Introduction
Torchlight is an action adventure dungeonhack in the vein of Diablo. Using a simple one-click interface you explore dungeons, killing of the denizens and looting all the treasure therein. The similarities to Diablo aren't as much as a rip off as you might think - it's developed by the original's creators and is the precursor to a MMO in the same setting and system.
Gameplay
Anyone who has played Diablo or similar will instantly be familiar with the controls. Left clicking moves or attacks, right click activates a predetermined spell or ability. The game follows a character progression system that has three levels. First is experience, gained from completing quests and killing monsters. This levels up your character, allowing you to raise your four stats and buy talents. Second is reputation, gained from killing bosses, which gives you extra points to spend on talents. Third is gear, which is arguably the fulcrum of the game. Monsters in Torchlight commonly drop weapons, armour, and other items. Often these are magical, offering a variety of randomly generated bonuses. This makes for compelling playing as every drop could be an upgrade, sometimes a big one. Picking up a new weapon to find that it does twice as much damage as the one you're carrying is quite a thrill, especially when you start one-shotting the monsters that were previously troubling you.
There are several innovations in Torchlight that are a welcome addition to the spelunking genre. First up is your pet. All three character classes get either a cat or a dog who fights alongside you and is extremely useful. Your pet can carry as much gear as you can, and can also wear trinket items. They can also, bizarrely, cast spells you teach them. A dog casting spells you say? That's not the half of it, it gets weirder. You can, if you like, teach your pet summoning spells. Which means if you're like me your pet can have a pet zombie horde following them around. Not strange enough yet? You can go fishing, dragging up various aquatic creatures to feed your pet. Not only are they tasty, the cause your pet to transform into something else for a few minutes - an elemental, a goblinhound, a little rhino thing, spider, blob of goo. There's a long list. There's no explanation for this, it's just what happens when animals eat fish. Finally though, and most usefully, you can dispatch your pet off to town where he will sell whatever you have put in his inventory and return with the cash. This means you don't have to keep going back to town every five minutes to cash in all the junk you've picked up, and it really keeps the game flowing. Not that you'll be short of town portal scrolls. Or potions for that matter. Is it weird that the vendors will buy stuff off a dog? No more than anything else in the game.
There's other things too which improve on the formula. There's several utility NPCs who can be used in a form of light crafting. Gems can be picked up to put into socketed items, and there's a bloke who will transmute multiples into higher value gems. He can do similar things with magic items and potions. There are a couple of goblins who will recover your gems from socketed items, or free up the sockets for new gems. There's an enchanter who, for a price, will put a random enchantment on an item. Even if it's already enchanted, leading to items with huge long lists of bonuses. You have a storage chest in town for those nice items you don't want to sell, which is pretty standard, but there's also a group chest you can put things in for your other characters to pick up.
Sights and Sounds
The graphics are cartoony and fairly colourful, with strong similarities to World of Warcraft. It works well, and generally things are nice and clear even when your screen is full of monsters and fireballs. Animation is solid, and the soundtrack is appropriate and, I think, dynamic. The level pallette changes every 10 levels or so along with the monsters, and it seems to be just the right amount, giving you something different as you start to get bored of the scenery.
Stuff that sucks
It's fairly linear. There are a few little branches off the main dungeon line in the form of treasure maps which open portals to random dungeons, and a few similar things, but for the most part you will be slowly spelunking your way down the main line of the game. There's also not a great deal in the way of storyline. Something about an evil wizard I think. It's also quite easy on normal mode - I died for the first time at level 19, around 10 hours in. None of these are major bad points though, and there's nothing to really hate.
Conclusion
Torchlight is a Diablo clone at heart, but it's a good one. Taking the formula and improving it in many ways makes this a very well polished, slick little spelunker. Well worth the £15 on Steam.
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