Torchlight

Gaming / October 30, 2009 / Shaun Hamman / 0

This post has been migrated from my older blog A Bad Case of Nostalgia.

I’ve recently realized that I have absolutely no idea about what is going on with anything. I don’t keep up with the latest games, music, movies, etc; I don’t watch the news; I don’t collect even a shred of celebrity gossip; and I don’t read the sale ads that come in the mail. That said, most of those things don’t interest me which is why I’m more or less clueless about them. However, I would like to keep up to date on something I enjoy, so I’ve decided to collect new releases of games off Steam, with an emphasis on the indie/indie-like titles. While I had some bad experiences with Steam early on, that was a long time ago, and Steam has improved significantly since then. Additionally, with their incredible sales and already low prices, this is something that I can afford to do, unlike going to see all the latest movies.

I have decided to start this journey with the newly released game Torchlight by Runic Games. Torchlight is an isometric hack-’n’-slash dungeon crawler in the style of Diablo or Fate. Indeed, it should feel extremely similar to them as the designer of Fate, Travis Baldree, and the two co-designers of Diablo, Max and Erich Schaefer, led the development of this very fine game. The initial setup is very similar to that of the first Diablo game. You come to the town of Torchlight seeking adventure, power, or the truth about the shady occurrences happening within the town. Just past the western bridge is a monster infested mine leading deep into the planet where the source of something evil, the corrupted Ember minerals, are calling to any who would dare enter.

As the game progresses, you delve deeper and deeper into the mine, with the environment changing after every couple of levels just like in the cathedral in Diablo. Floor layout, monster and item names and placement, and boss creatures are all randomly generated, with each floor slightly more difficult than the last. At the end of each section of the mine, right before a major scenery change (and usually right after some kind of major boss), there is a waypoint portal reminiscent to the alternate entrances that would appear around the world map after you used them. Entering into the waypoint portal from within the dungeon will take you to the town, while entering from the town will allow you to select which previously visited waypoint you would like to return to.

The town itself is very similar to Tristram. You have a couple merchants each selling specialized wares, a gambler who will sell you a random unidentified item, and a handful of quest givers. New to the crew are the miner and prospector. The miner will take any item with gems in it and will extract the gems, destroying the item in the process. The prospector does the same, but the other way around. He will take any item with gems in it and will destroy the gems, giving you a gemless item ready for new gems to be placed.

Items work pretty much the same way as in Diablo. The color of the item determines the rarity (White – Normal, Blue – Rare, Orange – Unique, Purple – Set) and generally the stats. Each item can have one or two gem slots in it, which stat-modifying gems can be placed into. There is an enchanter in the town who can, for a hefty fee, put gem slots onto an item that doesn’t already have them. Outside of equipable items, there are health and mana potions of various sizes as well as identification scrolls (to determine the stats of an unidentified item) and town portal scrolls (to teleport you to and from the town at any point in the dungeon).

Another interesting new person in Torchlight is a quest giver who, for each of his quests, will open a portal to a section of the dungeon inaccessible from the main dungeon. There is significantly more gold, better loot, and tougher enemies in these “back areas” (a term from the Level 5 game Dark Cloud, referring to a section of a dungeon separate from the current one, with more difficult enemies and better loot) as well as a handful of unique boss creatures. This quest giver sends you into these back areas searching for an item. While he wants that specific item, all other loot you come across is yours to keep!

Keeping you company throughout your travels is your faithful companion. Whether it be a cat or a dog, it will stand by your side and fight the toughest of creatures, as well as holding items for you when your inventory gets too full. A nice modification to the dungeon crawler theme, if you load up your pet’s inventory with items, you can tell it to go back to town and sell those items while you continue adventuring! It certainly cuts down on the constant back and forth selling runs that plagued Diablo.

Of the three classes available, I have only played as the Destroyer, so all my comments will be based around that class. The Destroyer is your typical melee class, with heavy armor and powerful weapons being your forte. One interesting twist on spells that this game takes is instead of learning new spells at specific levels, you instead have four spell slots, into which you can place any spell scrolls you come across provided you meet the minimum requirements. Additionally, your pet has two spell slots of his own. While a dog can be quite powerful on his own, he gets even more dangerous when he can spit fire and ice at the same time!!

Even with my pet making selling runs for me, I still find that my inventory fills up rather quickly. It doesn’t help that I try not to get rid of any of my Orange or Purple items. Luckily there are two chests in the town that you can stash your stuff in. One of these chests even shares your loot with your other characters! I’ve also heard of some kind of “retirement” feature where your old characters can give bonuses to new characters.

For the more creative fans of the game, Torchlight even comes with its own editor, so you can create your own adventures! Additionally, this great game will only set you back $20 on Steam, e-Junkie, or any of the other locations listed on the game’s homepage. Visit them at http://www.torchlightgame.com for more information on this amazing title!