Torchlight successfully channels Diablo

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (LIN) - In the world of action RPGs, Diablo and its successor Diablo II have long been the gold standard of addictive gameplay. Diablo III has been announced, but without a definitive timetable for its release, enthusiasts of the genre have a new game to keep them busy.  Enter Torchlight.

Runic Games sent me an unlock code for their latest creation.  If you're unfamiliar with action RPGs, Torchlight's gameplay consists of a good deal of hack-and-slash, loot-collecting and quest completing. It's extremely easy to get a game going with Torchlight, and just as easy to stop (that is, if you can make yourself stop). The game is single-player only, but the way it handles your game, it's easy to pick it up and leave it when you need to.

Straight from the FAQ, Torchlight lets you know that there's a good heritage among the game's developers. "Torchlight is an action role-playing-game for the PC made by the creators of Diablo, Fate, and the never-released Mythos among other games. Set in the mining town of Torchlight, players will adventure to uncover the mysteries of the Ember mines. It offers a fully featured character leveling system, randomized dungeons, hordes of monsters, and gobs of great loot."

According to the game's lore, the town of Torchligt was "built on top of a rich deposit of a magical stone called Ember – the rare and valuable keystone of magic." You run into various kinds of the Ember throughout the game, in gem form that you can use to add stats to armor and weapons, or as a quest item. As you progress lower and lower into the mines, the new depths uncover more about the game's story, that Torchlight wasn't the first town to be built on that location. Unfortunately, for the town's inhabitants, the horrors below want to get out and start terrorizing the populace.

Who will save them?

Enter the dashing hero. Torchlight offers a choice of three classes and each comes with a pet(your choice if you want it to be a cat or a dog). There's your general melee-, ranged- and magic-oriented classes.

The melee-oriented class is the Destroyer. He's "an endless wanderer, who is drawn to conflict with his dual-welding blades, was led to Torchlight after hearing of the evils befallen it. Through channeling the power of his ancestors, the Destroyer excels at close-quarter combat and is able to smite his foes with such ferocity as to easily dispatch multiple enemies at once." The Destroyer is best played by those who want to hack-and-slash their way through the endless hordes, determined to be face to face with the creatures he kills. It was the first class I made.

I turned to the Vanquisher next. The ranged-oriented class is "part of an ancient order dedicated to justice and bringing balance to the world, the Vanquisher was sent out to Torchlight to investigate the mysterious slayings and missing town folks. Unknown to her, the darkness below the small town of Torchlight runs far deeper than the mines beneath. As an expert marksman, the Vanquisher is able to take enemies from afar as well as use traps to confuse and deliberate her foes from all directions." In my game time, I actually played the Vanquisher most. Leveling her the highest of any of my characters and ultimately "beating the game." I write that in quotes, because there is much to be done after finishing the main story arc of Torchlight. The Vanquisher suited me well, because she dealt tremendous amounts of damage with some of her spells, and I was fortunate enough to occasionally find progressively more awesome guns with which I could deal out even more impressive damage.

Finally there's the Alchemist, who was "drawn to the power of Ember as a cornerstone of his magical art, the Alchemist came to Torchlight for his own ends. Being the largest cache of Ember ever found, the temptation may lead the Alchemist never being able to break free of its influence and ultimately to his downfall. The power of Ember is beyond imagining, but the price is very high. By channeling the power of Ember, the Alchemist is able to dispatch enemies from afar as well as summon minions to his aid." If you like spell-based casting classes, then the Alchemist is for you.

Every character you create will have a different feel, that's even further developed by the gear that you equip them with. You can choose to develop them in different ways based on how you distribute stat and skill points. With that, you could choose to make a Vanquisher (who's ranged at the start) more of a melee character. The dungeons are vast, the monsters varied and the loot something to keep your character coming back. I actually enjoyed refining a build the second time around, before moving on to another one. Plus, with the way you can freely share gear between characters, you can save good items for the next time you level up a character.

Hardcore means don't die

You have the option to make a "hardcore" character, which basically means if you die, you're done. Thankfully, I did not enable the hardcore mode my first run through, because playing on Hard, the baddies are actually quite formidable. When you die the game gives you a few options about how you want to get back in the fight. You can respawn in the town, without a penalty, or take a escalating penalty by spawning at the door of the level you're on (which costs only gold), or at the very spot of your death (which costs gold and experience). Often times, not hurting for gold, I'd just spawn at the door, but if I had just opened a town portal, or discovered a waygate, I'd spawn in town.

I'm famous!

One of the coolest aspects of the game to me is the "Fame" ranking. Similar to your traditional experience gain, your Fame increases when you complete quests and kill unique monsters. It increases at different pace than your experience bar too, so in between level increases you'll be able to add points to your skill tree. It also gives you a kind of decent feeling when you become more "recognized" in the game itself.

Arm yourself

There is a tremendous amount of loot in the game. Weapons, armor and trinkets all come in your expected range of value. There are rares, uniques, set pieces and enchanted and your basic standard weapons. I found myself running into so much gear, I'd have to send my pooch back to town to hawk my wares. In the comic Price of Loyalty, it details how in your pet you have a mule to hold even more treasure. Not only that, but as illustrated in the comic, you can send your pet back to town with your treasure and he'll fetch a fair price from the vendors. (Though it's unconfirmed he takes a cut off the top, like he does in the comic.)

If you have a particular piece of gear you'd like to hold on to, but have leveled up past the point of its effectiveness, you can toss it in your shared stash to share with the other characters you've made. This also works for items you find while playing that would be good for the other character classes. Just toss a nice mage item in the shared stash while playing on the Vanquisher, and make the switch. It's really easy.

Another option for upgrading items is the enchanter. You can let him have a shot at improving your item, but with every successful attempt there's a greater chance for him to erase every enchantment on the item. (If you're scared of this, I noticed that you can hard shutdown the game with a ctrl-alt-delete and it will go back to your last save point.) You can also have the alchemist combine gems of the same level to give you a gem of the next greatest power. I've tried to combine different kind of gems to make new ones, but to no avail.

Another aspect that is introduced in Torchlight is the ability to "retire" your player, and pass on an item to a new character. You have to be "sufficiently leveled up," which I found myself being after beating the game. Upon passing along the awesome gun to my progeny, the gun was slapped with my orignal character's name and given a boost in stats. I think it's actually kind of a neat option to "retire" a character.

Good job pooch!

Besides being your pack mule that runs your loot to town, pets also contribute to the battle. Various spells and abilities drop during the game that you can assign to your pet. I often found my pet getting hurt, so I gave it a "heal self" spell, and then tasked it with a "silence" spell to keep enemies from casting. Also, your pets can be equipped with some gear, so before you discard a great trinket or necklace, toss it to your pooch to make good use of.

You can also feed your pets with fish you catch. There are fishing holes scattered throughout the levels as you dive deeper into the dungeons below Torchlight. Depending on your catch, your pet will transform into a new item.

It sounds fantastic

On the official Torchlight website, it says "Matt Uelmen has composed over a dozen fantastic pieces, totaling close to 40 minutes, for the game." Uelmen's composition gives the game "that feel." It's the feel I love to have while playing a monster-killing-dungeon game. In a lot of games, I'll find myself turning off the music, so that I can jam with my own, but while playing Torchlight, I leave the music up and iTunes off.

This seems... familiar

You'll notice certain things while running through the game, crushing everything in sight. Some of the features on the levels are familiar. That's because most of the levels in Torchlight are randomly generated. That means you'll have "considerable elevation change, secret rooms, levers, set pieces, shrines, non-monster encounters, moving bridges, traps" all poping in randomly to give your experience a good deal of change.

There's also an unlimited dungeon that you can frequent for as long as your heart's content.

I did not try my hand at the TorchED editor, but there are several people out there in various forums that have. With it, you can create your own fixed and random levels, and populate them with different monsters, quests and loot. It also lets you adjust the balance of the level to suit how hard you want it to be.

It's dangerous to go alone

I hope you like playing alone, because even though it's dangerous, it's all Torchlight offers. Torchlight is strictly a single-player game. Developers said, "because of the relatively short development window and tiny development team, we decide to focus our efforts on making a complete single-player experience." There is a hint of good news though for fans of the Torchlight world, in the same breath it said "we are already in development of a massively multiplayer action-RPG set in the world of Torchlight for future release." Awesome.

Fantastically fun

I've had a fantastic time playing through Torchlight and didn't run into any frustrations.  It's a fun game and one that you can take your time grinding through, or rush through on a lower difficulty setting.  There's enough variety to keep you coming back, and enough to offer that makes it worthwhile.  "Just one more quest," "just one more level," "just one more boss," will all be thoughts that come to mind while playing.  At its budget pricepoint of $20, your entertainment dollar is well spent.

Minimum requirements:

The PC version will require Windows XP or later, x86-compatible 800MHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 400MB Hard Drive space, DirectX-compatible 3D graphics with at least 64MB of addressable memory (such as an ATI Radeon 7200, NVIDIA GeForce 2, or Intel GMA 950). An internet connection is required to activate your installation. The requirements are so low, we are even able to play Torchlight on the netbooks around the office!

Availability:

You can find Torchlight online right now for $20 from various digital distributors or direct from Runic Games. (http://www.torchlightgame.com/).

Have any questions or comments? Shoot me an email -- matt.schuler@woodtv.com. For shorter, more frequent updates follow me at twitter.com/mattschuler.