end up with a varied weapon of interest that can be compared to the other items you've done the same thing to and having an interesting choice to make. It also makes you not so commited to the singular item.

The prefixes and suffixes themselves seem to be the same from diablo II, with simple number tweaks. Life leech didn't exist, but "Gain this much life on hit" did. Which, honestly, is a good idea. Leech gets too complicated anyways, and much harder to balance. Torchlight did many adjustments to make things simpler, and in good ways too. Resistances and Armor did not reduce anything in percentages, but rather by a flat value that was meticulously balanced and well executed and followed the amount of health I had and damage I was dealt in a relative fashion. One of the best designed aspects, in my opinion.

The pet idea was novel, kept simple and done well. The pets were mini versions of the player, not sporting any stats or skills but just raising in power by level alone. They could wear two rings as items and sport up to two spells for personal casting. While you don't really have as much customization as a Diablo II merc to aid your journey, two key things made them quite a success. First off, they can't die. We all know computer AI never does what we want it to do in combat. AI teammates in any game just seem to want to end their miserable existance, pets from Torchlight included. Instead, they "retreat", exiting them from combat for a moment where they will either self heal or you can heal them with magic/potions. They don't self heal so fast that you can use them to fight a fight themselves, but aren't gone so long you forget about them. They simply become a useful aid. No more spending money or other precious resources, including time, dealing with the pain of your ally. Goes to show how simple and smart some ideas can be. Secondly, pets can sell stuff for you without exiting your immersion from what you were doing. I like going back to town, but not to sell junk if I know I'm not going to be browsing the shops. Torchlight simply takes that tedium out by allowing your pet to go in your place, and bringing back the profits. And thankfully pets aren't so strong that I can't continue without them, even if I do miss their presence a bit. The last use of pets, the fish, that turn your pet into other animals seemed superfluous. But to me, that was okay, because Torchlight seemed to only stick to conventional ideas taken from Blizzard games and this was at least a way to say "Hey, we did SOMETHING different." It wasen't a powerful ability really, but it was interesting and cool. It gave the game a bit of depth.

The last thing to touch upon is the story/quests. Here is the major downfall of Torchlight and a good lesson to anyone wanting to make an action RPG. You simply can't make a classic game without a story and interesting plots/characters no matter how good the character progression is. Ah, I wont say that, but in this case, it's true. Fighting the minions of hell, saving villages, cleaning plagues, defeating forgotten skeleton kings and appeasing backstabbing goatmen brings an extra level of substance that a Bard who is asking me to kill a monster on some level for the 12th time while an old man looks for a slightly different gem can't compare to.

Conclusion


Torchlight is a fun game, for a while. Where your enjoyment stems from action RPG's will determain your milage. If it's in character development and interesting items, Torchlight will take you for a sizable ride. If any of it lies in the story and meaning, prepare to stop short. At least what it meant to do, it did pretty well.