Torchlight II

Title: Torchlight II
 Platform(s): PC
Publisher(s): Steam, Perfect World, Runic Games
Developer(s): Runic Games
Genre(s): Action Role-Playing Game
Release Date: 20/9/2011

  Torchlight II was a new experience. I had not played the original, though naturally I owned it on Steam—that’s probably why I hadn’t played it. In a meagre attempt to be professional I did a little research on the game (you’d think I would have done such research before I bought it!) and discovered two rather strange things about the series.
  The first is that apparently not only are you accompanied by an AI companion of the animal variety that is endearing enough to be called a pet, but that this AI companion is actually useful and something that people love about the game!
  The second is that apparently the most disappointing thing about Torchlight was the lack of co-op...co-op, isn’t this an ARPG? Okay, sure there’s that whole co-op thing going on in Diablo, but a lot of people play Diablo solo and it works just as well. If not better; at least you don’t have to be online to play—oh wait, never mind.
  These discoveries left me all the more confounded, and perhaps a little scared. It was probably this state of fear that led me to stumble onto a server setup with the second hardest difficulty. In game I was greeted politely by another player, but I was treated to a solitary beginning to my Torchlight II adventure because it took me some time to work out how to reply!
  When I finally did we got talking; he pointed out the difficulty of the game I had joined, but said I was welcome to stay. I pointed out that thus far I was breezing through enemies with ease. About ten minutes later I was dead; while we were chatting I was strolling through a dungeon, easily disposing of the undead one or two at a time and filling my inventory with items. Then suddenly, and without warning (I wasn’t paying attention) I stumbled into a group of enemies. They got out the lube and I stood no chance. I may as well have strolled into Sicily on a La Piovra inspired holiday.
  I told my new friend of my misfortune and he offered to help me out; I accepted the offer, but only on the condition that it did not cost him too much of his precious limited BETA time, but he pointed out he’d be benefitting too with a little boost to his exp.
  Up until this point I hadn’t paid much attention to skills; after stumbling into a hard server I thought it would be wise to give skills a little more thought, and as such had only been using my default attack and default skill. I followed him through the dungeon, glaring at the undead bodies strewn about the place that were now actually dead, as we went. It wasn’t long before we came to the site of my brutal humiliation, and just as soon as we had arrived, vengeance had been reaped in a beautiful explosion of skill spam; mini-bosses were sucked into the range of AoE attacks, skeletons were shattered by a well placed skill, and I realised very quickly that I needed to start paying attention to my own skills.
  It was here that my journey really began; Torchlight II is all about building up your character through skills, vital stats, and equipment. And I did it all alone; after an update to the BETA I found myself unable to join any populated server. Obviously we can safely assume that such occurrences will not be the case when the game is released (it’s not published by Activision) but it’s worth noting because...well we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s get back to those vita-statistics and abilities.
  There are only four vital-statistics which may not seem like much, but they affect a great deal of other sub-statistics. For example, vitality not only affects your health points, it also affects your armour, and your ability to block attacks. On top of that you have to juggle your vital-statistics with your equipment which can drastically affect all of your character’s stats. Equipment can not only be enchanted, but upgraded if socket-able with gems, eyes and other esoterica that enemies drop which give the items even more potential for stat manipulation.
  Enemies drop a great deal of things; as I made my way through any given dungeon I usually found enough items to fill my inventory four times over, and this is where Torchlight II separates itself from its competition.
  The fact that your inventory can be filled so many times is not a problem (for one thing you have two inventories: your pet can carry just as much as you) because not only can you teleport to and from town thanks to very useful and very cheap teleport scrolls that any character can use you can also use your pet as a pack mule (unfortunately you can’t pick an actual mule as your pet) and send it along to town with a shopping list of what you might need meaning that not only can you sell the excess flotsam and blotsam that you come across, you can also buy any potions you need; paid for with the excess items you just discovered! As convenient as this is it does mean that you can go through each dungeon spamming as many potions as you like because you’ll never have to worry about running out. However, this does bring skills to the forefront which makes battles less passive than in some ARPGs, but it also means that you don’t need to worry too much about things like health and mana, just grab a bunch of powerful mana and health potions, and run into a bunch of enemies healing, and restoring mana as you go. Suddenly vitality (health) and focus (mana) don’t seem like such useful vital-statistics! There is a penalty for sending the pet to town; you’ll have to do without it for two minutes, and it actually is a penalty, especially when you use your pet to tank, but you can simply wait in a safe part of the dungeon for two minutes as you await its return.
  Apart from tanking your pet is also useful on the aggressive side of combat. It won’t prove much use against the bosses (apart from attracting the attention of the many minions that the bosses are likely to summon) but when strolling through the dungeon it does a very good job of not only attracting the lesser enemies but killing them too so that you can focus your attention on the larger mobs or mini-bosses without having to worry about their minions.
  Now before you consider my criticism of the teleport and pet item management system too seriously there are two things to note:
  The first is that the level cap of the BETA was 21; that’s a mere 21% of a completed character’s levels so there’s every chance that things will get a lot harder very fast. In fact this was already happening in the latter levels of the closed BETA. I couldn’t just run into any mob and do my health and manna potion spamming trick because they could muster up enough damage per second to counteract my rather cheap strategy. On top of that my character had only really started to come into its own; it was finally feeling like the class that it belonged to and my stat and skill spending had started to really dictate the way in which I had to play to be effective. The way my build grew was incredibly satisfying; not only are all the skills visually impressive they all serve very different purposes. What context to use which skill in then putting it into use in an epic battle against several mini-bosses and countless minions can be challenging even with the potion spam.
  The second is that this more relaxed play-style is actually very engaging. It comes across far more than an MMORPG than many ARPGs: the quest vendors are simply that, and there’re no bones about it. While the story has been spruced up with cutscenes by Klei Entertainment the story and side quests are all very much about throwing bosses, mini-bosses, and shiny, new gear at you as motivation to explore and dungeon crawl.
  Night comes and goes, and the world is subtly beautiful—it looks a little like World of Warcraft with the visual atmosphere achieved primarily through use of colour, but has enough personality to not come across as generic. The music is quiet and soft, and the dungeons perfectly nail a tranquil eeriness that, thanks to the sound design, makes the fights seem all the more intense: the most jarring, and loudest noises are those made in combat.
  Perhaps because my first exposure to Torchlight II was with another player my post-server banishment was a lonely experience. Sadly I never got to really enjoy the co-op with someone at a similar level to me, but there’s great potential for chemistry in co-op combat: not only does each character have very different strengths and weaknesses there’s a great freedom in how you can build each character so the idea of playing through the game with someone who has created their own unique version of their class just as you have yourself is tantalising. Heck, even just chatting with them would have been a welcome distraction; boasting of my victories, and complaining of my failures fitted so seamlessly into the world of Torchlight II thanks to its minimal aesthetics and relaxed gameplay (at least at lower levels).
  That’s not to say that the single player is any worse for the lack of other people; it’s just a different experience. A more focused one where the eeriness of the dungeons must be faced alone, and your trusty pet must keep you company and be more than merely a conduit for items and a badarse in battle; it must be a friend too.