Game Rant: Torchlight

Torchlight is a action-roleplaying hack 'n slash game, and is widely regarded as a Diablo clone, which it is, only with more cartoonish graphics.

Based on the screenshots and things I heard about, I thought this could have been a great game to fill the void until Diablo 3 finally comes out, and I couldn't even believe how bad it would turn out to be.

I'm not going to explain how the game works, because I assume that you know what Diablo is and how it works, because this game is basically the same thing, and it seems to be borrowing elements from the upcoming game aswell.

The game begins as you choose from one of three characters (as seen above) and you choose a pet cat or dog. The characters are basic archetypes from your basic RPG, a rogue character, a tank and a mage, except that with talents and by distributing skill points, you can make each character exactly as you like, for example you can have a rogue who has heavy armor and tanks, or a mage who is specced with melee or ranged weapons.. or both, really.

As you make the character you arrive in the mining village called Torchlight, and you soon figure out that something is wrong. By wandering deeper into the village you encounter a warrior and a mage holding off enemy forces, and you jump in to help them.

The warrior chases the enemies into the mine, and the mage asks you to follow him and explains that they're seeking her mentor called Master Alric, who disappeared into the mines.

Now the game begins. You wander into the mine, kill enemies in Diablo like fashion, and you earn gold, equipment and abilities as you level up. The first couple of hours of the game are actually very.. fun, and it's very exciting to equip your character with more cooler looking equipment and see as you grow in power.

It's not long before you find out the warrior in the mines and you go deeper together and find out what's happening there. It doesn't take long to find out that, surprise surprise, the missing "Master Alric" is actually the bad guy of the game who you end up chasing the whole way through. The warrior gets corrupted by Alric, and you have to kill him. Later, the female mage who asked for your help (she is called Syl by the way) comes to you, and is astounded by what has happened. She asks you to go deeper into the mine after her mentor, and this is where the game really starts to take it up the ass.

As you go on, you wander through very repetetive looking corridors with constantly smacking enemies on your path, and earning gold and all that. But let me tell you, they got really carried away with this formula. Before long, you really start to grasp how repetetive and boring the game is. The game consists of different areas, like the mine, a magma cave, a temple and some other things, and in between these you encounter a boss and Syl comes down and tells you to keep going. It's so tedious. There is almost no narrative or story at all, and the constant slaughtering really starts to make you numb. One area consists of 5 or more floors and they look exaaaaaactly the same, you go along a corridor, you kill enemies, follow the path, kill enemies, follow the path kill enemies... it's SO frustrating. There's basically no plot in the game, apart from Syl coming down after every boss and speaks 1 or 2 sentences of dialog which basically say the same thing, "keep going!" also, the main character is a mute, so you get no sense of identity whatsoever. I can't believe how many times I just wanted to say "look, you go after your idiot mentor, where do you always disappear when I do all the work? A little company would be nice once in a while, GIVE ME A REASON WHY I'M DOING THIS. WHY DON'T YOU COME WITH ME? WHAT AM I DOING HERE?"

You'd think when you get new skills it would change the pace of the game a little, but when I learned a spell called the "Ember Lance" the game became so insultingly easy that I NEVER USED ANY OTHER SPELL EVER AGAIN.

Ember Lance is an ability that shoots a energy beam that pierces through enemies doing massive damage, and by holding your mouse key down you can spam it and at the same time feeding yourself with all those hundreds of mana potions you've collected. You never run out of mana and you don't even have to move. I RARELY see a game that has one spell that breaks the whole game.

Because of this, I never even concentrated anymore, and whenever I arrived into a room, I just shot Ember Lance around the room and everyone died almost instantly, then I go on and on and on.

Torchlight is one of those games that piss you off so much that you can't believe you wasted your time on this, but because you did, you absolutely HAVE TO GO ON, atleast to see how the game ends or you would feel you did it all for nothing.

Finally, I arrive into the last floor and encounter the final boss, an ancient Ember Beast (ember is the magical resource that people come harvest from the mines.) who Master Alric is worshipping. Alric sacrifices himself, and you fight the boss.





As the boss comes to me, I unleash my Ember Lance and while the boss is beating up on me, I constantly feed myself with mana and health potions so I'm constantly at prime shape. However, the boss has henchmen, and they gang up on me and I die, but not to worry, the death system is very forgiving and I spawn exactly few meters away in the floor entrance. I begin spamming my Lance again, and I keep dying, but also damaging the boss. I get resurrected, and then just rinse and repeat. Not long from then, the boss dies, and I didn't expect any great ending from a game that has such a dim-witted, unoriginal and non-existent plot. Well guess what? There is no ending. A shocker, right? You're just being told that you did a good job basically, and you return to Torchlight, and now you can start a new character.

Are you kidding me?

Torchlight is a game that copies an old successful formula, but adds absolutely nothing else. The constant repetetive hackin' and slashin' with absolutely no plot can drive a man to insanity. I don't know about you, but I think games have long ago evolved past the primitive "you hero go kill" format, and when there's absolutely no narrative or reason behind what you're doing, all the experience or equipment you've gained feels like nothing. You don't feel like you've accomplished anything.

Torchlight is an insult to Diablo 1 & 2, and I'd still pick those games anyday of the week rather than this, and when Diablo 3 hits store shelves, I don't think anybody will ever mention this game again, except in a sarcastic context.

"You remember that game called Torchlight, which tried to copy Diablo?"

"No, can't say I've heard of it."

"Good."