Story;
Runic has built a good story for Torchlight. From their web site;
The adventure is set in the mining settlement of Torchlight, a boomtown founded on the discovery of rich veins of Ember – a rare and mysterious ore with the power to enchant or corrupt all that it contacts. This corruptive power may have dire consequences however, and players set out into the nearby mountains and depths below to discover the full extent of Ember’s influence on the civilizations that have come before.
As players will learn as they they adventure forth, Ember is the root of many things in the world of Torchlight. You learn more about Torchlight and the mines as you complete quests.
You start out as one of three classes. You can choose from Destroyer, Alchemist, or Vanquisher. Each have their own reasons for being in Torchlight. The Destroyer is a fighter class. He is drawn to Torchlight after "hearing of the evils that have befallen it." Great with melee weapons, he will hack and slash his way through the mines. The Alchemist is a mage class. Because Ember plays heavily into his power he is in Torchlight for his own ends. Spell casting is his forte. Lastly is the Vanquisher, a ranger/archer class. She (yes she) is there "to investigate the mysterious slayings and missing town folks." Bows and traps are her specialties. Each character can be improved over the course of the game. As you level up, you will be able to assign points to your stats. Learn new skills in your skill tree, and learn new spells that you find or purchase. While each character is the basically the same at start for everyone, as you play you will tailor the character more and more to your own tastes. Making the character more unique.
Gameplay;
As per usual with an action RPG game I always take the fighter. They are always pretty straight to the point, plus there is something about hacking and slashing your way through this type of game that is always satisfying. The gameplay is very Diablo-esque, which a lot of people seem to be saying. That is not a bad thing either. Diablo is a great game to be compared to, especially when compared favorably. But there are other things to the game, parts of it seem inspired by World of Warcraft and some seem to be from Baldur's Gate; Dark Alliance.
After choosing your starting class you choose your pet, a cat or a dog. While they can help in a fight they are there for more than just that. The have their own inventory pack. So when you get over loaded with loot you can store stuff on them. Fill their pack up too? Well you can send them back to town to sell everything they are carrying. I loved that option. I've always hated either stopping to go back to town to and sell all the stuff you picked up or trashing the least valuable items so I could explore more. Now just load up the pet and send them on their way. Usually they are gone for about a minute. No more interruption in the game.
Speaking of no interruption, that has a nasty drawback. You'll be playing the game and look up and suddenly realize hours have gone by. I'll be honest to make my deadline for this review I did not get to play as much as I really wanted, because I was having too much fun to keep track of time.
Another nice element is that each level is randomly build as the game goes along. So this also keeps each persons play through unique
Control;
Mouse and keyboard controls, pretty intuitive for anyone familiar with most PC RPG games. Runic wanted to keep it fairly simple and it is. For the most part I did pretty much everything with the mouse.
Graphics and Sound;
Sound are very good. The voice acting was also pretty good, no groan inducing lines or overacted parts that I heard. Graphically the art style reminded me a bit of cartoons or manga, which I found to be a nice change of pace from what most action RPGs look like.
Overall;
I really liked Torchlight. Like I said it was a time sucker and I really just scratched the surface. I never got around to the level editor to create my own levels, which could be shared. I never got around to the fishing mini-game and so much more. Sadly though the game does not have any online co-op, but really it's not missed. Runic has some grand plans for Torchlight. Which includes plans for a MMO based on the world of Torchlight. If made as well as this, I'd say they would give World of Warcraft a good run for it's money.
For all the fun I had I give it a 4 out 5, only because it was such a time sucker. There is lots of fun to be had, hours of fun if you are not careful. This is an awesome game from Runic and I look forward to see what they do next.
Right now the only way to get the game is through digital distribution. So you can got to your favorite digital download game site (Steam, Direct2Drive, Wildtangent, Perfect World, Encore, GamersGate, or Gameware.at) or go to Runic Games' web site and buy it from them directly. And really for $20, you can't go wrong with this game, it's worth every dime. If you are more thrifty, they do have a demo version so you can try it out first, but I really think you'll end up buying it.
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