The absence of another Diablo sequel leaves a noticeable void in the action-RPG genre, and Runic Games takes full advantage by introducing us to Torchlight. This faithful rendition of medieval dungeon crawling delivers in most of the ways we expect and also earns points for increased accessibility.

 

For those not familiar with the genre, an action-RPG tends to take all of the character leveling of an RPG and combine it with, well, lots of action - typically in the form of tromping through a multi-leveled dungeon and smashing hordes of monsters. You can expect a little dialogue, a lot of treasure and items to upgrade your character with, and the destruction of a whole bunch of bad guys.

 

Our Hero

 

As players have three character classes at our disposal:

 

Destroyer – The brawler. The Destroyer is both strong and tough, and wades straight into battle blades a-swinging.

 

Alchemist – The magician. The Alchemist is physically weak, but his spells certainly pack a punch.

 

Vanquisher – The rogue. The Vanquisher excels at ranged combat. Plus, we get to play as a girl.

 

There are no class specific restrictions, so the only thing keeping a Destroyer from wielding spells and wands is his Magic score, and so forth – which is good news for those who would like to multi-class, so to speak.

 

Within each character class, skill trees allow further customization. Playing through only once will allow you to learn just a fraction of the skills available, which enhances the replay value.

 

On top of that, you can choose a canine or feline pet. The pet serves several useful functions, most notably running to town to sell stuff so that we don’t have to leave the dungeon (a true godsend), and also acting as a punching-bag sort of distraction for the baddies while we can sneak up and pummel them (also useful).

 

If we're going to bother having a pet, it would have been nice to have some deeper method of interacting with them, but at least we can feed them potions, or fish if we want to turn them into some other creature.

 

But can’t they learn tricks? Roll over, speak, stay? Or even petting – can we pet our own pet? Sadly, no.

 

Our Town

 

The adventure takes place in the city of Torchlight. This town sits atop a mine of magical ore called Ember. When the miners stumble upon tunnels carved in ancient times to contain some unspeakable evil, there is a very understandable disruption of service.

 

That’s where we come in, as a hero new to the town who will venture into the mines to vanquish the evil beneath.

 

The first thing we notice about the town is that it is incredibly generic. Sure there are a few residences, a little pier, and even a cemetery, but the rest of the town seems specifically to cate r to wandering adventurers who have come to fight the evil in the mines. 

 

Blacksmith, enchanter, goblin tinkerers, wizard, bard – what did all of these people do before the catastrophe? Where are all of the grieving miners' wives? For that matter, where are all of the other wanderers-come-heros?

 

And when we stop to think about it – what sort of time and place is this supposed to be anyways? It seems like a medieval level of technology, especially with the wizards and all, but then there are also firearms. And the bard is a freaking robot – not just some mechanical golem or something, it’s called a “trillbot,” like it came off of a factory floor somewhere.

 

Frankly, no apology is made for any generic-ness or lack of accuracy in the world description. The developers, rightly, understand that this game is more about being enjoyable than realistic or ground-breaking.

 

A certain amount of player jadedness is expected. We won’t spend our time as a player wandering around the town, so let's just get our butts into the mine already.

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