Torchlight 2 shows us all how it’s done.

The original Torchlight is the game that I point to as being influential in my leaving the world of MMORPG playing where I hadn’t actually had much fun for years. So I’m sure you could imagine that I had the sleepless anticipation of an energy drink addict when it finally came time for Torchlight 2 to launch. It’s now been nearly a week since launch and I definitely have some opinions to share about this incredibly well done game.

Leading the genre

Torchlight 2 is clearly up against some rather stiff competition in the current market. While there is some chiding from Kotaku about mentioning Diablo 3 in reviews of Torchlight 2, I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing. You know what, this is probably the best example of a game standing on the shoulders of giants. Only when it gets there, it unapologetically kicks that giant in the head repeatedly and then proclaims itself the new giant. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed playing Diablo 3 for quite some time. I’d be a fool to say that I played it for a good hundred hours and didn’t like it. What I am saying is that I booted up Torchlight 2 and immediately thought “this is what I really wanted from an action dungeon crawler”. Of course the bare basic formula of pointing and clicking bad guys to death and then collecting loot is the same for both, but Torchlight just makes me enjoy it exponentially more.

I just want to get this out of the way: I don’t need to be online to play Torchlight 2 in single player mode. Thank goodness someone had the good sense to remember that some of us spend time traveling and want games that we can play when we’re on a plane/bus/submarine/horse drawn buggy. It also means that I don’t ever have to worry about their servers being down when I feel like exploding some bad guys. Yeah, getting together with friends online is fun and obviously needs a connection, but sometimes I just want to be an introverted gaming nerd and play by myself.

The fun factor

Torchlight 2 shines because it really feels like it was built with having fun in mind. The biggest complaint I might have is that there is so much loot dropping all the time. Seriously? Of all the problems to have, that seems about the least daunting. Sure I need to stop and do some item comparisons and then send my pet back to town to sell items while I continue the slaughter, but the little guy is so great that he can pick up potions and scrolls for me while he’s out. Being able to keep the action going and not having to portal back to town every time my bag gets full is right on the money textbook keeping me interested in your game. Also, my ferret doesn’t spout an endless stream of repeating one liners that weren’t that great the first time around. Come on, you know you hated that too.

The items that drop are there to be used, sold, or transmuted. That’s it. There’s no attempt to create artificial scarcity by combining useless stats on weapons in order to fuel an auction based economy. Every stat is useful to a character to some degree and gear is not where you get the bulk of your stats anyway. Instead gear is there to give you other bonuses that are just more interesting, like decreasing the time your pet is away when you send it to town.

There are, of course, plenty of reasons to head back to town in Torchlight 2. Unsocketing gems by destroying gems or destroying the item they’re in to reclaim the gem is a little more harsh than the Diablo 3 model of just letting you keep both for a fee, but since item drops seem on the whole more useful in this game I think the choice of what to destroy is fine. Also back in Torchlight 2 is enchanting items to add additional stats for a fee. Enchanters now have a cap on the number of enchantments they can perform making the ones you find out in the dungeons with higher caps quite desirable. Transmuting returns and is as easy as ever, so go experiment with putting in a variety of items and see what you get. And don’t miss gambling merchant that allows you to pay a known price for an item with unknown stats. Gold isn’t in short supply in Torchlight 2 since there was no incentive to create money sinks like repairing gear. You are charged money when you die only if you decide to resurrect where you fell or slightly less from the beginning of the dungeon. However, respawning back in town is free, so go have fun buying a mystery item and hoping for an awesome result.

Here’s the big one on the fun side for me, and I would imagine for a lot of others: just start at whatever difficulty you want. That’s right, no need to slog through the same plot two times while blazing through far too easy enemies just to get to the level you feel comfortable at if that’s where you want to start. Your shared stash works between characters of different difficulties because difficulty doesn’t influence the quality of drops. Torchlight 2 really just lets you play the game you want to play.

Not a hard sell

Let’s face it, this game does everything that people want out of this type of game and it does it with a shiny candy coating. It comes in at a third the cost of its biggest rival and delivers a far more enjoyable experience. No need to run through the same plot over and over again, but it’s an option with the new game plus feature if you want. Each of the four classes has a greatly unique feel and the skill tree options let you play them the way you want. Hell, it’s even got fishing in the game if that’s your bag. The guys at Runic may as well have just tapped into my brain, found all of the things I love in gaming, and put them into a single title. You do like fun games, right? I can’t possibly recommend this game highly enough. If nothing else, there’s a free demo available as well so that you can at least try it.