Solid but soulless
In high school my gamer friends were divided into two camps, the ones that were crazy about Baldur's Gate and the ones obsessed with Diablo. I fell into the former category. When Torchlight came out of nowhere from the former developers of Diablo 2, I felt as if though the gaming world had given me a second shot at checking out what I missed out on all those years ago. I therefore bought it from Steam at the very fair price of $20.
Now to say that Torchlight follows the Diablo formula is an understatement. Certain elements such as the identify scrolls, the way loot drops onto the ground, and mostly notably the town music, is eerily reminiscent if not identical to the Diablo games.
This does not mean that Torchlight is not an improvement over those games however. The graphical user interface is notably improved and actions such managing inventory, trading, and equipping spells is exceptionally streamlined and modernized. Gone are the days of arranging items manually to fit that extra scroll or potion. More importantly, gone is the constant back and forth between the dungeon and town. Torchlight has the ingenious feature of a pet cat/dog that serves as a pack mule and combat pet all in one. Furthermore, the game allows you to load up your pet with unwanted items and send it off to town to sell them. This might seem awfully gamey, but it makes an massive difference in enhancing the flow of the game.
The irony however is that for all of Torchlight's streamlining of the action-RPG-click-fest formula, I could never play the game for an extended period. One would think that a game that controls and plays as well as Torchlight, would induce instant addiction in a loot fiend such as myself, yet I never felt this. Eventually I finished the game by slowly chipping away at it over the course of a month.
The only reason I could find for my reaction to the game was the lack of any real atmosphere or immersion. There were no dangling carrots that kept me going for just one more level. The developer is not enitrely at fault for this since a lack of a budget prevents expensive story telling techniques such as ubiquitous voice acting and cut-scenes.
One can however find fault with the paper thin plot and the throw-away manner in which it is presented. Another problem which compounded my immersion problem is the complete lack of quest variety. In fact, there are about 5 quests that are incredibly simple and repeat throughout the game. The quests are generic to the point where the same congratulatory dialogue is displayed with different names filled in. This makes the game feel more like an engineered product than a work of art.
These design choices are strange, considering the amount of visual detail within the game world. The levels are varied and presented exceptionally well for a game with an isometric view (the graphics are polygonal). The game has a vibrant and colourful art style and although the graphics are technically simple, they are always pleasant to look at. The audio within the game is functional with the only gripe being that the music is too similar to that of Diablo. On some levels the music even reminded me of Starcraft. Staying true to the spirit of a game is one thing, but cloning it is another.
To conclude it must be said that Torchlight is an exceptionally solid game for its price point. It's throw-away story and mission structure as well as its somewhat cloned nature, prevent it from being the absolute time thief it could have been. Let's hope that promising sales fund a fully realised sequel that can give Diablo 3 a run for its money.
