Impressions: Torchlight [PC]

Title: Torchlight
Platform: PC
Genre: Action RPG

Tourchlight is an Action RPG in the tradition of Diablo, Fate, or Hellgate: London. When you start a new game you can choose from one of 3 classes, based on classic RPG archetypes: a Destroyer (melee) Alchemist (caster), and Vanquisher (rogue / ranger). You can also choose a companion for all the classes, which boils down to either a dog or cat and both have the same basic abilities. The pet can be equipped with two spells and a necklace as well for ability / stat modification. You start in the town of Torchlight to investigate a growing corruption emanating from an ore called Ember within the mines in Torchlight. From there you delve into randomly generated floors in the mines, going further and further as the storyline progresses.

Gameplay video and thoughts after the jump.

Pros
One of the best things about this game is that for what it does as a point-and-click ARPG, not only does it do it very well well, but it does it in a very accessible manner. This is a game that caters to your time and makes it very easy to go in and do a dungeon grind for any mount of time you want; whether it’s a few minutes or a few hours. Once you’re done playing you can simply exit from where you are and resume later, or go back to town. Your pet even has it’s own inventory that you can fill up with your spare loot to sell, and even better you can send your pet back to town separately to sell it’s inventory. This avoids you having to have to go back to town over and over again to free up inventory space, and you only have to deal with your pet being gone for a very short amount of time before it returns. It’s all very convenient and accessible to even newcomers to the genre.

Each character class is also fairly customizable with points that you can toss into four basic attributes when you level up, so you can wind up with a melee character that might be more spell oriented, and vice-versa. Perhaps more importantly, each class has three talent trees you can also allocate skill points into as well — similar to World of Warcraft — that further expand character customization with new abilities, or specializations with specific weapons, etc.

The media assets in the game are very solid as well. The art style resembles something of a slightly more cartoony World of Warcraft, and the actual graphics engine suites the art style very well. Bold colors, nice spell effects, everything from a visual perspective makes it a very charming looking game. The sound track as well is orchestrated and very well put together, fitting the overall mood the game establishes.

Cons
While there is a loot of good to say about this game, there are a few things to mention as potential issues. First off, with the accessibility and ease the game offers it also could be interpreted as a bit too user friendly.  While there are tons of people that might like this lighter style of ARPG there are purists who might think this is a bit too light, not exactly fit for the more hard core in it’s overall scope and presentation. Sure, there are 4 difficulty settings, and even a ultra hardcore permanent death setting, but the rest of the game retains the same convenient mechanics.  I must say though this is purely subjective, and can be interpreted as a pro or con.

Also, along the lines of it’s ease to play, the presentation of it’s main story line is a bit straight forward. As you progress from section to section of the mine you are presented with brief cut scenes and some snippets of story, but otherwise it doesn’t have too much of an epic feel to it. You’re also in the town of Torchlight for the duration of the game, progressing into the mines deeper and deeper as you go. For the side quests in the game they come from the same quest givers, who give you a succession of ‘get this’, ‘kill this’ quests who’s objectives you will almost automatically run into through your time in the mines. Although there is some incentive to doing them, you don’t have to exactly go out of your way to do the side quests either as they’ll almost fall into your lap, and don’t add to the gameplay all that much. All of this combined leads to a slightly linear and straight forward experience.

Finally, this first Torchlight title has no online multi-player. Although the developers have stated that they plan to develop a Torchlight MMO of sorts after the single-player game has been released, this title is single-player only with no online capability. It’s a case of ‘it is what it is’, and for what it’s worth the single-player experience is extremely fun, but there are instances where you wonder how great it would be to have other players join in as well.

Overall
Outside of the few issues mentioned I’d highly recommend this game for anyone interested in the ARPG genre. One big thing not mentioned so far, is that this is an inexpensive game. $19.99, downloadable online. For what you get I’d say it’s a bargain. I’d also like to see what Runic Games has to offer next, so supporting a smaller title like this feels good, and beyond that I feel like I’m getting my money’s worth.

Gameplay Video

Links

http://www.runicgames.com/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/41500/