Torchlight II

Just love the look and feel of this. Unusually straightforward for an RPG. Definitely not the most challenging I've played (neither was the prequel but I bought this on the basis I enjoyed that and I enjoyed this as well). If I knew someone who never played RPGs this is probably the one I'd try to introduce them to. A game which I really can describe as fun to play.

Played: 20 - 30 Hrs Class: Berserker (Other classes are: Mage, Engineer (Fighter), Outlander (Rouge) Mods: Torchfinal and Torchfinal addon. ( Note on mods... most of the popular ones on nexus don't seem to work with the newest version of this game for some reason, which some mod creators note on their pages. I'm guessing synergies still does but I did not use that one.) Story: Not much depth to it. One of the hero's from the first game went bad and now you gotta carve your way to where he is and put a stop to his plans to "Save The World". Gameplay: Standard diablo clone. Wack monsters, get loot, level up, rinse and repeat. The best part of this game is that process. The combat is very satisfying once your character gets some levels and decent equipment. Once the abilities get strong enough most monster don't fall over, they evaporate. The developers did a great job showing how much of power house your character turns into. Sound: Good. The sound effects deliver the sizzle, pow, zap of combat well enough. Control: You click, it evaporates. What else is needed? Standard Diablo Clone controls. . Graphics: Very detailed and has held up well due to the "cartoonish" type of graphics used. This is a 10 year old game at this point though so it is not super high res, still looks good though. Some of the armor and weapons can look "samey" Overall: I've had this game for a while and just never got around to it. I beat grim dawn and I see where some of the people that worked on that also worked on this and on diablo. They have a similar feel in some areas. What they really nailed in this title though is the combat flow. Once you get in to battle it just works. The enemies go flying and the whole area is painted a pretty new shade of yellow, green, red, black, etc and once the dust settles and the fires go out there is usually some new shiny stuff to equip and skill points to assign. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a fun ARPG.

First, the good: - Easy-to-learn. It's a Diablo clone. You point and click to kill monsters. - Bright, colorful art style. Think 2000s-era World of Warcraft. - Fun gameplay loop. Kill monsters, collect loot, find the next dungeon. Now, the disappointing: - The aforementioned gameplay loop is only an inch deep, and gets repetitive QUICKLY. Near the end of the campaign, the game basically plays exactly as it does in the beginning. - The storyline/role-playing is almost nonexistent. The entire game is a series of NPCs telling you "go to [dungeon] and get me [object]" and that's it. If you feel like reading walls of expository text that the NPCs dump on you at the beginning and end of each quest, you can piece together a very generic and unengaging fantasy story, but it's not worth the effort. - Inventory management is needlessly frustrating. A few tweaks here and there could have made the experience more enjoyable.

As someone who played first TL and other ARPGs I was very interested in TL2, since this game received so many positive reviews, and it was created by a lot of ex Diablo developers, including my favorite composer. Some fans are saying that this is better game than Diablo 3. I’m personally not a big fan of D3, but I consider D2 best game I ever played. I thought that that must mean that I will like TL2, but I do not love this game. To me, this game was so boring, that 26 or so hours that I spent playing, seemed like eternity. Diablo 3 is class above. On the positive side, game runs fine with no annoying issues, gameplay is fluid, music and sounds are very cool. Item game was cool, as well as number of spells you can use. Animations are good. While graphics can be nice, it is not the style that I enjoy, as I do prefer “realistic” style. Of course, I knew this before I played the game, so this is not that important. Story is just uninteresting, and the world is not that interesting to me as well. Environments in particular were very dull, except some parts of act 3. Monsters are mostly large and colorful (not memorable), spell effect are exaggerated, you cannot really tell what is going when you have more than two on the screen. On normal difficulty, game is too easy. Too many items are dropping. These are all Diablo 3 traits as well, so I do not see why people call it Diablo 2 successor. One of the most annoying things for me is huge number of bosses, as that just diminishes the importance of the big fight. I think that players who enjoy mechanics, item hunts, playing with friends and farming could possibly find this game interesting, as these things seem to be on point. But if you want memorable experience, story, world, memorable monsters, cool item look, interesting characters, and to be honest, any innovation, this is probably not going to leave good impression. I would recommend anyone to try Hob from the same developer, it is more interesting and original.

Super fun, great improvements over the first part. Thanks for a Linux release!