Torchlight II Review
Game Emblems
The Good
Traditional loot-driven action role-playing games don't get much more addictive and enjoyable than Torchlight II.
Yes, the loot in Torchlight II is endless and enticing. With all kinds of stat bonuses, bonuses for wearing sets of armor or dual-wielding sets of weapons, and other benefits to consider, you frequently find yourself weighing the pros and cons of swapping one piece of equipment for another. That's all part of the fun, of course, and the option to have two sets of weapons that you can switch between on the fly helps you stay versatile in combat.
The option to customize some weapons and armor by slotting property-enhancing chips, shards, and other items into sockets lets you spend many happy minutes tinkering, and you sometimes encounter enchanters who can conjure up a boost or two on your gear, for a price. The loot stream is so constant that inventory management can become a bit of a burden at times. Thankfully, your faithful pet can be used as a pack mule and be sent back to town to sell unwanted gear. In a great addition, your pet can now also purchase potions and other basic items for you.
Your quest takes you through a diverse array of colorful locales. The Estherian Steppes of the first act are lush and vibrant, contrasting with the desert wastes that surround the second act's central town of Zeryphesh. In the desert's dungeons, you encounter elegant but dangerous machinery, mobile sentries, and small, electrified copters that look the way such advanced technology might look if built by ancient Egyptians. In the rainy, fungal forests around Grunnheim, you stumble upon werewolves feasting upon corpses, and in the dwarven mines, sparks fly and steam-powered contraptions sputter. The locales and the characters who inhabit them are bursting with visual personality. There's a subtle, good-natured goofiness to Torchlight II's presentation that makes you want to smile even when you're making monsters explode into little bits and painting the floors with their blood.
It takes many hours to reach Torchlight II's conclusion, and your quest doesn't have to end there. You can take your character into a new game plus that's scaled to his or her level. You can also carry on your pursuit of fame, fortune, and loot by purchasing maps that give you access to randomly generated dungeons. These dungeons can be rated as high as level 105, exceeding the level cap of 100, so players seeking a rewarding, long-lasting endgame should find it here.
The multiplayer functionality isn't as elegant and full featured as it is in Diablo III. You can't see which of your Runic Games friends are online before opting to play an online game, and you may need to do a bit of searching on the server list to find games friends have created. Conveniences like linking items in chat and dropping unwanted items so that other players can pick them up are absent; you need to open a trade window with other players to show them any items that may benefit them. These minor inconveniences can break up the flow of the game, but for the most part, tearing through Torchlight II with a friend or five is immensely enjoyable.
Torchlight II is a lovely, well-crafted game. Its colorful and inviting world is a pleasure to explore. The eclectic soundtrack provides an alternately haunting and energizing accompaniment to your exploits. The classes are distinctive, and each has a terrific assortment of skills. To top it all off, this sizable and thoroughly satisfying game is a great value at just 20 bucks. The loot-driven fantasy-themed action role-playing game clickfest hasn't seen much change since the days of Diablo II. Torchlight II doesn't innovate and it doesn't surprise, and the genre may need an infusion of new ideas if it's going to stay vital. But Torchlight II serves up the old, irresistible recipe about as well as it's ever been done.
By
Carolyn Petit, Editor
Carolyn Petit has been reading GameSpot since 2000 and writing for it since 2008. She has a particular fondness for games of the 1980s, and intends to leave the field of games journalism as soon as she hears that her local Ghostbusters franchise is hiring.
225 comments
I've put maybe 150 plus hours so far into Torchlight 2, first time trying hardcore in a game and this game is incredible. I have not bought D3 yet due to many bad comments about the game, and the fact that you have a real money auction house to buy gear. In Torchlight 2 gear is fun to find even on elite or hardcore, and each time I make a new character I find new stuff. Personally I like the graphics as I'm a WoW fan of old. I will eventually get around to trying D3 when the price goes down and the patches are all running. I like Torchlight 2 better than D2 to be honest. I can't wait til they make Torchlight 3, or even finshing the game and hitting 100 and trying it all over again.
Not since old Morrowind came out have I enjoyed a game so much.
I had hight hopes for Skyrim and put maybe 33 hours in but after going and finding the dungeons got nerfed, mainly the forts which are no longer large dungeons, and some caves that have maybe a creature or two and a chest, I will eventually try and finish Skyrim but I just like the way Torchlight 2 plays.
Not the Diablo killer so many make it out to be. The graphics are love/hate, but overall it's a very solid game that delivers everything you could want in the genre. Read my full review at: http://gameanight.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/torchlight-ii-pc/
1 Like @migdilos the future mods will do the killing... for now, Torchlight 2 is just torturing it slowly...
4 Like @migdilos Yap, you are right. Its not Diablo killer. Because Diablo III kill the entire series.
I found this game addictive it is the only game ive played alnight and only $20 great value. I have not played Diablo 3 yet so i cant comment on which is better.
2 Like Ive played both Diablo III and torchlight II and by a longshot Torchlight is a better game and, its alot cheaper too. Great value. D3 was fun at first, but once I got to inferno and realized that the auction house was only implemented to force people to pay to win I stopped.
I got bored after 3 hours of play. There isn't anything new or exciting for me here, just another title of the genre.
Torchlight II builds on everything that made the first game so awesome. I own the first Torchlight via GOG, and Torchlight II via Steam. Both are every bit worth owning. Though, I'd prefer both via GOG; DRM-free.
@redder1111 @d33pak001 Actually Torchlight on the xbox was and is awesome...I would love Torchlight II on XBLA going local co-op on one tv screen with a bud on the couch. That's how I prefer multiplayer
@d33pak001 HAHA, you are talking about xbox controller, they not even let you to customize your PC control :P
3 Like this is what d3 should of been and could of been if not for blizzard just wanting to make tons of money and screwing the players with their real money auction house.
@VAMPYREANGELUS The developers are mostly formerly from Blizzard North, aka the guys who made Diablo and Diablo 2. It's why Torchlight actually feels like a Diablo game, and Diablo 3 doesn't.
2 Like I find myself unable to quit this game. Even after finishing it several times. :D
7 Like Borderlands 2 is far more entertaining than Diablo III. It is a perfect compliment to fantasy action RPG like Torchlight II. So once, i get a little tired with Borderlands 2 (never know when that will be), i will jump on the TL II bandwagon. Especially reading how much people enjoy it
2 Like So far this game is everything I expected it to be, and more. I love the graphical style, it won't date easily and - more importantly - the gameplay is smoooooooth.
Runic intuitively know how to make a game that works. I read that they want to take a break from RPGs and move into other genres, this is good news, because these guys know how to release a game that is gamer friendly. This may sound like an odd thing to say, but anyone playing a UBIsoft game might understand.
So disappointed in this next torchlight series, i just finished torchlight (1) and now there is a paste-over torchlight 2,
Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Not good. Not impressed.
a bloody Diablo gone, 3d, crap.
I thought it was kind of odd how I could go through the whole game (on normal) using only one skill....
Torchlight 2 brings back all the gameplay mechanics I hated about Diablo 2.
Specifically the horrendous leveling/skill system.
2 Like I don't get the D3 hate and the constant bickering over which is better. You all do realize the Torchlight developers are huge Diablo 3 fans too, right? And they said Diablo 3 would be a day one purchase for them.
They are both fantastic games.
6 Like @pathosfire they are not HUGE d3 fans and d3 is not fantastic, you are a bit dramatic, aren't you ? they've only been courteous with their comments regarding d3 and actually have pointed out many of its mistakes.
5 Like @kukumav @pathosfire exactly...Torchlight lead guy said the issue with D3 for him was that he could find better stuff in the AH than he could find in the game and that ruined the experience for him. Not sure where Pathos is coming from.
@forthefunofit @PinchySkree @Lucasdxx @philMcCrevis @Drahk1 @kukumav @pathosfire And to add insult to injury, they're bringing D3 to the PS4 in the form the PC users originally wanted. No always online, LAN/4 player local co-op, no RMAH and tweaked drop rates to be similar to what a proper Diablo game should have. Still not happy with the skill system, and I already said no more Blizzard games after what a huge disappointment D3 was, so I shan't be buying it (why would I, already have Torchlight 2...the REAL D3, as made by the original developers of Diablo and Diablo 2 (look it up, Runic are formed from former developers from Blizzard North))
@PinchySkree @Lucasdxx @philMcCrevis @Drahk1 @kukumav @pathosfire
No one cares that you don't like D3, and saying its a 'turd', makes you look pathetic.
@Lucasdxx @philMcCrevis @Drahk1 @kukumav @pathosfire 500 hours of farming boring items isn't the same as 500 hours of fun gameplay. Poor production value in terms of dialogue, quests , character progression and item stats. Polishing a turd, yes. The balancing has been fail so far and all the updates are TINY.
@philMcCrevis@Drahk1@kukumav@pathosfire
Pathos has a point, the rest of you D3 haters chill and accept other peeps opinions.
I have put more than a whopping 500 hours of gameplay in D3, a great game by anyone's standards with great production value, blizz is still polishing the game,balancing classes and improving it with every update(huge tweaks with v1.4).
On the other hand Torchlight 2 is a great game for its value so give it a rest and let people enjoy what they like best.
1 Like @Drahk1 @kukumav @pathosfire man i couldn't agree more Drahk1....the skill unlock system in D3 is so fricking bad. It's rare that an unlock is an improvement. There was no compounding of skills just another variation that had little positive use or that required a complete rework of your characters tactics to utilize. D3 is the single greatest disappointment game wise in the last 10 years for me. Each his own but I cant stand the design and Blizzard is a shadow of their former self
1 Like @philMcCrevis @kukumav @pathosfire Agree with kukumav and phil, and IMHO, the skill system in Diablo 3 is horrible. I can't stand the idea that unlock skills as you progress, but they may be no more useful or even worse than ones that you've already unlocked - you're supposed to get more powerful as you level up, and it goes against this idea.
2 Like "...you may need to do a bit of searching on the server list to find games friends have created." No, not really. There is a "Friends Only" filter for the server list. Check the box and refresh the list and only friends' games are listed.
2 Like @JDCAce55 Yah its a shame Caroline didn't take time to understand Torchlight 2 multiplayer before awarding it demerits. Maybe she has no friends???
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