Welcome to another edition of ‘achievement unlocked!’. Today is all about Torchlight. It was part of the Deal of the Week that commenced on 6th July 2011 at a reduced price of 800 MSP, or about £7 in normal currency. Originally released on the Windows platform back in October 2009, Torchlight was then made available via Steam in May 2010. Runic Games then ported the game to the Xbox LIVE Arcade in March 2011.
Torchlight brings back certain nostalgia from my old PC days in the Diablo-like gameplay and graphics. It sees you taking on the role of an adventurer-come-hero in the small town of Torchlight. The town is surrounded by randomised dungeons filled with monsters and pissed-off zombies to name but a couple. Your mission is to rid these creatures whilst collecting loot, gold and quest related items.
Fellow RPG fans who have followed the genre over the past years will be familiar with the logistics of the game as it upholds many of the classic RPG features such as the combat interface, the levelling system and the general gameplay. Fans of the Diablo series will be especially interested as it is developed by Max and Eric Schaefer who brought us Diablo and Diablo II. Anyone who played and loved either Diablo games will find great pleasure when sinking their proverbial teeth into this Arcade title as it renders many features from Diablo, such as the isometric perspective and the musical features.
Graphically, the game is what you would expect from a top-down RPG. There is an abundance of gorgeous textures within the village of Torchlight, but considering you spend the majority of your time in the dungeons, you’d expect them to focus on this element the most, right? Although they have made the dungeons visually adept, they have recycled some graphics on various floors which is a little disappointing. To be fair the game is only 196MB in size, so it’s amazing that they’ve managed to squeeze a multitude of graphics into such a small file. This could be the reason to why the game struggles to cope when multiple adversaries are on screen. This choppiness causes a host of problems which interfere with movement, spell casting and targeting enemies. Given this issue, it only ever occurred a few times.
You have the choice of 3 character classes to choose from:
Destroyer: The beast amongst men. Specialising in melee combat, this warrior can wipe out entire dungeons just through sheer, brute force. He also has the ability to cast magical effects.
Alchemist: The spellcaster. He draws the magical power of Ember to slay foes with specialised spells which range from fire to electricity.
Vanquisher: The rogue or spy class. She utilises the ranged weapons to devastating effect to slaughter her adversaries.
Taking a leaf from the game series Fable’s book, Torchlight offers you a pet to aid in your quest. This pet will help rid the evil that is stashed in the dungeons. You can furnish your pet with spells and it can help store items that you don’t want to dispense of. Scattered around the dungeons you’ll stumble upon “Fishing Holes” where you can catch, funnily enough, fish. Feeding these fish to your pet will either boost their stats dramatically or transform them into creatures that mimic your adversaries. This is a nice little touch, but your pet can get confused by the layout of the dungeons and often has trouble traversing the scenery.
Pondering on which class to start as for a moment, I wonder if they offer any extra or different content in the game. I presume not and woefully choose the Alchemist class. I’m hoping to replicate the mighty Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings books/movies. Unfortunately, you cannot alter your characters appears, so no long white beard for me. This makes me sad.
There is little-to-no storyline to Torchlight will lets it down significantly. Instead, you’re forced to complete quests which are agonisingly similar and battle in dungeons which are repetitive and monotonous. The town of Torchlight is a small concourse where travellers and well-wishers convene to delve into the rich supply of Ember. This magical substance is the source for spells and enchanted items. Upon entering Torchlight I am greeted by a sage by the name of Syl who is looking for her mentor Alric. My first mission is to find this dipshit.
Entering the dungeons below, I encounter some small adversaries who are about as tough as Steve Urkel. As I hack my way through the first dungeon, picking up various loot and equipment, I find Alric and he joins my party. 10 minutes later it is revealed that has been corrupted by the Ember and transforms into an evil bastard. This calls for some nonchalant beast slaying. Syl is not impressed that I have snuffed her mentor, but she’ll get over it.
Hours pass as I delve deeper into the dungeons and I slaughter my way through the ranking system. Torchlight offers the player to place points into a class-specific skill tree. This gives the player new spells and powers which mixes up the gameplay a little, but it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before. Levelling up also allows you to use higher-grade equipment and weapons, although this doesn’t really help as your foes also get stronger the further down the dungeon you go.
As I progress further, I encounter many “bosses” which vary in size and stature, but they all ultimately reach the same demise…. Death. Every once in a while you get a small cut-scene featuring a character by the name of Ordrak. It soon becomes apparent that he is the source of the Ember’s corruption and am soon facing him in a fight-to-the-death battle. Or at least I thought it was this kind of battle…
Having laid down a serious amount of “whoop ass” upon Ordrak, his health quickly depletes. Just as I’m about to dispatch him into the firey depths of hell, he flees to a lower level of the dungeon. Fucking pussy, come here! Begrudgingly I follow him down, where upon he transforms into a huge dragon-like creature with support from an endless onslaught of smaller dragons.
After defeating the final “boss” you have little else to do. With the main storyline complete, all that’s left to do battle your way through a seemingly endless “Shadow Dungeon” or finish up a few pointless side-quests. Replayabilty is not really a factor that comes to mind once you finish the game. After grinding out the last few achievements, there isn’t anything that would make me want to come back and play it again.
If there’s one thing that this game lacks, is an online capability. The thought of wandering around with a buddy or two is something that Runic Games really overlooked. If they’d have added this feature we could have been looking at a completely different experience, one that would have inspired me to keep looting those dungeons. It also would have been one of the greatest games on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace to date in my opinion. Luckily for us, Runic Games have officially stated that Torchlight 2 will have this function (hoorah!).
Despite my many debateable discrepancies, Torchlight is a fantastic journey in a slightly saturised genre, but still manages to find decent gameplay, ample graphics and smooth mechanics. The lack of a real storyline and multiplayer capabilities really let down an outstanding effort to revive the isometric platform-adventure genre. Let’s hope that Torchlight 2 can supersede on an already superb and solid Action-RPG.
Achievement(s) unlocked:
Shape-Shifter – 10G
Change your pet by feeding it fish.
The game is kind enough to start you off with a fish to feed to your pet. Upon feeding it said fish, I cry out “Holy catfish, Batman! My pet has turned into a giant purple Troll!” At first I was shitting myself as I thought it was going to attack me, but alas, he was a friendly purple Troll. He resembles what Barney would look like if he got addicted to heroin.
Fetch a Fair Price – 10G
Send your pet to town.
A very easy achievement to earn. When in your Item Inventory screen, pressing the Start button, then the Y button will send your pet to town to sell off any of your unwanted gear. Upon his return, the achievement unlocks.
When this Town’s a Rocking’ – 10G
Defeat the Ember Colossus.
Over the Brink – 10G
Defeat Brink.
A Lich to Scratch – 10G
Defeat the Overseer.
Tree Hugger – 10G
Defeat the Root Golem.
Big and Green and Dead All Over – 10G
Defeat Krag.
Purple People Defeater – 10G
Defeat Medea.
Only a Master of Evil – 50G
Defeat Alric.
All of the above are attained whilst journeying through the short storyline. There not much to say about these really. As long as you have the right setup for your class, the “bosses” won’t cause you too much harm. Spamming the attack button and healing every now and again is all that’s really to it.
Enchanted – 20G
Successfully enchant one item 5 times.
Enchantment Overload – 20G
Successfully enchant one item 10 times.
I think the developers either run out of ideas for the achievements or just got plain fucking lazy. These can both be done within seconds of each other. Press the Y button 10 times when you visit a vendor and they’re both yours. You’ll just need to make sure you have enough gold before you attempt it though. 30,000 should suffice.
Superstar – 30G
Achieve a maximum fame.
This should be named “Super-ass!”. The mother of all grinds… Okay, maybe not the mother. It takes a good 10-11 hours of gameplay to reach the desired level of 33 in the Fame department. Maybe we should refer to it as the niece or grand-daughter of grinds. As mentioned above, once you complete the story, there’s a Shadow Dungeon for you to fuck around with. Each floor contains 2 or 3 champion monsters which when defeated will award you with a shit-ton of XP and Fame points. I got to floor 23 before I reach a 33 Fame level. That was a whole evening wasted spent in that fucking dungeon!
The achievements are all very easily attainable, given the fact that I managed to acquire them all should be an indication that they aren’t difficult. If you have a spare 10 hours, by all means, knock yourself out. Should be prepared for a lot of monotonous, boring grinding.
