Torchlight II Review, 10.0 out of 10 based on 1 rating

Last year at PAX, Angry Joe and I had an interview with the guys at Runic Games about Torchlight II, a game that held great promise for the future of dungeon crawling. At this time, Runic was also announcing their delay on the title, claiming that it needed further beta testing. While I’m all for both Q&A and the populace giving their feedback to make the game better, I was also afraid that if they couldn’t beat Diablo 3 to the punch, that they would lose a lot in terms of player-base.

I guess that shows what I know, as Diablo 3 continues to be somewhat of a disappointment in the overall gaming community, as the content patches and their “new features” do nothing to make me go back to it. It was like Blizzard was trying to make Diablo into a World of Warcraft endgame raiding dungeon, and other systems, like the back-end item drop mechanic that gives advantage to gear dropping that is unusable by your class, normal mode acting like “My First Dungeon Crawler,” and Inferno difficulty that still receives high scrutiny to this day.

A month later, I was admitted into the last beta test for Torchlight II and it was amazing. With the game now out on Steam, I can safely say that this is the game I had been waiting for.

Years have passed since the crisis at the boom town of Torchlight, where Ordrak, a malevolent nether being, tainted the ember beneath the town and was dispatched by a trio of adventurers. However, the corpse of the monster could not be moved nor destroyed, and its dark heart kept beating, continuing to taint the ember. The Alchemist, one of the three who vanquished the beast, became sick with the ember blight due to his connection with ember as his magical power source and proximity with studying the nether beast.

After a distress call was sent from Torchlight, the Vanquishers, the City Guard of Torchlight of which your character is a part of, arrived in the town just in time to watch the Alchemist rise from the caverns, clad head to toe in heavy armor and wielding a giant staff with Ordrak’s heart in it. Throwing your character, the Destroyer (one of the prior game’s protagonists), and the rest of the Vanquisher army effortlessly aside, he sets Torchlight ablaze and wanders off into the wild lands. As the only soldier still capable of following the newfound enemy, you are tasked to reach the Estherian Enclave before the Alchemist does and find out what has happened to the former hero.

While the three hero classes of the previous game are gone, four more are available for your adventure: the Engineer, the heavy armored brute with cannons, hammers, and robot minions; the Berserker, an unruly fellow that has high single target damage and feral magics; the Outlander, a soldier with a penchant for ranged weapons and darkness infused magic; and the Embermage, a ritualistic master of the elemental powers of ember. Torchlight II also grants a sparse amount of facial customization options, but most times you will not be able to revel in the splendor as you crush hordes of monsters under your boot.

But you will never be alone in your struggle against the Alchemist. Making its return from the flagship title, companion pets have returned along with their own improvements. Along with the return of the fishing system, where your character drops a fishing line in hopes to catch food for his or her pet that can transform its stats and appearance for a short time, pets now have equipment in the form of collars and collar tags to boost their stats in different ways, and the use of magic scrolls which will be explained later.

Combat has not changed much since the first game except for the degree of weaponry you have at your disposal. New additions vary the gameplay quite a bit with each class, like fist weapons that have no area of effect attack but are quick and ignore half the total armor of an enemy or the cannon that have an inherent chance to knockback and/or stun per hit. For example, the Engineer can be proficient with almost all types of weaponry save for magic weapons, but there are no limitations to what he can wield provided that the character meets the item requirements, either by level or by different stats.

The heroes of Torchlight make cameo appearances as NPCs. They give you shiny stuff too!

Leveling in Torchlight II is very similar to its predecessor (kill enemies, gain experience for levels, use stat points to buff character stats and skill points to purchase new abilities), but Runic has also implemented another experience bar in the Fame system, where you gain fame by killing champion or boss creatures, and are rewarded with an extra skill point and a changing title per rank you obtain. Once you get to the end of the game, after your story has finished, you have the option to start over in a New Game+, where all your items, skills, and level carry over to begin the story anew. There is no difficulty ramp up like the Diablo series every time you start over, but the overall difficulty of your game can be chosen at character creation with 4 different difficulties and the option to play in hardcore mode, where character death is permanent.

Torchlight II as a game will feel very similar when it comes to a dungeon crawler: You kill, you level, and you win. If you had to pick a “What makes it unique” feature, it would be its abilities and how you level them, as well as the gameplay systems in the city. As was mentioned, you gain skill points by gaining levels and gaining ranks of fame. All active skills are broken into three tiers and by achieving a tier of that skill by investing points, it will gain bonus damage or gain a new effect. For example, one of the last skills for an engineer is the Sledge Bot, a walking monster of a robot that will gain a new attack from bombs to missiles for every tier you complete. However, there are also passive skills that do not have tier bonuses, but offer very powerful stat boosts, buffs, or on-hit abilities that will allow you the option to play the game more like the first Diablo title.

You want multiplayer? Torchlight II has got that in spades. Runic has put a lot of effort into making the biggest missing system in Torchlight available to the masses in the sequel with adjustable difficulty, player count (2-6), level range, and the option to invite only friends, or to reroll the world to fight previous dungeons and bosses. The inclusion of multiplayer play was one of the first major features announced and it does not disappoint, but make sure your host has a fairly good internet connection as while Runic did warn the early access media that the game was still being tweaked, there were instances of game disconnection. Torchlight II also surprisingly has DRM-free LAN play, allowing networked computers to play together as well as an offline single player component for when the internet refuses to cooperate.

There are a lot of bosses and they have a multitude of abilities to make you dragon chow.

Over the course of your story you will meet vendors out in the wilderness that will allow you to do various things to your gear, or purchase gear in a gambling system. There are sockets and gems much like in the predecessor title and coming across ember gems isn’t that difficult. Vendors in town will allow you to either pop the ember out of armor, destroying the gem, or destroying the armor to save the gem. Players can also transmutate items like gems into stronger versions if they have enough of one type, add sockets to items, or craft stronger healing potions from the mass amount you’ll be picking up over your travels. Enchantments also make a return from the first game, but there is no chance of enchantment failure. To limit this aspect of gear buffing, city enchanters can only enchant twice, while those who are randomly found in the wilderness can enchant an item up to four times.

While there is no controller support, the only other problem I have in the game is its limited skill respec system. It was a feature I’m glad they had, but I found out too late that you can only respec the last three spent skill points. For the purpose of review, I decided on a very passive skill build, relying on my Engineer’s strength in bashing skulls in, so I had no idea that the respec system was so limited.

Artistically, Torchlight II shines bright, using the cartoony style that made Torchlight so popular in the first place. Klei Entertainment, known for the Shank franchise, was brought on board to bring the story to life during the cutscenes and they do an exceptional job doing so, bringing their trademark comic book feel to brighten the dark story. The land of Estheria is vibrantly coloured as well as sharp in the things left unseen, and the title also carries its gruesome combat with gore flying everywhere. If you want to sample the soundtrack to Torchlight II, you can find it here.

Passive skills are great, but don't neglect buffing your tiered active skills.

Torchlight II is a great game at budget price. I knew that this dungeon crawler was going to be a magnificent diamond after reading about and listening to so many Diablo 3 dissidents. Runic has made the game better than the original at a significantly lower price. While I had a few problems and more came to my attention, they were dismissible in the overall game structure due to its platform. If you are a fan of the dungeon crawler genre, you need to grab this game.

A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for review purposes and was played to completion in about 20 hours. The title is a PC exclusive.

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