Having spent the last two weeks playing Torchlight exclusively I figured I should finally put a full review together. I covered a lot of the basics of the game in my initial impressions so I’m not going to go over all that again.  For my first playthrough I went as an Alchemist mostly focused on the Lore skill tree. That gives me a lot of minions who I can spawn to attack for me as well as strengthens my pet dog.  Here is a breakdown of my skills currently. The great thing about my Nether Imps and Golems is that they stay alive unless an enemy actually kills them. Unlike spells that summon Archers, Zombies, or Skeletons which will disappear after a time. In addition to my minions my primary attack was my Ember Bolt skill. I very seldom used my my staff or wands. I enjoyed playing through like this because I was on my laptop with a generic USB mouse.  So, I did not have to be as precise with my clicking since my minions find their own enemies and the Ember Bolt seeks enemies.  When I play through as a Destroyer I’ll be doing it on my PC with a larger monitor and better mouse.   I already started playing through a second time on my laptop as a Vanquisher and I’m glad to be back home to move over t the PC to finish up playing through as her because I need more accuracy for  her ranged attacks. My Alchemist is up to level 54 now because after completing the story I worked through about 12 levels of the Shadow Vault and a few add-on mod dungeons…more on those shortly.

I really enjoyed the main campaign o Torchlight and the story that keeps the loot grinding going. Torchlight is a loot lovers dream.  There is a ton of stuff being dropped all the time and you can add rings and amulets that add additional 2 or 4% bonus chance of getting better loot. The majority of the enemies are not to tough to deal with but there are lots of them.  Then you’ll run into a boss who takes a considerable more damage to take down.  They are always fun because you mind your health and manna while trying keep spells going and minions attacking.  All while getting in as many attacks as you can while dodging.  The final boss of the main story was the biggest example of this. No spoilers on who it is, but they have a ton of health. It was probably a 5 minute long battle. At one point I spent like 30 seconds just running in wide circles around the boss casting spells that call people to attack for me and then running more to keep from getting surrounded.  It was an epic fight.

After completing the main story I like that the game does not end but you unlock the Shadow Dungeon.  It is a never ending dungeon that just keeps going deep.  Each level is different and you can work through them to level up your character, complete more quests, and find more loot. Plus if you get tired of grinding you can always stop to fish for a while. The actual fishing mechanic is quite simple, wait until the rings overlap and click.  When you do you catch a fish that temporarily either turns your pet into another creature or gives it a bonus modifier. Fishing is a nice little distraction if you ever feel things getting repetitive.  After about 5 minutes you’ll have a ton of new fish to try out. It is really fun to turn your pet into other creatures of an hour and see how they respond.

Another great feature of Torchlight is that they developers openly support modding and released tools for their community to create mods for Torchlight.  They have not been out a long time but already there are a lot of really great mods.  I would highly recommend using Torchleech to find and apply the mods to your Torchlight install.  It is a mod manager that allows you to install mods directly with links back the the original posts and a compatibility check tool to make sure that there are no issues between the mods you install. Here are the mods I’m running (that I can remember off the top of me head). I found most of these by sorting TorchLeech to show the highest rated mods.

Aegis Maps – Volume 2
Aegis Maps – Volume 1
Forgotten Fortress of Rukom
Heron’s Sword Pack
Mine Booster Pack
Potions Stacksize Mod
Respec Mod
Starch the Monster Hunter
The Mysterious Man

The other nice bonus is that since I went with the Steam version of Torchlight I have 66 achievements to try and unlock. Since I was already mostly through the game when they added achievements I’ll have to play through it again to get most of them, but I have no issue with that.  Some of them I’ll probably never get, and Steam achievements don’t quite have the same satisfaction as their Xbox Live counterparts, but it is still a nice bonus.

With the number of hours I’ve already put into Torchlight I already feel like I got my moneys worth, and I’m only just scratching the surface of how much I could play. I’ve got two more playthroughs at least so I can try each of the other characters more thoroughly. Plus, a lot of additional mods are being created that I’m sure will be worth playing.  The additional stand alone dungeons like the Aegis Maps and Starch the Monster Hunter are really a lot of fun.  If you still have not tried Torchlight you really owe it to yourself to try the demo at least.  It is possibly the best $20 I’ve spent on a game.