Game Review: Torchlight

Runic Games Diablo clone comes to the Xbox Live Arcade in all of it's repetitive glory.

 All reviews may contain spoilers of the games story and ending.

 Torchlight on XBLA is a port of a 2009 PC game, the guys over at Runic Games did a great job on the port. Torchlight tells the story a hero (your character) who comes to Torchlight and is immediately thrown into conflict. Your recruited by Syl to help her find her mentor, Master Alric. You come to find out that Master Alric is the man behind the attacks on Torchlight. You set out on a quest to stop him by going down a spiraling staircase of randomized dungeons. That is basically the entire setting for Torchlight, there is no visiting the outskirts of town or taking a boat across the river to reach a new country. You spend the entire game going deeper and deeper below Torchlight. This is a nice mechanic for such a simple game and the developers do change up the scenery every five levels to keep it a fresh.

Torchlight is an action role-playing game, similar to games like Diablo (having been developed by two of Diablo's designers). You choose between playing three different classes, Destroyer (melee focus), Alchemist (magic focus), and Vanquisher (ranged focus). The only thing that really separates these characters are the stat increases you get when you level up. You run around hacking-and-slashing at enemies as you progress through each level of the dungeon. This gameplay mechanic is very repetitive and for some people it can cause the game to become very boring after awhile. I'm a fan of the hack-and-slash genre, having played games like Dynasty Warriors and N3, so I wasn't too bother by the repetitive nature, but others may not feel the same way.

The graphics are very nice and not too hard on the eyes. They're similar to the style of graphics used in World of Warcraft, a more cartoony visual than a realistic one. The music is a nice listen and fits the world of Torchlight with its fantasy themed soundtrack. Some people were concerned that the controls on the XBLA version wouldn't convert well, but no worries they did a great job. You use the X button to do all your attacks, you map spells and skills to the other buttons, and the bumpers are used to replenish your HP or Mana. Torchlight doesn't offer too much replayability, once you beat the game all you unlock is an endless dungeon themed after the main story's dungeon.

Like most videogames, Torchlight has it's share of flaws, but don't let that stop you from enjoying a fun game. At a fifteen dollar price tag you're getting a lot compared to some games you pay sixty dollars for. With three different characters to try out and about a 6-8 hour story, Torchlight will give you enough reasons to come back for more.