Runic Games, formerly known as Flagship studios and also formerly known as “the creators of Diablo,” doesn’t quite seem to get the big picture. Gamers do not care who created Diablo. If the game sucks, nobody is going to play it. Diablo was a fantastic game for its time, but it simply doesn’t hold a candle to today’s selection. Runic Games seems to think that using the phrase “by the creators of Diablo” will move copies and motivate you to buy whatever they throw at you. While that may have been true back when Diablo was first released, gamers have gotten smarter and know better than to take someone’s word for it. We know what a good game should be no matter who makes it.
Runic Games used the same sales phrase in hopes of selling more copies of their previous title, “Hellgate: London.” For whatever reason, the Hellgate: London MMO tanked and the servers are offline. Those who purchased the $100 lifetime subscriptions were left with a sore feeling for the company. Maybe this won’t affect sales so bad for Torchlight?
What do you get when you combine the level design techniques of Diablo, the loot system from Diablo 2, the monsters and creatures from World of Warcraft, the music from Diablo, and a few borrowed ideas from Diablo 3? Torchlight…it’s like the best of all the above but not nearly as fun or exciting.
You walk around, you kill stuff, you collect loot, you level up, you spend stat points and skill points to make your character stronger, and you do one epic storyline quest to complete the game. If you’re looking for more options, I’m sorry, you’re out of luck.
You’re going to be spending a lot of your time mindlessly clicking any random skill, hammering on random mobs, and browsing through which loot you want to wear. The mobs offer no real challenge and the entire game lacks in difficulty even with the added difficulty levels. Honestly though, I couldn’t tell you how much harder the game is on the harder difficulty levels. After you complete the game, your character does not even have the option to continue on in a harder difficulty setting. You’re stuck in the setting you choose with nothing to do but the endless, randomly generated dungeons. There is no point to continue the same character after you defeat the final boss. Had it not been for this, I would have undoubtedly taken my character into a harder difficulty. And after the first ten dungeons, you’ve seen what the entire game is all about.
Runic Games' logic behind character progression feels to be a bit backwards in Torchlight. They give you the option to retire your character after you have killed the final boss. Retiring a character will render it completely unplayable and is irreversible. You do, however, get to pass on one of your character's items as a heirloom. It’s supposed to improve the items stats and be useful in some way to the next character you create. The item level requirements stay the same, however, which means your character won’t even be able to wield it until they beat the game themselves. This makes the entire process useless. You are better off simply throwing all your gear in a shared chest before you retire. The benefits of retiring will only net your next character an extra level of fame and you start with an extra skill point. There is more benefit from avoiding the retirement system all together. A higher level character is better off hunting items to allow for ‘twinking’ rather than retiring it. While this action RPG doesn't lack in action, it lacks in every other aspect.