Torchlight is often deemed a "Diablo clone"; it is a hack-and-slash game with lots of loot. The previous game used a lot of randomised levels and I’m not sure how these levels are made because they do look a lot more organic. Most of your time is spent above ground, with side-quests seeing you venture through caves, mines and other areas similar to the first game. The game still goes for a cartoon aesthetic which looks great.
This time, you can choose between 4 characters: Berserker, Engineer, Mage and Archer.
You click (or hold) to attack where your mouse is pointing, and shift holds your character in position. Spells and potions can be assigned to the number keys.
When you level up, you have 5 attribute points to assign: strength, dexterity, magic, defence, as well as a skill point. Defeating strong enemies gives you Fame which also gives you one skill point. Teleporters act as quick-travel points, and you can place temporary teleporters to return to/from the town where you can buy/sell equipment and access your storage chests.
When playing solo, it is you and your pet animal. There’s a large selection of animals and some particularly interesting choices. The animal attacks, can transform when you feed it fish, and can carry loot. You can send them back to the town to sell what they are carrying, then they will return a couple of minutes later with gold. The loot is a bit too plentiful which means you end up going into your inventory to see if you have anything decent, and frequently go back to town to sell it. Items can have several bonus traits like boosting your main attributes like Strength, or add magical resistance/damage. Sometimes items have one or more slots for gems which also add similar modifications. Gems can be removed from items at the cost of destroying the item, or you can destroy the gem if you want to replace it.
Loot now has multiple requirement options, so it might say “Level 12 OR 20 Strength” which gives you more chance of being able to equip a rare find.
There’s some fairly annoying enemies. Some split in two when you defeat them, some have attack with knockback, and some love jumping back to dodge. When there’s groups of enemies, you can be in situations where it is hard to hit anything because when you get in range they either jump back, or knock you back.
The game gets repetitive really fast due to the number of enemies it throws at you. If I have mauled down 50 goblins, do I really need to keep proving myself against 50 more? Even when you come across new enemies, it often doesn’t feel any different since you will have levelled up or have better equipment so the difficulty mainly feels the same. Occasionally there is a spike but is often remedied by changing your equipment to increase elemental resistance to match the enemies.
When there are multiple characters to choose from, and the game has features like a "shared chest" which encourages you to replay, it seems odd that the game is so long. It took me about 16 hours to get through, so I wasn't enthused about replaying it at all. After you complete the main storyline, there's even bonus dungeons and a new game plus.
Torchlight 1 and 2, seem to be highly praised games but I don’t really get it. If it was a more concise adventure, I would be more inclined to replay it and I think that is where the fun is - to create different character builds which require different ways of playing.