Torchlight

[Tyler]

^^

 

Which class?

[MarketTantrik]

^^

 

Which class?

Mage, of course, for the first playthrough

[Bulovski]

The game is so frikking addictive. It has the same quality as Diablo - one more group of monsters have to be killed. Then one more, just one more maybe. Playing as alchemist.

[WhatsInTheName]

Torchlight on Sale at Steam. 5 bucks only!! Am buying it!!

 

My Fantasy RPG addiction has begun

[Saumil]

If only this game had the depth and sheer item variety of Titan Quest, I'd have something to tide me over until Diablo 3 .

Absolutely lovely art style otherwise.

[Bulovski]

I don't know - I thought it had pretty good depth in terms of skill trees. Anything more would unnecessarily complicate matters. As a clickfest it's great.

[Noctis]

RPG Fan review - 89%

 

In the broadest terms, there are two ways to make a great game: do something cool that hasn't been done before, or do a great job of improving on things that have been done before. Torchlight falls pretty firmly in the second category, but that doesn't make it any less great. It's the game I wish Fate had been, and an outstanding addition to its genre.

 

Pretty good review.

[EX-Kuro]

This game is just amazing . i love the music and the colorz @_@ . I have amazing luck while enchanting

[Aftrunner]

Its now sold half a million copies.

 

Astonishingly good numbers for a indie title that didnt have any marketing or hype. Shows what good word to mouth can do for a game. A large part of it would be on Steam Sales of 50% off or whatever but then again they arent paying anyone anything aside from Valve. No platform royalty, no shop/retailer margin etc.

[Cyborg]

Excellent numbers, really it feels nice to see a indie game selling such huge numbers and you're right, Steam had played a big role in this plus the game was made by ex-diablo devs so that helped too. Also this is gonna release on the consoles soon. I hope it does well there aswell.

[Bulovski]

Warms the inner chambers of me heart to see a small indie game doing so well. They took Diablo II and just improved on everything and sold a lot.

[Saumil]

I got bored of this game quickly. The class, skill and loot diversity just ain't there compared to D2 and TQ.

[EX-Kuro]

well its supposed to be like this big diablo mod which ended up being a whole new game. right?

[Tyler]

No. It was supposed to be a game called Diablo-styled MMORPG called Mythos. The game went into development hell and the team went on to form Runic Games with some other folks who made another Diablo-clone called Fate.

 

@Saumil, I do agree that it doesn't have the depth and scope of Diablo II and TQ but it's still a damn good game for what it's worth. There have been many Diablo clones (Sacred, Loki, Legend etc) and apart from TQ and Torchlight, none of them come close to D2. In some ways Torchlight is actually closer to the first Diablo than D2.

[Bulovski]

I prefer Torchlight to TQ, and there was always Dungeon Siege - and now the other DS.

[Aftrunner]

This kinda slipped under the radar but apparently Torchlight is out next month on XBLA.

[Nemo]

\w00t/

 

i can play this now. btw wiki says might also come on psn.

[Aftrunner]

^^Dont really think its your kind of game. Nothing in the way of story or characters, its mostly a loot wh*re's RPG. Hence why Ty was all over this.

 

Anyway, played a little bit yesterday and I quite like it. Fun game, reminds me a lot of Dungeon siege.

[Bulovski]

It's ditto Diablo II. TBH DS was also one of the better DII clones. This would be hard to play in a console.

[Aftrunner]

I think it will work fine. They seem to have made the whole UI grounds up -

 

To head off the speculative questions that will almost certainly arise about the port -

 

Control is direct - no virtual cursors ever. Combat is a little different - you move forward slightly with melee attacks and all the attack animations are redone to support this. You don't 'target' enemies - you'll get a red highlight for a 'primary' target that is in range, but for melee attacks you hit everything in your damage cone (secondary targets get secondary damage ). Feels natural and does what you expect. Ranged combat is actually in many ways easier - kiting and dodging are significantly more viable with a controller and the autotargeting for ranged attacks works pretty well. 'lobbed' skills mapped to the triggers have a default distance, but you can finesse them for longer or shorter throws by holding the trigger at a given depth. Combat pace feels 'faster' and more maneuverable. If you've played classics like Dark Alliance or Champions of Norrath, you have the general idea. ( but no jumping ) Movement speed is analog - you can move slower by easing on the stick, something you can't do at all on PC.

 

No skills have been omitted. Some skills have had alterations to their functionality to make them feel better ( i.e. you don't select corpses to summon a Nether Imp - you just cast it and if there's a corpse around, there you go )

 

Pretty much everything from the PC version is here. We didn't remove any features, with the exception of secondary weapon sets, because there was no way we could find that didn't feel horrible in inventory management. Socketing, enchanting, fishing, the infinite dungeon, item combination, are all represented.

 

The UI is COMPLETELY overhauled from the ground up. Nothing works the same. All new art and navigation. The concept of item 'slots' is done away with - you just have a number of items you can hold ( 50 - ignores stack counts ). Potions and scrolls stack up to 99. Potions 'auto pick' the best potion to heal you or regen mana. You don't have to think about it or map it. We iterated on the UI a ridiculous amount.

 

You can have 4 active mapped skills at a time, and a secondary set that you can swap between (using the dpad) for 8 mapped skills. Most of us actually find it easier to use a variety of skills on the console vs. PC, oddly enough.

 

5) Force feedback is in for quakes, strikes, low health heartbeats, and tugs on the fishing line Feels nice.

 

Miscellanea - we brought over some goodies from TL2 to the console version. Loading times are much reduced. Better animation blending makes combat snappier ( hard to describe, but you'll probably feel it ). Automaps are brought over from TL2's new automap system ( They are rendered out and much more readable, and icons cleave to the borders of the ring )

 

3 new armor sets ( one for each class )

 

Some new random quests for one of the miners in town

 

Chakawary pet

 

Download size is nice and small - ~200 MB.

 

Also seems like XBL only -

 

No PS3 plans to speak of. Microsoft is acting as the publisher on this one. And given how much work it was to get one console game done, I'm a little relieved we didn't attempt both platforms at once anyway