Loot. Everyone loves loot, right? Ever since Diablo, crawling through a dungeon to shove everything that isn't nailed to the floor into your inventory is pretty cool.
I didn't have particularly good experiences with Diablo itself but casting my mind back to any of The Elder Scrolls games, I'll have memories of not being able to move because of being weighed down by loot. Remembering Borderlands, I'll be reminded of how difficult it can be to drop one weapon for another, even if, strictly speaking, the numbers are better on this new one.
But these games aren't pure dungeon crawlers, are they? Not like Diablo, and not like spiritual Diablo sequel, Torchlight.
One down. One very big dungeon. Are you ready to push deeper into it?
Fun Times
I've had Torchlight installed for years now thanks to this 1001 list, but have never even glanced over at what it even is until now. It looked to be on the lower end of the budget scale, and while that's no real indicator of how good or bad a game is, it certainly colours my impression of what to play next, especially for unknown titles, of which Torchlight very much is.
There's nothing in the way of introduction videos, so we dive straight into the character selection screen to choose from a Destroyer, a Vanquisher, or my pick for this run-through, an Alchemist. I don't usually opt for magic users, so this ought to be interesting.
The minimal/next to non-existent story finally starts with a few paragraphs of character-specific background, and that's about it before we're dumped into the town of Torchlight, our safe haven from the horrors of the dungeon that lays beneath it.
A few steps away is our first quest. A wizard-looking guy wants a sample of Gleaming Ember, and it's not too far into the mines, though even that was apparently too much for others to deal with. We, of course, are champions in the magic, and the first floor of a mine isn't going to stop us in our tracks.
Like Diablo, you've the option of a floating map smack-dab in the middle of your screen, else you can hide it up in the corner so that you can get a glimpse of these graphics. They're not bad at all. Reminds me a little bit of World of Warcraft, which I'm not too keen on, but also evokes the idea that Torchlight is almost like a friendlier Diablo, or Diablo-Lite, which I'm not going to complain about - anything that can help me get into the genre is welcome.
We've not even made it to the mineshaft and we've got another quest, this one more urgent, as it comes in the middle of a fight we know nothing about. Syl here has asked us to catch up with Brink, who has just run off ahead, weapon in hand, into the depths of the mine, no doubt without thinking about the bigger picture, whatever that is - seriously, the story isn't clear in Torchlight.
It's dirt simple and immediately engaging. Overwhelming in some respects, but engaging in others. I've got a staff and a spell that fires Torchlight's equivalent of a magic missile, potions for health and mana at the ready if I need them, and I've even got a dog by my side for good measure - one capable of attacking up close while I sit back and shoot magic missiles.
When you deal or take damage, almost cartoony text indicators tell you how well you're doing. In truth, it all goes by too quickly for me to keep track of it, but as long as the creature I'm slugging it out with falls over before I do, I'm doing alright.
We don't find Brink but do find another local who tells us about fishing. I'm not sure what he's doing fishing in a mine, but sure, I'll keep an eye out for fish.
Actually, that reminds me. Outside of tooltips butting into the game as and when something new happens to you, the only tutorial you get is in the loading screen tips, and I've already seen one that says if I feed fish to my pet, it'll turn into something else or something. Maybe I'm misremembering. I suppose I should be on the lookout for fish.
While I've been hoovering up gold pieces and the odd bit of adventuring gear, the game has been keeping tabs on my experience points, and it's time to level up. You can't miss when it happens, and a couple of tabs on the side of the screen can be slid open to reveal some stat and skill upgrades.
Do I know what any of the stats relate to? Not really. Not in any detail. I can make some educated guesses. Do I know how best to use skills? Not at all, but there looks like there are a few skill trees to branch along, and hovering over icons gives us enough of an idea as to what each thing does that it shouldn't be a problem picking something to unlock.
The game world continues when you're in these menus, so don't level up in the thick of it.
Further into the mine, we catch up to Brink as he's swinging wildly at everything in sight, including a big ol' Troll. Spamming ranged attacks from the back while Brink and my dog deliver the melee attacks sounds like quite a plan, and it'll be the plan going forward as Brink asks us to partner up and push on with his quest.
The text may cover the characters up more often than not, but it's nice to hear it all being spoken. It's not dialogue that's going to change your entire opinion of video game dialogue, but it's another polished component of Torchlight that helps to give the impression that this is more of a game than you might think based on the cover.
You can argue that there's no need to pay attention to any of these conversations, and just click 'Accept' and get back to the looting, but something of a story is probably better than nothing. We've a reason to push on, and it's not just to gather stuff to sell.
Will its stats increase? Will it deal some sort of elemental damage? In this case, this bow got some slots to attach something else into to mix and match enhancements, I presume, should you have the bits and bobs to go into weapon slots.
That's probably a bit beyond my knowledge limit at the minute, to be honest. I'm still focusing on 'bigger number is better'...
After lots more slaughter and the subsequent looting of everything in sight, the inevitable happened. Not enough space in the inventory to pick everything up. What are you going to do?
In other games, this would be the start of either incredibly slow movement until you drop something heavy, or the sometimes agonising weighing up of value for whatever it is that you're carrying. You go through the motions of trying to equip everything possible, then trying to organize what you've got in your backpack according to what you might need, what you might use, what you could sell for something, to someone, at some point...
Eventually, something has to stay on the floor. You'll forget what it was in five seconds, but in the moment, that item is worth so much potential that you can't bring yourself to drop it at all, and Torchlight knows that this dilemma sucks, so it gives us quite possibly the best way of dealing with it that has ever existed.
It takes a little bit of time, obviously, but 30 seconds without an AI companion to fight by your side as it generates a few hundred gold pieces and clears out 50% of your inventory space is 30 seconds well spent. It allows players to keep going, pushing deeper and deeper into the dungeon in search of more and more loot - and I've got lots more dungeon to push into.
In what felt like no time at all, we make it to the next level of the mines, one that's set up for one purpose: boss fight.
The doors open and Brink sprints through them into what passes for a cutscene.
Brink has been turned into a huge corrupted werewolf-like thing, and I'm his target. His very-much-unprepared-for-this-moment target.
Sure, I'm level 5 now, and have made my magic missiles a little bit better, and have a much better staff than I had twenty minutes ago, but a fighter I am not. Not big bosses, at least. It's time to run away and take quick shots as and when I can.
It wasn't the prettiest of boss fights. It wasn't the most cinematic either. But it was every bit as satisfying as the gameplay that leads up to this moment. Torchlight has impressed me, not with its story, not with its characters, but with its approachable and understandable gameplay.
Another quest completed, and a conveniently placed portal back to town, this is probably the right time to head back topside.
We can speak to a load more folks now that we're successful adventurers, but we've got a long way to go. I talked to a guy with a mysterious portal of his own, I talked to a robot of some sort, and I checked in with the wizard-looking fella that started it all off.
I forget what any of them said, but I can see some new quests to tackle when I return to the dungeons of Torchlight.
Final Word
And I probably will. Why wouldn't I? It's far more accessible to me than Diablo is, and is a stellar example of the dungeon crawler for newcomers to get to know.
I'm hopeful that the dungeon - and so far as I read, there is only one - takes me to different looking environments at least, to keep the view nice and varied, otherwise I fear Torchlight will become a little too repetitive for me.
That's perhaps the biggest drawback it has. With such a threadbare story, you need a reason to keep diving into the deep to defeat all these monsters. If it's to see what loot you can find, well, you'll probably have a damn good time wading through it all, but if you're here to uncover a layered story of some sort, I have my doubts that you'll find what you're looking for. I hope I'm surprised in those regards.
Now that I know what Torchlight is, I'm a little annoyed that I didn't give it a shot sooner, because it is so easy to get into. Consider it an introduction to the genre before you move onto the darker, more menacing Diablo titles, perhaps. Maybe I'll view the Diablo series differently after this - I do have to go back and actually play Diablo II, after all...
Torchlight is definitely something to fire up, even if you've no idea what it is.
Fun Facts
I thought World of Warcraft, but the developers describe the look as Dragon's Lair meets The Incredibles, and they definitely know more than I do about this sort of thing.
Torchlight, developed by Runic Games, first released in 2009.
Version played: PC, 2009.