Torchlight II Review

[Halcyon.]

I hate cockroaches. And the mushrooms laughed at me. The trolls had huge hammers and the dwarven turrets destroyed my armor. The ghostly wolves seemed nicer, but the werewolves came with some impressive claws that made Tzucu run away. I got my revenge though after some pirates and zombies and skeletons, wasps and bats, crabs and scarabs, rats and salamanders, plus some spore salad with gargoyle addition.
And I didn’t even get to the bosses, to that huge manticore that… never mind, you’ll see for yourself. If you survive the journey, of course. The road is long and dangerous, what could be better? Obviously, lots of loot and a story to complete Torchlight II – the terrible kid that threatened Diablo and very likely won the hearts of many action RPGs players.

Torchlight II doesn’t have much of a story, continuing in few details the corruption story from the first game. The Alchemist is influenced by the mysterious illness that he tried to eliminate and he’s now convinced there’s only one way left to eradicate Evil. Even if you don’t get many details in the text screens (only partially voiced), there’s enough to motivate you to kill all around the four acts.
Unlike the first game, Torchlight II goes more beyond the one town and the levels in the nearby dungeon. The four acts take place in larger areas, open spaces littered with dungeons, also quite different; besides the main quests there are secondary missions with pretty interesting rewards. And, even if apparently one such mission in act III might seem like a waste of time, don’t miss it; time will prove that things are very interesting.
Also, it’s not very good to leave behind or miss a quest in the current act, like me. Going back resets the map, the monsters are back, the map is covered and, if you don’t know exactly where you go, it might not be such a challenge because of the level difference between the hero and the monsters.

Who to be?
Like in any RPG, the class is very important and we’ve got 4 of them with their abilities:
The Outlander prefers ranged fights, using fire arms, bows and crossbows;
The Engineer goes for huge weapons, slow but with devastating damage, plus calling for help from various drones, robots and turrets;
The Embermage, as the name suggests, uses the four elements and the fire globes or the ice rain are a piece of cake;
The Berserker is the crazy one, possessed by a wolf that sends him into a frenzy of hits, with leaps in the midst of the fight; obviously, the size of the carnage is underlined by the melee preference.
No matter your choice, it’s very important that the class limitations are minimal. There are some objects that care about class, but there are few when compared to the huge amount of weapons, armors and crystals that improve them. All you have to do is fulfill the criteria to wear something and the game is very generous here: a certain item can be worn if you have the level OR a certain combo of skills; like this, you can wear a level 40 helmet for example, even if you aren’t there yet, but you have Strength 38 and Dexterity 35.

Like Diablo, Torchlight II offers the possibility to embed crystals in weapons and armors to improve them. There are lots of colored stones – yellow, blue, green, red, purple, each with a bonus for or against poison, ice, health or health stealing, improvements for critical hits or for the damage. The only limitation here is that you have to mix crystals with objects of a similar level, so you can’t put a gem with 300 life of level 35 on an object of level 10; it just avoids exploits from those who would keep the bet loot for the end (or for a New Game Plus).
Each class has a Charge Meter that fills as you kill along and gives some seconds of frenzy once charged. It also has a dedicated ability and you can level that up, but I only found it really useful for the Berserker. The other classes use it too, but the mix with the other rage options make the hero a real critical hits machine.

What to wear?
The eternal female issue. I have a closed full of clothes, but nothing I like. And the idea fits Torchlight II like a glove: all over the place you get tons of swords, axes, knives, bows, crossbows, pistols, shotguns, huge saws, hammers, gloves, leggings, helmets, armors, chains or bonus rings.
They can all be improved with the gems and the dedicated merchants can recover either the objects, or the crystals in them if you feel like using them better somewhere else. There’s also an Enchanter who can upgrade objects separately (1,3 or 5 levels) to increase their main attributes; you can also experiment with combining four objects to get something according to a recipe or on your own. Unfortunately, the crystals can’t be mixed together to make one bigger and better, but the game explains that the technique is long lost (who knows, maybe a DLC will rediscover it in a time forgotten dungeon…)
Just like Diablo, the objects are color coded – common greys, green, purple and orange for unique ones. If there’s something negative to say, it’s not the quantity, but you getting too many unique items and there are lots of sets, which spoils the idea of “unique” and “rare”. I mean after one play, I filled the trunk with sets and parts of sets, some 10 unique items (with higher level than mine) and some special eyes and crystals. The inventory is also small, even if you use the shared trunk (more characters can use the items in there) or a part of the pet’s backpack.

Fights are for cats
Yes, the pet makes a comeback, not just as a good ally, but as a storage space. It also goes into town to sell items and bring back potions and scrolls. Just like you, the cat, the bird, the panther, the dog or the lizard level up and wear dedicated items (collar and necklaces) and the fishing areas still appear.
Promising, secret or normal in any of the four towns, fishing gets you fish that temporarily transform the pet into a monster or drop random items. It might seem stupid or weird to just stop to fish, but I found those moments very relaxing after the relentless fights.
As for the monsters… all the best. Lots of them. Fierce. Lots and lots of them. Hardcore groups come over you, fly, teleport, hit you in the head with the hammer, drop down from trees and holes, jump from cliffs and tear you apart with claws, teeth and arrows.
An untimely death depends on you checking the Hardcore option (available no matter the difficulty level), which means that death is permanent and you have to restart the game from the beginning. If not, you have three options: respawn in town, no charge; respawn at the level entrance, pay up some gold; respawn at the same place, pay up big time. There’s no penalty in terms of experience or abilities, but the gold can also be an issue if you are in a tough spot.

Even on normal difficulty, some moments are a challenge when it comes to bosses. They come in all size and shapes and huge creatures with hammers, wings, claws, teeth and fire storms spare no efforts and minions to join the fight.
Some can only be killed if you kill their aids, others teleport, but most of them take lots of hits until they decide to die. The purple intermediary bosses are a little easier to kill, but they tend to group, so it’s quite hard. There are also some special altars, where the simple touch spawns waves of enemies, and some missions will make you the main course in an arena.
On the other hand, the camera gets stuck in corners and blocks the view and just the red shapes of the enemies aren’t enough to easily eliminate them. Even more, even in the middle of an empty room, the cluttered fights get chaotic (even more in coop), each with his magic, ability buffs, that you just mash the mouse buttons. Still, that’s just a minor issue because all the rest is just the joy of carnage.

Desert or jungle?
Each part of Torchlight II is different, from camps to towns up to caves and multi-leveled towers. You get luxuriant vegetation, swamps, a desert that somehow manages not to be empty and sad, caves filled with spiders and dwarven towers crawling with mobile turrets and guns that literally drain the life out of you.
The design may look childish, but it has details if you go up close, even if the graphics aren’t that last generation. It matters less though, the whole background makes the atmosphere, even if you are among the ruins of a burned village or in the halls of a palace filled with evil ghosts.

The soundtrack reminds a lot of Diablo, but with strong tons where they are needed; it’s also free, so you can listen to a song if you feel like it outside the game. Unfortunately, not all the dialogues are spoken – the main NPCs have something to say, but for the rest you only hear howls and shouts and cries from monsters and your own character. From time to time the pet also vocalizes, and a cute meow is nice while fishing.
There were no technical issues besides the camera ones and it’s more important to go up to level 100 and even 105 if you buy special maps to go to 105 after finishing the game at least once. Torchlight II also comes with LAN and online multiplayer for six players.
The monsters scale depending on the number of players entering the fight, but there are some poor elements or some missing completely. You can’t see who is online when choosing the server, you can’t put objects in the chat window, but you get a dedicated one, but at least each player has his dedicated loot from the boss to avoid stealing.

Despite these quirks, Torhclight II is the game that makes you grin when you see the screen filled with gold, axes and swords and colored crystals among the monster corpses. It’s the game that acts like Diablo III should have done it in some ways. It doesn’t need Internet connection, because it has LAN and couldn’t care less about piracy because it offers lots of fun for only 19 euro. And you don’t want to miss that.