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Torchlight Review: Why Wait for Diablo 3?
Category: Default Game: Torchlight Posted on Nov 04, 2009 2:51 pm
Torchlight Review: Why Wait for Diablo 3?
A long time ago, a group of developers who made Diablo, Fate and Mythos banned together to create a perfected action-rpg. This action RPG goes by the name of Torchlight. It is far from perfect but you know what? It’s fun and that’s all that matters! These days all we get is realism this, and turn based that, but what happened to the simple click and beat action-rpg?
Graphics:
Talking about graphics is like talking about how shiny a dog turd is. Graphics shouldn’t be the deciding factor for any game but if I may say it is quite decent and the requirements to play this game is minimal at best. A netbook (yes a damn netbook) can play this game and if that could play Torchlight, almost any computer can play Torchlight !
Gameplay
The gameplay completely emphasizes on having fun. You will get monsters climbing up the mining shafts, dropping out of trap doors, jumping off stairs, walls, balconies, and just about anything to get to you. The monsters are unique and in a huge variety. As you go lower into the dungeon the greater variety of monsters you will have to fight. The models do not get reused over and over again (an example would be changing the color of a monster and naming it something else) and each monster is unique with special abilities.
Also Quests are quite short and explanatory. Talking to the npc won’t give you a mountain of text but instead a quick where and why. There is only one “kill x monsters” quest in the game and most of the quests revolve around killing bosses, and finding treasure.
Very Very Brief Overview of the Story:
The town of Torchlight is troubled by the appearance of bizarre creatures inhabitting the local mines. As you are sent to investigate the cause of this infestation, you travel through an interconnected almost endless dungeon until you reach the end boss who resides at the very bottom of the earth. Going ever deeper through the mines, catacombs, necropolis..etc.
The controls are very similar to Diablo I and II (which is no surprise since some of the people who worked on those games made Torchlight). Click an empty space to move. Left click is attack, Right click is use skill. The number keys can be assigned skills and items.
The hot keys are very self explanatory such that even my 6 year old cousin could play this game. Press C for character, I for Inventory, Q for Quest, S for skill…etc. Some games tell you to press “Ctrl + O” for inventory. Why the hell “O” ? Why 2 buttons? God what were they thinking. It’s about damn time someone got this right.
Interface
You have your health and mana bars and then you have two leveling bars. One is the exp bar and the other is the fame bar. You achieve fame points by either killing boss monsters or doing quests. You have four categories of stats to allocate: Strength, Dexterity, Magic, Defence. Each time you level up you get 5 stats and 1 skill point. Each time your fame levels up you get 1 skill point.
The interface is probably has the most minimal learning curve of any game I ever seen. The one thing I like about this game is that it doesn’t bombard you with stat points and skill points right when you start off. It doesn’t force a job system onto you and instead you can do whatever you like depending on which category you put your skills into and your class. Most games make you suffer if you try to build a character with different groups of skills. In Torchlight there are no consequences if you try a hybrid build for your class. It doesn’t make you weaker or stronger. Doing this just offers more different types of playing styles.
There is no multiplayer support !! On the bright side though there are free level editors and mod tools so you can make your own world and story. Many players have been doing this already.
Also for those reluctant to give Torchlight a spin, a mmo (yes Torchlight mmo) will be released in the near future.
Final Say:
I am sick of all this WOW, Witcher and Aion Rpg crap that is flooding the market. Click a monster, watch your character hit it a couple times, yawn and do it over and over again. I have nothing against this, but can’t we speed up the action a bit? Like maybe fight hordes of around 20 enemies all at once and not just slowly grinding and watching your character hit an orge for the 20th time. Why can’t they make a real mmo with instantaneous action?
Torchlight is everything that an RPG has been doing right and what rpgs/mmorpgs should have been doing for the last 8 years. It is reasonably priced for only $19.95, comes with a level editor and modification tool kits. Still don't like it? A MMO based on Torchlight will come out next year.
Tags: Torchlight Review PC Action RPG Cheap
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