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Steam News19 September 201213y ago

Torchlight II: The Kotaku Review

Click, kill, loot, level up. Click, kill, loot, level up. Loot, sell, re-equip. Rinse, repeat. Your weapons get more powerful as your enemies get more difficult, and the goalposts move, and move, and move.

In this update1

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Full Torchlight update

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What changed

0 fixes1 addition4 changes0 removals
  • Events
  • Gameplay
  • Workshop
  • Balance
changedTorchlight II , with its simple gameplay and tightly controlled loop of challenge and reward, is certainly enough to make one start questioning oneself: It's been twelve hours. Is this just a treadmill? Why am I spending time on this at all?
addedAs of this writing, my time with Torchlight II clocks in at just a hair under 30 hours—that includes the meaty three-act story, a ton of side quests, and a few hours of running around with alt-characters. As I started New Game+, I had killed 11,256 monsters (1638 of which exploded in gouts of blood), taken down 177 sub-bosses, looted 338 chests, caught 34 fish, gathered 231,070 gold and taken 67,272 steps. The game does not keep track of mouse-clicks, but I'm sure that if it did, I would be way past the hundred thousand mark.
changedTorchlight II is, on its surface, a very simple game. You control a heroic character on a quest. Using your mouse and some hotkeys on your keyboard, you maneuver him or her through a fantasy world, undertaking missions, gathering loot and gear, and clicking on enemies until they explode. It's no surprise that several staffers at Runic games worked on Diablo and Diablo II —where the original Torchlight felt like an homage to the original Diablo , Torchlight II feels somewhat like a modernized take on Diablo II . At its core, it's not a complicated game—anyone looking for strategy, contemplation, or deep tactical gameplay would be well-served to look elsewhere.
changedTorchlight IIMy engineer's devastating seismic-slam/flame-hammer combo feels more satisfying than clicking has any right to.
changedTorchlight IIGetting sick of agonizing over loot, wishing that each item showed its suggested price so I could just value them and be

Torchlight changes

changedTorchlight II , with its simple gameplay and tightly controlled loop of challenge and reward, is certainly enough to make one start questioning oneself: It's been twelve hours. Is this just a treadmill? Why am I spending time on this at all?
addedAs of this writing, my time with Torchlight II clocks in at just a hair under 30 hours—that includes the meaty three-act story, a ton of side quests, and a few hours of running around with alt-characters. As I started New Game+, I had killed 11,256 monsters (1638 of which exploded in gouts of blood), taken down 177 sub-bosses, looted 338 chests, caught 34 fish, gathered 231,070 gold and taken 67,272 steps. The game does not keep track of mouse-clicks, but I'm sure that if it did, I would be way past the hundred thousand mark.
changedTorchlight II is, on its surface, a very simple game. You control a heroic character on a quest. Using your mouse and some hotkeys on your keyboard, you maneuver him or her through a fantasy world, undertaking missions, gathering loot and gear, and clicking on enemies until they explode. It's no surprise that several staffers at Runic games worked on Diablo and Diablo II —where the original Torchlight felt like an homage to the original Diablo , Torchlight II feels somewhat like a modernized take on Diablo II . At its core, it's not a complicated game—anyone looking for strategy, contemplation, or deep tactical gameplay would be well-served to look elsewhere.
changedMy engineer's devastating seismic-slam/flame-hammer combo feels more satisfying than clicking has any right to.
changedGetting sick of agonizing over loot, wishing that each item showed its suggested price so I could just value them and be

Click, kill, loot, level up. Click, kill, loot, level up. Loot, sell, re-equip. Rinse, repeat. Your weapons get more powerful as your enemies get more difficult, and the goalposts move, and move, and move. Click, kill, loot, level up. It's enough to make you wonder why we play video games in the first place.

Torchlight II, with its simple gameplay and tightly controlled loop of challenge and reward, is certainly enough to make one start questioning oneself: It's been twelve hours. Is this just a treadmill? Why am I spending time on this at all?

But each time I wondered that, I'd step back and realize how much fun I was having. And then I'd remember: I play video games because they're awesome.<!-- %JUMP:More »% -->

As of this writing, my time with Torchlight II clocks in at just a hair under 30 hours—that includes the meaty three-act story, a ton of side quests, and a few hours of running around with alt-characters. As I started New Game+, I had killed 11,256 monsters (1638 of which exploded in gouts of blood), taken down 177 sub-bosses, looted 338 chests, caught 34 fish, gathered 231,070 gold and taken 67,272 steps. The game does not keep track of mouse-clicks, but I'm sure that if it did, I would be way past the hundred thousand mark.

Torchlight II is, on its surface, a very simple game. You control a heroic character on a quest. Using your mouse and some hotkeys on your keyboard, you maneuver him or her through a fantasy world, undertaking missions, gathering loot and gear, and clicking on enemies until they explode. It's no surprise that several staffers at Runic games worked on Diablo and Diablo II —where the original Torchlight felt like an homage to the original Diablo, Torchlight II feels somewhat like a modernized take on Diablo II. At its core, it's not a complicated game—anyone looking for strategy, contemplation, or deep tactical gameplay would be well-served to look elsewhere.

WHY: Torchlight II is a sprawling, ambitious game that does one thing very, very well. It gives you a world you'll want to explore, filled with enemies you'll love to destroy.

Torchlight II

Developer: Runic Games

Platforms: PC, Mac (Mac version coming soon)

Release Date: September 20

Type of game: Action-RPG centered around clicking on enemies in randomly generated dungeons while acquiring randomly generated loot and equipment.

What I played: Over a period of about 30 hours, completed the story on normal difficulty, mostly solo. Played several different multiplayer scenarios, and tried the game with two of the other character classes.

My Two Favorite Things

  • My engineer's devastating seismic-slam/flame-hammer combo feels more satisfying than clicking has any right to.

  • Writing this review and realizing that against all odds, I still want to play more.

My Two Least-Favorite Things

  • How difficult it is to play with friends of varying levels.

  • Getting sick of agonizing over loot, wishing that each item showed its suggested price so I could just value them and be

Source

Steam News / 19 September 2012

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