Torchlight II Review
It's been a while since I've wanted to sink so much time into a hack and slash game, but just as the original Torchlight did, this one was no exception. I actually felt like this was a more polished version of the first. You once again have to go out into the world and save it from the Alchemist who has been corrupted and is trying to open up a portal of pure evil. You'll have to slay many beasts and monsters, but if you're brave enough and strong enough you will see that you are just what the world needs.
Graphically this game sticks with the slightly fantasy/cartoony look of the characters, and it looks right at home in this game. You'll get to travel through crypts, forests, deserts, underworlds, and more. There will be larger than life enemies that will try to destroy you, and all that will save you is your trusty pet. I do like the fact that your pet comes in a couple of different varieties, and that whatever you put on your character is what is shown in the game. Do you have a huge helm of awesomeness, well your character will be wearing it. Do you have a blazing sword of glory, well your character will be wielding it. Even though the landscape it 3D you'll still be able to make out anything that might be hiding close to a wall thanks to the shadow representation and outlines.
The music of the game SCREAMS original Diablo, which I guess isn't too hard to see as there are those who worked on this game that were apart of that team. The voices definitely not the focus of the game as I really don't remember talking to many people, but I will tell you this, they did a convincing job when called upon.
The controls are your standard point and click to attack, point and right click to do your secondary attack. You're also going to be using 1-0 as your hotkey bar to give your character potions, or to cast other spells.
The game feels simply, easy to pick up, but the beauty is that once you do that you're stuck in the game. You don't want to put it down. You'll want to kill that many more creatures so that your character can level up and you can gain those extra attribute points and skill points to help craft your character into that tank, deadly assassin, or powerful magic caster. Yes the game has a linear storyline but I had so much fun going through all the side quests in each area that it, for the most part felt wide open. One of the down sides to the game was the fact that they took out the ability to combine shards like the first. You couldn't just stockpile them and them create an uber awesome gem. They do allow for combining of items, but I never saw the need to use that mechanic. There's also those who will enchant your items, to imbue it with a little something extra, and there's those who will destroy an item to get a gem or the other way around at your disposal. One weird thing that I did notice is that at about the half way mark your storage chest in town kind of disappears. You get used to dumping the unique items, or maybe items you'd like to use if you had another character that was going to run through, but then all of sudden the chests vanish, and that's just a bit weird.
There's also the ability to add mods, some created by Runic Games, and then there's a ton out there created by us the users. So there's variety added to the game all the time. Even though I've only played through once, I can honestly say that if given some extra time I would jump back into this game in a heartbeat and try my hand at another character. This game was strong from start to finish, and with that I have to give it a 9.4 out of 10.
