The Foxhole Reloaded... Again!

Originally published on August 18, 2013 by Silver Sorrow (https://starfoxweb.com/smf2/index.php?action=profile;u=3)

[This is the first "full" review I've done in several years; forgive me if it's a little rough around the edges.]

Torchlight is a third-person RPG with an isometric view and a heavy dependency on clicking. The plot is kept simple enough (loads of enemies, bad guy needs destroying, etc.), and emphasis is placed on the myriad ways in which you can turn a menagerie of hostiles into chunky red goo in the name of fame, fortune, and massive XP.


The eponymous town of Torchlight is a mining town built above a rich vein of Ember, which is some sort of magical crystal that conveys -- I don't know, magical? -- effects on people and objects when socketed in armor and weapons. People mine the Ember and make a good living from it.

But of course something goes wrong. A scholar...mage...whatever...goes in search of Deep Ember, which would be a good name for a 70's retro cover band. ("Thank you. This next number is 'Hello It's Me' by one Mr. Todd Rundgren...") The guy is corrupted by corrupt Ember and causes all kinds of problems, and then there's some sort of ancient entity that needs its ass stomped. Hmmmph.

My apologies. I know it's vague and more than partially inaccurate, but to go into further detail would spoil what little plot there is. I mean, come on: you know that you're going to be chasing the bad guy and ultimately confronting him in some sort of lair situation and also fighting whatever evil entity he's partnered up with, so it's not like there's a clever twist along the way. You're not going to come face-to-face with the bastard just to reach a well-reasoned compromise; he's not going to relent his evil ways and the two of you aren't going to give tube socks to the homeless or mentor children for Jeebus. You're going to kill him, his friend, and his nine hundred million minions. That's it.

[Side Note: I am compelled by the voices in my head -- growing more insistent with each passing moment -- to point out that there's a mage lady who shepherds you through the shadow of the Valley of Generic Motivation, and her voice actress is the same one who voiced the Dark Elves in Skyrim. That's a little surreal coming off a three-year Skyrim bender.]

In your search for the plot, you can play as a typical tank dunderhead, an alchemist (i.e., a squishy mage), or a female city guard...I'm not making this up, it's really happening. Point is: you go to Torchlight, pick up a few side quests, fight monsters in a variety of underground settings, and either win the game or become so bored by the monotony that you break a cheekbone when your face hits the keyboard.


Character creation is straightforward. As I mentioned, you can choose from three classes: male tank (Destroyer), male mage (Alchemist), and a female rogue (Vanquisher). That's right, each class has one gender and one appearance, so you won't be choosing from 238 different hairstyles in a rainbow of color choices here, son.

The greatest amount of freedom you have in shaping your character (besides gender and career) is what type of helper pet you want: a cat or a dog. This is all down to your personality type, of course: dog people tend to be simpletons, amiable buffoons prone to herd mentality; cat people are aloof jerks, disturbed loners who hate others. So of course I chose a cat.

The retail box copy of the game had an additional pet available, a ferret. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about someone who has a weasel for a pet.

This packmule pet helps you fight, but mostly it's like a second inventory that can be sent to town to sell the crap you give it. That's the best thing about the game, really: not having to stop adventuring so as to trudge back to town in order to get ripped off by a merchant. This way, they can rip you off by proxy. That's different, at least.


Torchlight's UI / HUD isn't complex, being somewhat easy to understand...the red thing is your health meter, the blue thing is your mana, those are the quick-slots for assigning spells, potions, and so on.

As for how the game is rendered, it's presented in a typical isometric view (that is: almost top-down, but at an angle); you can zoom way out, which is how I played, as it gives an improved view of the area, or zoom way in, which gives you a definitive view of how low-res your character's ass really is. It's a 2009 game and meant to look cheesy on top of that, so I'll leave the graphics alone. They were going for cheesy, right? They really meant for it to look that way?

Never mind.

Menus -- Skills, Character Sheet, etc. -- are large and easy to read. Yes. I was going to expand on that thought, perhaps even offer a deeper insight (relatively speaking; this is *me*, after all) into the menus...however, in the middle of composing my thoughts I was called away to yet another dental appointment. After five fillings and not a little berating for things that are beyond my control (no, really), I have no idea what the hell I was going to say. Also, my face was completely numb, my lower lip felt huge, and I had a bad taste in my mouth. So now I know what it's like to be a Kardashian.

I guess what I'm trying to say is "to hell with it."


It's not really a complex game. Run into an area, blast the crap out of a million monsters in mobs of a hundred thousand or so each, collect gold and a ridiculous amount of useless crap, find the exit. Repeat this process until your skull feels like it's full of boiling dog excrement.

Most of my time was spent examining what had I picked up, exchanging my current gear (armor, weapons) for slightly better gear, and then either sending my pet off to town to sell what I didn't need, or going to town myself to put the stuff I couldn't bear to sell in my Stash chest. (Oh, right: you can store things you want to keep in your Stash, and items you want to share with any other characters you may create can be placed in the Shared Stash chest.) In short: lots of inventory management.

Over the course of the game, you will pick up weapons, pieces of armor, bits of Ember you can put into sockets of weapons and armor (if they have sockets, that is) to enhance them, and so on. The problem is that there is so much stuff...so many decisions...that you'll be constantly replacing whatever you have with something new, even if it's by a small margin. And a lot of it is just useless crap.

And by useless, I mean...well...useless. On the one hand, you have the equipment that is far inferior to what you have; on the other is the stuff that's better than what you have, but you can't use it because you don't meet the stupid conditions. For example: if I'm a level 20 Vanquisher, what's the point of giving me a pair of boots that I can't wear until I'm level 25? I never could stand conditional requirements for putting on a friggin' shirt, for Cthulhu's sake.

You level up through an XP system (as opposed to the Honor System, wherein you swear on a stack of Bibles and your mother's eyes that you absolutely, positively killed as many squeaking low-res hostiles as you claim). With each level up, you're given five points to distribute among Strength (damage output), Dexterity (damage done by ranged weapons), Magic (duh), and Defense (also duh); you're also given one point for your Skills, which could be anything from how fast you shoot to a passive ability. It's up to you, believe it or not.

That's right: yes, there are guns in the game. You don't have to rely just on swords or wands, you can also shoot things. There isn't an ammo problem, so hooray for that.

There's also a Fame counter; you gain fame through trouncing champion monsters, completing quests, and so on. The benefit is that whenever you reach a new fame level, you're given an extra point to spend on Skills.

The biggest problem I had with the game was the view; there were so many things in desperate need of killin' that it was necessary for me to zoom my view out as far as possible, just to see what was way far away shooting at me. So the smaller monsters became these vague blobs.

Also a problem was the cursor, of course. It was hard to see and I would often lose track of it in the colorful slaughter.

...but I could barely contain my joy when a boss/champion monster died, dropping a dozen items and loads of gold clumps in the middle of the carnage. Am I selecting a bad guy to kill or picking up loot? A bit of both, actually. MADDENING.

In summary, it's a lot of inventory management, stat-shepherding as you level up, and slogging through dungeons to slaughter hordes of enemies. After a while I came to feel like a genocidal maniac as I mowed down zillions of kamikaze monsters intent on turning me into a fine red mist. Eventually, I became bored with the whole mechanic and, inevitably, contemptuous of the whole affair.

Really, though...it isn't bad game. In fact, it's fairly good. I've played bigger games with bigger budgets that were complete crap compared to Torchlight.

Oh, almost forgot: there's a fishing mini-game, and the fish you catch can be fed to your pet in order to turn it into something else -- such as a spider -- for a brief amount of time. There's a little more to the concept than that, but who cares.


You may find the mobs overwhelming even on the easiest difficulty setting. It's okay; not all of us spend 16 hours a day glued to the damn [gaming platform]. For those of us who have lives outside the box, there's a solution that doesn't involve figuring out how to activate god mode. All it requires is patience and a high tolerance for mindless repetition. Failing to meet those requirements, I'd just go with god mode. You're the ultimate judge of your own principles after all, not some zit-encrusted 14 year-old racist homophobe using mommy's 'net account to call everyone a "f@g0t!!!11".

It's pretty simple and involves no cheating to level up to godlike proportions, which is probably why the devs removed it from Torchlight 2. ::)  All you have to do is use Map Scrolls, which you can find as special loot or buy from vendors in town or in dungeons. They're usually described as being for certain levels, "Map Scroll (Level 12 - 25)," for example. Using the scroll opens a portal to a dungeon with overpowered monsters that you can slaughter, in order to gather more loot and XP. Do this dozens of times, and you'll be a god before you finish the main quest. You'll also be so numbed to the entire experience that you might be tempted to wander off and engage in a bit of Skyrim. Persevere.

But that isn't all, oh no! Each class has an AOE spell (Vanquisher's is "Exploding Shot") that blasts the living crap out of the target(s) in a wide area at the cost of a certain amount of mana. Let me summarize my experience:

I played a Vanquisher. I upgraded my Dexterity and Exploding Shot as much as possible. Got a couple of pistols. Bought as many Map Scrolls as I could. Got a crapload of health and mana potions. Used the scrolls. Leveled up through sheer bloody-mindedness. Before long I was so powerful that I pretty much breezed through the rest of the game.

"But Silver," you snivel, "where's the fun in that?" You worm. Do you honestly think that suffering is the key to happiness? If that's your philosophy, then I'll be happy to forward your name to several religions that will be glad to welcome a masochistic blockhead such as yourself into their twisted, blood-soaked ranks. Suffering does not build character. It just pisses me off and makes me want to punch someone in the throat. Specifically, the drooling morons who insist that everything in life should require monumental effort to achieve, from winning a land war in Asia to opening a jar of blackberry jelly. Screw that nonsense.


It's a fun little game with a few annoyances.