Torchlight - Reviews @ GameOver, The Hachiko

So what exactly did they change from way back in the Diablo days? Not a great deal, but on the whole I do like the little changes that they have made. You now have a permanent companion (either a dog or cat) who attacks with you and gives you more inventory slots. Companions can wear rings and necklaces and cast some spells that you give to them. Oddly you can feed fish that you catch in the dungeon to your companion to give them special skills that last for a short time. Breaking from the action to sit at a fishing hole is peculiar and I don’t understand the motivation for including it. Most conveniently you can send your companion laden with stuff to town to sell it all and return with the money. That is clearly a modification created by someone who, like anyone who had played Diablo, found themselves deep in an interesting piece of dungeon and would have liked to keep exploring but had a full inventory. That’s just a great solution. There are little chips of enchanted gems around that can be set into pieces of weaponry and armor to enhance their skills. I don’t recall Diablo doing that, though Titan Quest did, and it was definitely present in the ill-fated Hellgate: London. Given the large assortment of weapons, both melee and ranged, and the sort of mixing and matching you can do with the gem chips, the overall collection of weapons is truly vast. Finally there is a slight change to the control scheme in that the right mouse button can be reassigned easily to activate many different skills using the F1-F12 keys and that works very well.

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Though there is a story to complete, the main reason you'll find yourself constantly playing the game is to get one step further in the dungeon, kill one more monster, and hopefully find a sweet piece of loot to really deck your character out with and make them ultra powerful. The idea of loot whoring really is the driving force of the game and makes me realize just how shallow I must really be. The desire to find an orange or purple piece of loot is like a drug – you'll constantly kill and crawl, hoping to finally get that drop to happen and equip your sweet new item, whether it's a helm, some gloves, or a new weapon. One of the big pastimes on the game's forums is gathering the best items, taking a screenshot of your character wearing everything you've earned, and then posting them for bragging rights.

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There are little chips of enchanted gems around that can be set into pieces of weaponry and armor to enhance their skills. I don’t recall Diablo doing that.

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