Torchlight 2 Review

You can of course have worse role models and when Torchlight was released 2009, it quickly became a hit for PC first, and later also Xbox Live Arcade. They definitely deserved it, because Torchlight was excellent. It actually only had one weakness for me, and that was that it was missing multiplayer. And that’s exactly what Runic Games have repaired when they released Torchlight 2.

Because right from the start you can create games for up to 6 people. And unlike Diablo III it is also no requirement that you have to be online to play. Instead you can just play both alone, offline, and start the LAN for some co-op. This is the detail that makes you feel instantly that Runic Games have sided with the player’s side.

On the whole, Torchlight II feels more lavish and thorough than the first game. You have more choices, opportunities as well and when you are creating your character, you can note that this time you have four classes to choose from, and all of them are new. The Alchemist, Destroyer and Vanquisher has now been replaced by the powerful Berserker that can also use magic, Engineer, the magician Embermage and the more balanced Outlander.

You can freely choose the gender of them and then pretty many changes to your character to make it the way you want it. The concept of the pets have also been revamped and now there are six selectable pets. This time, the the pets fills a greater purpose, and they can also be used as you feel comfortable, and just like in the first game, sent away to get supplies. This is something that actually adds a lot when you are playing and doesn’t make you feel lonely, when you are playing alone.

Moreover – and perhaps most importantly – you can use pets to carry your stuff. Thanks to convenient keyboard shortcuts, you can overwhelm your pet with everything from helmets to obscure items that you don’t even know what it is yet. The latter is only revelead after using scrolls on them or leveling up enough to find out what you are carrying around.

Something that should be said right away is that there is a brutal amount of loot in Torchlight II. Which is of course exactly as you want it. You barely get to go a distance before armor, weapons or other items gets thrown all over the place. It is always so addictive to look for the next monster and then stand in a quiet corner to seriously compare what items you should replace and what items you should keep. Over time, you also get room to attach objects in your belongings to upgrade them further.

Thus, your favorite armor can get even better by providing them with for example additional protection against electric attacks, or perhaps some form of regeneration. The catch is that you can not remove them without destroying the equipment, which makes you think about what you should do. But the possibilities to get your character and your equipment just as you want them are very good and for my own part, I have had more fun with this part of the game than I had with Diablo III.

In the first game, you worked from a city and then explored the rather monotonous environments, but in Torchlight II there are several villages, many different enviroments and fancy weather effects. All this contributes to a great atmosphere along with the slightly different graphics style gives me a wholeness that I really like. And that the background story is loosely organized and almost not even noticeable, is something that I couldn’t care less about.

Torchlight II feels very modern in its structure and eliminates much of the genre’s problems. Not having to sell your loot so often, being able to order more elixir through the pet when needed, and other stuff makes normally large amount of distances you need to go disappear. Now, I can run around on the big maps and do several side quests without having to stop all the time. It increases the pace and makes the game more enjoyable.

I also like the possibility un the menus, that you can deselect the worse loots that I’m uninterested in. It eliminates the time it takes to go through all the trash in my inventory, just to find what I’m searching for. If you do that, you can be sure that everything you find and buy are things that you want or need. It is also really easy to share your items to your comrades and make sure that everyone in your squad is at his best.

There’s really nothing I dislike about Torchlight II, that feels almost made for me. Sure, it would have been desirable with a little deeper character creations and it would have been fun with technically more advanced graphics. But considering that Torchlight II costs a lot less than a normal game, but despite that can entertain you at least as much as a normal game, I dare to say that this game was one of the games that I enjoyed the most last year.