![]() Though it's a bit difficult to get a pick-up party going, players can opt to start and game and just leave it open for others to join at their leisure, though eventually it becomes like herding cats when the game gets full and people are just looking for some loot. Multiplayer is a welcome addition to Torchlight 2, allowing up to six players to join up and track down the alchemist. The stable of vendors remains mostly unchanged from the first game, though players now also have the ability to respec up to their last three skill points for the cost of some gold. My Outlander was paired up with Professor Hawking, and he's served my Outlander well, and giving pets the ability to bring back items from peddlers has made trips to the town almost completely pointless, and saved my ass in a number of battles, even with the two minute timer I was able to dodge attacks while at minimal health while my pet tried to haggle over the price of health potions. The number of default pets has been increased and offers up plenty of options. The mostly ambient music sets a mood fairly well and some of the music for the bosses feels quite epic and appropriate. Sound is an improvement just because of the variety of music across the different acts, no more of the melancholy guitar strumming while peddling wares in Torchlight. Torchlight 2 is really about building upon the first game, and improves in a lot of aspects just by having more. Enemies will empty from tents, jump down from ledges and in general will make a hassle of the adventure, but they feel like they do it naturally. With hills and sand dunes that undulate and offer strategic height advantages (and disadvantages), it feels a lot more natural in design and doesn't just give off the feeling of a wide open space with random packs of enemies roaming around looking for trouble. The level design team has also stepped up their game from the first Torchlight and I'm really impressed with the terrain in Torchlight 2. While this is pretty common, I'm talking about a screen flooded with enemies as the rare occurrence where this game suffers any kind of performance hit. The game runs fantastically well on my two year old machine, only having an occasional drop in framerate when there are tons of enemies on screen. There's a lot of color use that keeps the caves and deserts and forests from feeling too monochromatic, and it's all very detailed, and even has some weather effects to keep things fresh. The character models have been improved tremendously but still keep the style of the original Torchlight, and some of the new bosses have some really fantastic graphical tricks that I wish were used more often throughout the game, the boss of the second act in particular comes to mind. These new enemies and the old ones are looking pretty damn spiffy in the 2012. ![]() Along the way players will encounter familiar enemies from the original Torchlight along with a handful of new foes that threaten their adventure at every turn. Though in the case of Torchlight 2, the Alchemist is stealing the essence of Guardians that keep the world in balance, so maybe it's not a total carbon copy. I wasn't expecting a reinvention of the wheel in storytelling, but it came off as a copy to the 'Dark Wanderer' that brought about trouble wherever he went. Honestly it doesn't feel too different from Diablo 2's story, and is perhaps the weakest part of the whole experience. Told through some nifty drawn cutscenes provided by Klei Entertainment, the three chapters of the game span a roughly twenty hour experience for the first playthrough. ![]() ![]() Now that that jab is out of the way, Torchlight 2 follows up shortly after the first game left off, the heart of Ordrak has been taken by The Alchemist, the antagonist to the player's hero who must track down the Alchemist and stop him from harnessing the dark powers the heart possesses. ![]()
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