Torchlight review: reviving action/RPG fun

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All screens, pictures and logos provided by Runic Games

Torchlight re-ignites the Action/RPG genre with all the familiar elements and outstanding, addictive gameplay that make for a great Action/RPG experience -- and with the freely distributed mod tools and a vibrant community, you can bet there will be plenty more come.

Torchlight, by Runic Games, has a lineage that traces all the way back to the virtual granddaddy of the Action/RPG genre: Diablo. So it should come as no surprise that the game plays virtually identically to Diablo, with various elements of Diablo II. torchlight screenshot

Torchlight is in many ways a glorious revival of a genre that has been largely quiet in recent years. Aside from Diablo III, which won't be releasing anytime soon, there have been few if any Action/RPGs of note in recent years. Most that have tried to replicate Diablo's greatness have fallen short and gone quietly into obscurity.

Torchlight system requirements
OS: Windows 2000 or later Processor: x86-compatible 800MHz processor Memory: 512MB Graphics: DirectX-compatible 3D graphics with at least 64MB of addressable memory (such as an ATI Radeon 7200, NVIDIA GeForce 2, or Intel GMA 950) DirectX®: 9.0c Hard Drive: 400MB

Torchlight, however, doesn't fall short, and is worthy to carry the Action/RPG torch. It would be easy to knock Torchlight for being an apple that didn't fall far enough from its tree -- but even knowing that I couldn't stop myself from getting sucked into it and heartily enjoying every minute of play. I kept playing for "just another 15 minutes" that easily stretched into another hour.

And because Diablo III won't be around for a while, Torchlight can give Action/RPG and Diablo fans a chance to enjoy the game play they love -- and also give Torchlight ample room to breathe, find its audience, and stake its claim.

A class act

Torchlight isn't mired in the dark gothic look of its ancestry, and instead boasts a stylized but cartoonish look more befitting its laid back attitude and casual flavor.

Torchlight features three classes: The Vanquisher, The Alchemist, and the Destroyer. The Vanquisher is essentially the ranged specialist, the Alchemist is the pet/spell/mage class, and the Destroyer is the melee/barbarian class. Every class has a skill tree of abilities and every class can learn spells to cast. The skill trees and spells are deep enough to offer plenty of variety and allow you to tailor you character to your play style, but they are not loaded with an overwhelming number of options.

When the game begins, you enter the town of Torchlight to investigate the recent monster-incursions in the mines below the town. After taking a little time to talk to all the townsfolk and skirt through the tutorial, you embark down the dark, shadowy path of Torchlight -- the path where you spend countless hours killing monsters, taking their stuff, and leveling up your character. In your journeys you will encounter hordes of minions, bosses, and champions -- all just packed to the brim with stuff and waiting for you kill them to smithereens. It's entertaining, addictive, and gloriously fun.

Torchlight screenshot -- fishing In addition to your loot, every character class gets a stalwart companion in the form of a pet -- either a wolf or a large cat -- that can carry stuff, fight alongside you, and even be adorned with a few magical items.

You can also fish at fishing holes and catch magical fish. Feed the magical fish to your pet, and it temporarily turns them into a different pet or monster with varying abilities. Personally, I like Fluffy to remain fluffy, so I haven't fed him a Web Fish again since that first unfortunate experiment (it turned fluffy into a giant spider. Eww.)

Torchlight also adds most of the expanded features Diablo II introduced into Diablo's formula -- for example, you can socket gems into weapons, combine like gems into more powerful versions, enchant items, and even experiment and discover 'recipes'. You also have a personal 'stash' for extra inventory, and a shared stash where you can share items amongst multiple characters.

Torchlight clearly tries -- and succeeds -- in straddling a line between casual players and more serious gamers. One particularly nice touch is that Torchlight saves your exact point in the game -- in other words, quitting in the middle of a dungeon or level won't force you to replay the entire dungeon the next time you play. Torchlight also features a nifty 'netbook' mode and doesn't require a behemoth of a gaming PC to enjoy.

The dungeon is deep

Torchlight is not built on depth by itself. The writing and voice acting are at best adequate, for example. But what really sets Torchlight apart are the mod tools that should be available as a free download within a week of the game's release. Torchlight was designed to be highly modable in virtually every respect.

Max Schaefer, CEO of Runic Games, recently said in an October 12th interview with G4 regarding the Torchlight toolset:

Schaefer: Oh, it's huge. It's almost limitless. This is the actual development tools that we use day-to-day. We're not dumbing them down, we're not disabling them. Everything we do with this tool is going to be available for the customer to do. A really, really ambitious modder will be able to make an entirely new game with it. As long as it's an action RPG. We don't have a lot of camera control stuff. It's got to look vaguely like what we're doing and work vaguely that way. But our graphics engine is a third-party graphics engine, it's the Ogre 3D engine -- it's just a graphics engine. It doesn't have any game tools or anything. It's open source and the cool thing about that is people have written 3DSMax and Maya exporters so people will literally be able to generate their own art and plug it into the game. There's level editing, particle systems, skill editors, quest editing features -- the tool is really comprehensive. It's how we create and construct the game on a day-to-day basis and it literally does everything.

Once you've completed the main Torchlight campaign, you should -- in the near future -- be able to download and play mods created by the user community, which could feature all new creatures, graphics, stories, and other elements.

And an MMO version of Torchlight is on the horizon.

Overall

At a measly $20 asking price, Torchlight is a no-brainer for any action/rpg fan -- and even if you've never tried the genre, Torchlight is a perfect point of entry. And the mod tools virtually guarantee plenty more hours of play time in free adventures made by Torchlight community members. That's a heck of a lot of high-quality gaming for a paltry sum. Buy this puppy. Now.