Torchlight?

Strangely enough, a run of the search function says we've not got a thread going for this game. Lots of newsbits, and it's been mentioned in other threads, but nothing dedicated.

I got an email from Encore today offering the download version for $10. I know there was tons of hype over the game, and that's a pretty appealling price. Since KB:AP still doesn't have a release date for the boxed version, I'm jonesing for a new shiny. I'm downloading the demo as I type, but I'm curious what the community thinks of Torchlight.

Thanks for your opinions.

Do you like 'Diablo Clones'? That's pretty much all Torchlight is, albeit a very polished one. You'll kill lots of enemies, collect lots of loot, and upgrade your character. If you're looking for any type of deep RPG experience, look elsewhere.

Just curious: why is the download version of Torchlight OK but not KB: AP?

Anyway, Torchlight is fantastic for what it is and well worth $10 (which is the current special pretty much everywhere - Steam, D2D etc). I bought it on day one and found it a great little hack'n'slasher. A couple of interesting classes (could do with more, though), solid - if by the book - mechanics and surprisingly attractive for a game that runs on integrated notebook chipsets.

The only real criticism I have is that there is no depth to the story or quests. That's not surprising (or even a problem for many players) for this genre and their goals but, eventually, I need something more than the loot train to keep me going.

Kayla played the crap out of it. I got my fill and moved on; but that was my expectation.

If you are happy getting a solid Diablo clone built squarely on the loot-improve-character-loot-repeat model and don't need a story to drive it (or can live with that limitation for the price), it's a great diversion. Just don't expect more than it is.

Did you ever play FATE? It's an improved FATE; almost the same, with some slightly varied classes and more interesting backdrops.

Dhruin said:

Just curious: why is the download version of Torchlight OK but not KB: AP?

Click to expand...

Acceptable risk. I demand to be able to play KB:AP forever. At $10, and for a game I'm only mildly interested in, if I couldn't play it in the future it wouldn't be a tragedy. I know my distrust of downloads is mostly irrational, but it is what it is.

Dhruin said:

If you are happy getting a solid Diablo clone built squarely on the loot-improve-character-loot-repeat model and don't need a story to drive it (or can live with that limitation for the price), it's a great diversion. Just don't expect more than it is.

Did you ever play FATE? It's an improved FATE; almost the same, with some slightly varied classes and more interesting backdrops.

Click to expand...

Diablo clone couldn't be more accurate. I'm surprised Blizzard isn't suing for infringement.

This isn't my usual subgenre of choice. I played Diablo1 long ago but never finished it. I bought the warchest and played Diablo2 last year, but couldn't win the final battle and quit. I enjoyed both, but never caught the obsession disease. About the only reason I consider games like this is because I played the crap out of Dungeon Siege 2. Well, that and I seem to have "gone casual" in recent months.

I found the 2 hour limit on the demo to be way too short. Not sure if it left me wanting more or not.

I think calling a Torchlight a 'Diablo Clone' is like calling 'Modern Warfare 2' a 'Doom Clone' ... it is both true but also a gross generalization.

Torchlight is a wonderful action-RPG - and like the majority of games in the genre released in the last 13 years it is a true action-RPG, not a deep RPG with action-centric combat like Divine Divinity.

It is very well done, but is single-player only.

I had no issue with the $20 I paid, and at $10 I see it as an easy buy. I'm working on reviews for a few different sites right now and hope to be done before the new year.

dteowner said:

Strangely enough, a run of the search function says we've not got a thread going for this game. Lots of newsbits, and it's been mentioned in other threads, but nothing dedicated.

I got an email from Encore today offering the download version for $10. I know there was tons of hype over the game, and that's a pretty appealling price. Since KB:AP still doesn't have a release date for the boxed version, I'm jonesing for a new shiny. I'm downloading the demo as I type, but I'm curious what the community thinks of Torchlight.

Thanks for your opinions.

Click to expand...

To be more accurate it's a Fate clone with little new added. Baldree seems to have run out of new ideas… even the sound and gfx seem to be almost the same… (same guy did Fate)

cutterjohn said:

To be more accurate it's a Fate clone with little new added. Baldree seems to have run out of new ideas… even the sound and gfx seem to be almost the same… (same guy did Fate)

Click to expand...

So you must also believe that Diablo 2 is a Diablo clone with nothing much added?

txa1265 said:

So you must also believe that Diablo 2 is a Diablo clone with nothing much added?

Click to expand...

Not really, but Torchlight REALLY doesn't have much added to what Fate had. Same Pets. Same Fishing Gimmick. Same quests. etc. I never noticed a single thing that was really new other than more modding tools.

Anyways, it's now a $4.99 item on Steam for c. 24h.

Yeah, I bought it yesterday for $9.99, thinking it couldn't go any lower...

Played the demo and it just didn't grab me for some reason. I think it was the cartoony look, and the fact that it just felt like old stuff in new wrappings. But there's nothing terribly bad about it; easy to play, tried and true formula, etc. But just didn't make me want to keep playing.

txa1265 said:

I think calling a Torchlight a 'Diablo Clone' is like calling 'Modern Warfare 2' a 'Doom Clone' … it is both true but also a gross generalization.

Click to expand...

Well, I'd call Torchlight a Diablo clone as well because the similarities are extremely striking. I mean look at the game. Not only are the mechanics very similar but parts of the interface almost look like a straight copy & paste job.
Your CoD: MW2 comparison is a bit lacking. Modern Warfare is a totally different kind of FPS compared to Doom. MW puts an emphasis on realism and a story with cinematic presentation. Doom on the other hand has (had) zero story and zero realism.
No one in their right mind would compare these two games but the Torchlight vs. Diablo comparison is by far not as farfetched in my opinion. To me, Torchlight is to Diablo what Painkiller is to Doom.... which pretty much is, yeah, a "clone". Albeit not a bad one as it seems from my admittedly rather limited experience with the game so far. I just bought it a couple of hours ago for EUR 3.35 from that Steam holiday sale. At that price I don't even really care if it's good or not .

cutterjohn said:

Not really, but Torchlight REALLY doesn't have much added to what Fate had. Same Pets. Same Fishing Gimmick. Same quests. etc. I never noticed a single thing that was really new other than more modding tools.

Click to expand...

I'm assuming that you are simul-playing Fate and Torchlight to make these observations?

txa1265 said:

I'm assuming that you are simul-playing Fate and Torchlight to make these observations?

Click to expand...

Pretty much(as in they're small and they run under linux — I'm still seeing no significant differences between Fate & Torchlight other than some cosmetics and better mod support for Torchlight). Are you going fanboi on my —- or something Mike? You're being unusually defensive of this highly Fate derivative game.

Mikey likes his Torchlight, there's no doubt about that . Nothing wrong with liking a solid game though.

It didn't grab me for the same reasons magerette mentioned above.

cutterjohn said:

Pretty much(as in they're small and they run under linux — I'm still seeing no significant differences between Fate & Torchlight other than some cosmetics and better mod support for Torchlight). Are you going fanboi on my —- or something Mike? You're being unusually defensive of this highly Fate derivative game.

Click to expand...

I like it, yeah - and think it is a solid game showing a decent evolution that beings together Baldree and his Fate stuff with some of the design and polish from the guys who did Hellgate (former Blizzard folks). I am not trying to be a PITA, but I have a bit of knee-jerk leftover from 2005 where it seemed that hordes of folks who never played Fate were pounding on it for what amounted to it being to 'casual friendly' and not 'dark & gritty' enough.

Way I look at it is this - it is extremely good at being exactly what it tries to do, which is much more than the vast majority of games manage these days. I encourage all to check it out - especially now on sale at $5 - and see if you like what it is trying to do ... it is not for everyone ... and not really close to my favorite sort of game.

Nothing added since fate? Granted it had alot of things brought over from fate, but they really did a much better job on the overall game especailly the character classes. Fate was like the game they made before they went big leagues

Torchlight is great, well worth the 20 let alone 10 dollars.

JDR13 said:

Mikey likes his Torchlight, there's no doubt about that . Nothing wrong with liking a solid game though.

Click to expand...

The funny thing is that action-RPG is a sub-genre I struggle with, and that my wife got me Diablo when it came out and that scared me off of RPG until 2003 when I bought the Mac release of NWN in prep for KotOR ... and I still don't like either Diablo game.

txa1265 said:

I like it, yeah - and think it is a solid game showing a decent evolution that beings together Baldree and his Fate stuff with some of the design and polish from the guys who did Hellgate (former Blizzard folks). I am not trying to be a PITA, but I have a bit of knee-jerk leftover from 2005 where it seemed that hordes of folks who never played Fate were pounding on it for what amounted to it being to 'casual friendly' and not 'dark & gritty' enough.

Way I look at it is this - it is extremely good at being exactly what it tries to do, which is much more than the vast majority of games manage these days. I encourage all to check it out - especially now on sale at $5 - and see if you like what it is trying to do … it is not for everyone … and not really close to my favorite sort of game.

Click to expand...

OK, I guess I can see that, but still it seems that EVERY commenter/reviewer/etc is going WAY out of their way to make ANY sort of omparison between Fate & Torchlight when they're so damned similar.

I have yet to see a single review that mention Fate in a Torchlight review. It's just eerie.

Yes, I did enjoy playing Fate, and now play Torchlight but there is no way in hell I'm giving these guys any sort of props for originality since there is ZERO. I mean I see the same freaking monster models, hear the same sound effects, etc. I can't help but wonder if Wild Tangent isn't a funder of Runic games or if the models/effects were generically licensed packages(likely). The gameplay is identical, but Torchlight is more "accessible" to the masses as it's available digitally from more than a single source and apparently will soon have a retail package with a new pet skin(ferret).

but beyond the cosmetics, retail games like Divine Divinity that had a nice story, Dungeon Lords that tried to make character classes MUCH more complex, Titan Quest that made character classes more complex(and succeeded), etc. just make me happier than drooling reviewer over some underdog that quite frankly is beating a dead horse. Hell even Hinterlands brought more to the table even if it was even shallower in the end.

As to longevity, FFS I still play Angband, ADOM, and TOME, and likelly will long past when Torchlight/etc. are dim memories.

Bottom line here, don't get that knee jerfk casual ARPG response, becaue quite frankly that exactly what Fate was and Torchlight is. Just be happy that they're as successful as they are and maybe someday we'll get a Dungeon Lords that works/is completed as designed, speaking from a complexity point. Hell, I'll bet that Fate/Torchlight sell/sold more than Titan Quest which is good/bad. (I LIKED TQ because it expanded the typical idiot ARPG character classes, which is also why I REALLY like the idea of Dungeon Lords and as much as it ever did work. I also REALLY like RANDOM dungeons, but I also like to have more than just a random dungeon… if that's all I want I'll play Angband and get the best of all worlds exepting gfx.)

[EDIT=day(s) later]
I hate to say it but I was playing Torchlight today and noticed yet another striking similarity, the same ----ing voice speaking the identical ----ing lines about quests, etc.

I'm getting more and more disgusted with current criticism of Torchlight and ALL of the review focus on the dipshits that "created" Diablowz rather than the REAL motivator of the game.

On that note, I'll post another dfifference, QUESTS, so far up to L15 I can only pick up one extra quest while in FATE I could have 3 going for a floor. In Torchlight I get a main "story" quest + what I guess to be a main story ancillary QUEST forced on my character. This leaves the "bard" giving the generic Fate quests along with another character that gives dungeon specific quests with a tele to the "dungeon, yet they've ALWAYS had the same boring tilesets as the current MQ dungeon levels.

I ROFLMAO every time I see the 84 score for the game in my Steam account, giving it a 40% at best myself IMNHO, and if I was a really and truly evil bastard -40% for over re-use of Fate assetts, and another -100% for attempting to bank on Diablo guys. (Sorry I never really liked Diablo. It was just too chimp for me.)
[/EDIT]

I love it. I got it last night, and had to force myself to stop so I could sleep. Very narrow in scope, but it does what it does really well. Very polished, very easy to play, and Steam Cloud saved characters is pretty nice as well.

It's fun. I don't know how long it will remain fun for, but it really feels like playing a game, there is a palpable sense of fun while playing. It deserves the scores it's getting, imo.

As someone that loved Diablo I and didnt really like Diablo II as much (and never played Fate) Im having fun playing Torchlight. To keep it interesting though, Im playing in Hard-Hardcore mode, and in my shared stash I can keep only 1 of each type of item (one sword, one gloves, one boots, etc...) to give to my next character when my curent one dies. Actually I allow myself to keep 4 rings (2 for me and 2 for my dog) and 2 necklaces (1 for me and 1 for my dog). Playing this way keeps it exciting, and allows new characters a small advantage of getting gear from a previous character, without having an entire stash worth of rare and unique items. Im playing as my 2nd character now, as the first one made it to level 8 and the Lair of the Sisters before dying