Torchlight 2 from Runic Games is basically everything you could ask for in a dungeon crawling game, only for about $40 cheaper than the average game. Honestly, I could probably leave this impressions artcle right there and you would have enough information to make a decision as to whether or not you should pick up the game. Still, I need more words about Torchlight 2 to fairly call this thing ‘a review’, so I’ll try to keep writing. As an aside, I am reticent to call this a review since I haven’t done every single thing to do in the game. Not even close. Still, I’ve gotten a pretty good feel for how this thing goes, so I thought I would write up my impressions.
In case you are somehow not familiar, Torchlight 2 is the follow-up to Runic Games’ super-popular dungeon crawler where you walk around, kill enemies, get quests, kill enemies, get loot, kill enemies, etc. There are four classes to choose from in Torchlight 2 (Engineer, Outlander, Berserker, Embermage, I’ve spent the bulk of my time with an Outlander). Each of the classes comes with a pretty extensive skill tree made up of three parts and each of the skills in the skill tree can be leveled up. You also get attribute points to assign each level, so you have plenty of assigning to do each level to customize your character. You also have sockets that allow you to add bonuses to many of your items, the ability to combine items through transmuting, and enchanting, which no longer has the chance of destroying all of the enchantments on an item, a dangerous process in the first one that I basically avoided.
Honestly, the main way that Torchlight 2 sets itself apart from the competition is the sheer speed of the thing. I’m not just talking about the speed of the gameplay, which is pretty fast and does a great job of tossing unique loot and purple-named unique monsters at your with enough frequency that you basically never feel that you aren’t accomplishing something. It’s also the return of the pet which allows you to run items back to town for you, making it a pretty rare time when you need to use a scroll to head back to town, while acting as your fish-powered fighting companion the rest of the time. It’s the small towns that limit the amount of running around you have to do.
Still, while Torchlight 2 feels like it plays fast, it also feels much, much bigger than the original thanks to a lot of above-ground areas to explore. Adding in the above-ground areas makes the world, for me, feel much more fully realized and much less like, ‘Wow, I’m just grinding my way through this thing.’ Honestly, the claustrophobic, underground focus of the original was great, but it lacked for variety, so the world in Torchlight 2 feels a little more alive to me.
So, at the end of the day, Torchlight 2 is Torchlight only bigger, better, and faster. Plus, it only costs $20. Honestly, if you are at all interested in dungeon crawlers, I can’t see how you could wrong with picking it up. There’s plenty of content in Runic Games’ Torchlight 2, a diverse cast of characters, colorful graphics, and a game that is built to get out your way and let you get to what you want to be doing anyway: killing monsters and looting them for their stuff.
If you’re done checking out my Torchlight 2 impressions, why don’t you go down to the comments and talk about it and if you’ve played the game yet or would like to. If you’re finished here, you should totally take a look at the Related Posts found below, the Recent Posts in the sidebar, or go to a random post on Futile Position.
