Torchlight II First Impressions

Torchlight II... here's my one line review:

light, fast, and fun with diverse builds and loot.

The End.

I put in about 5 hours last night on Veteran difficulty with an outlander.  This was my second attempt to get started in Torchlight 2.  The first was about 2 hours on an engineer in Normal difficulty.  My first impression was "I would love this if I didn't already have Diablo 3 and Path of Exile."  Followed by, "Man, I wish I played this first."  I need to explain a little more about my experience with the original Torchlight and how I got into this aRPG overload I'm currently loving to death.  But, that will be after the jump...

I had been gaming on a console exclusively since about the time the Xbox was released and had not had a computer that could play a current game since about 1995.  Somehow I stumbled upon a teaser trailer for Diablo 3 (in 2009) that made me remember the good ol days of the original Diablo.  I saw the video linked through a forum and several posters commented that the people behind the original Diablo were no longer with Blizzard and that they had a new game called  Torchlight coming out soon.  I bought myself a copy and instantly felt great about it.  It was a simple, tight, easy to follow dungeon crawler that satisfied from minute one.  Coming from Diablo 1 to Torchlight felt right.  One town, one dungeon, just keep going deeper... get more stuff... murder hard.  

The only downside... and everyone said the same thing... was no multiplayer.  I convinced a lot of my friends to try it and it was a real shame we couldn't share the experience.  So, when I heard Torchlight II would be multiplayer... I immediately pre-ordered a 4pack so I could share the game with my friends.

Then Diablo 3 hits.  

Then I become aware of Path of Exile.

Then Borderlands 2 is launched on the same day as Torchlight 2.

Now, I'm sitting here in a happy aRPG overload state as if I had just ate too much cake...  But... is that a good thing?

Well... it sucks to do this, but I'm going to do 1 comparison among D3, TL2, and PoE so you can get a feel for where I'm coming from.

Loot:

Diablo 3 (1,000 hours played): Auction house.  Drop rates are balanced so that we ALL share in the drop rate of the best items.  Legendary/Set items are scarce.  Good Legendary/Set items are even more scarce.  Finding things still feels great, but the auction house's shadow looms over the dropped loot off of every elite.  Primary stat stacking, vitality, all resist, crit chance, crit damage, rinse repeat.  All damage linked to weapon damage.

Path of Exile (~80 hours played): You like that white armor piece because it looks cool?  Well, make it awesome by augmenting its stats on your own.  Screw that up?  Well, do it again!  Want something slightly different?  Go for it.  You can basically turn any piece into something relevant and useful.  All stats relevant.  Skills have "stat reqs" so there's a real reason to diversify.  

Torchlight II (8 hours played): Here's a set piece... here are 3 more.  This breast plate has better stats, but you will lose your 3 piece set bonus.  AKA you are making real gear decisions based on more than just a primary stat.  Things drop so fast including relevant set pieces that you'll hardly blink when you get that 3rd piece that completes the set.  Feels good to get new stuff (especially weapons) but early game feels like a constant loot pinata with stuff that SHOULD feel great to equip but doesn't... 

After the 5 hours of Torchlight II last night I simply don't feel like playing it today.  I could tell that the game is good.  I liked what I saw, the voice acting, the quest diversity, the map options, and a lot of other things about Torchlight, but I just go back to Diablo 3 after it's all said and done.  I really am disappointed with MYSELF for not wanting to grind out some more Torchlight II, but I just don't want to play it right now.  

But why?  The loot is coming fast, the humor and feel of the game is refreshing, the quests are enjoyable, the dungeons are challenging... what the hell is wrong?  Well, for one, the game starts very slowly.  I really feel like this is the type of game that will be a thousand times more fun the second time through when you know what you're doing and can increase in power earlier than later.  I made so many stupid mistakes leveling... and there's not much I can do to fix those things.  Online play is difficult for me to figure out.  I couldn't find a game of guys in my situation.  When I hit the server browser I saw a bunch of rooms with 1 person in them when the game supports up to 8.  I tried opening my own public server, but got no interest from anyone.  I am not sure how the game handles people of different levels, so I didn't want to jump into a game that was too low or too high a level... and I have no friends currently playing the game.  The skills are cool, but it feels like you need to devote a lot of time to 1 instead of branching out in many because the monsters seem to "outlevel" your abilities quickly.  

In the end, I am looking forward to playing more, but it's not as urgent a drive as I thought it would be.