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Editor’s note: I just finished my first run through Torchlight, and I can’t wait to give it a go on its hardest setting. It gives you a sense of power unlike any Diablo clone that I’ve played — and that was one of the draws for Michael as well. -Jason
I’m playing on Very Hard in Torchlight, the recent action-RPG from Runic Games, and my hero is only level 18. Twitter buzz told me the game was too easy on Normal, and many players advocated Hard mode for an actual challenge. But I chose Very Hard. And I just died for the 100th time.
What was I thinking?
Hard mode is a different way for me to play. Ever since I decided that I actually wanted to play through my games, I’ve always chosen Normal or Easy modes. Usually, the experience and story hook me enough that a challenge isn’t what I’m after. Games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic come to mind. I was so enthralled by the characters in that game that I left the combat on Easy so I didn’t have to think about it. Pulling off strategic victories in a Dungeons & Dragons-style fight just wasn’t where that game shined for me.
Torchlight’s different. The secret sauce to Diablolikes (which is what we might as well call them) is twofold. First, there’s the loot. Second, there’s the sublime slaughter your loot summons. Hundreds of games feature character progression and loot. What makes the formula so addictive in the good Diablolikes (Diablo 2, Titan Quest, Torchlight) is how the character progression is linked with power.
Here’s an example.
My Destroyer (i.e., a Barbarian) has just run for his life across a rickety rope bridge, downing health potions faster than a freshman guzzles beer at his first hazing in order to recover from his latest scrape. A few Pygmies, diminutive things with sharp sticks that immediately take me back to Diablo 2’s third Act, give chase, but the rest linger back, waiting for me to cross back to their room. I lay my glowing ax into the pursuing Pygmies and then stop to wonder how the hell I am going to take down some two dozen Pygmies, a half a dozen Spiders twice my size, and their even larger brood mother. And let’s not forget the two Pygmy minibosses that ignite me with green flaming nonsense and resurrect the tribal pests faster than I can kill them.
So I take a deep breath, summon an enormous energy shield and a flying flaming sword, infuse my weapon with elemental energy, and cast a dervish spell that increases my attack speed. Finger hovering over the health potion button, I wade into battle, confident in my sidekick. Because, aside from chomping my enemies and carting my loot back to town, my dog also casts a level 2 fireball and raises skeletal archers from the ground.
I open with a ground stomp that tosses the Pygmies away from me. Then I close in and smash the ground with my hammer. The screen illuminates and shakes as the fiery tendrils snake across the floor. Dozens of orange numbers pop over heads to indicate that I just razed the entire group.
Most of the Pygmies and Spiders are down and the rest are knocked away and dazed, and I lay into the nearest Necromancer with my cleave attack until its searing, shattering attack knocks the creature down, blood splattering across the stone tile. By now, the Spiders and Pygmies are back, so I slam my hammer down again. With it comes another satisfying crunch and another spray of blood, magma, and bodies.
On Very Hard, I spend a good deal of time running for my life or running back from town to where I died. But persistence pays off. My shiny new ax (the one with plus-20 to life steal) and gleaming breastplate (which reflects 20 damage and increases my elemental resistance by 10 to each — and has two sockets to boot), along with finally grasping how to combine my spells and abilities effectively, inevitably brings me to a point where I can begin to demolish forces that once sent me scurrying for cover.
My fiancée is playing Sacred 2 next to me, and the difference is obvious. Yes, her character has more polygons, but the flashy effects of her spells fall flat. I rarely see her take on anything bigger than a human, and the most ferocious beasts are uninteresting in design and present stale encounters. Whenever I see her engaged in a boss fight, all I see is a stiff stabbing animation and a boss health meter slowly ticking down. My boss fights? A spectacle of explosions, a hammering of fingers on the health potions, and a smug grin as I stand immovable against an enormous, soul-eating juggernaut. And then, of course, it dies, and loot spills out on the ground.
The fiancée, in Sacred 2, is also getting new loot and enjoying it, but there’s a difference. Torchlight’s rewards are tangible. You don’t fight eight-legged, screen-filling insectoid behemoths once a game. You fight them several times a level, along with intimidating Treants and Dwarves piloting giant mechs armed with Gatling guns. Roughly half of the enemies you face match your size. The rest are monstrosities.
The secret is in the spectacle. Becoming powerful in Diablo 2 meant you could blast through dungeons in heartbeats. Power in Torchlight does the same, but it also means you get to wade into an impossible army and tear it to pieces with spells that rend the entire screen along with the baddies.
I am, of course, playing Torchlight to level up and get some new gear. But I’m also playing it to kick ass. It’s a satisfaction that is hard to find in games. So far, Torchlight is toeing the line (on Very Hard anyway) between frustration and opportunity just perfectly.
That said, I think Hard mode is probably the sweet spot in this game.
Also, go buy it. It’s $20!