Torchlight Review (Chango Asado)
It might have been good in 2009, but it has just not aged very well.
Pros:
* Simple, intuitive controls
* Fun animations, nice character models and armor/weapon models.
* Fun skills with interesting combat that'll keep enemies coming and dying.
* Charming environment, artstyle and music.
Cons:
* 99% of item drops are trash and drop too frequently. You'll end up heading to town every 5 minutes to clear your inventory.
* Quests are repetitive and get boring almost instantly. They are all of the type "go into this dungeon and collect X item" or "kill X monster in level 7". All of the quests are given by the same two NPCs. Even Fate had more variety than that.
* Fishing is a brain dead minigame and while turning your pet into a creature is fun, it is never made clear what creatures are vulnerable/strong against other creatures.
* Pet, minion and fiend pathing is abysmal. My pets and minions were constantly getting stuck or would stop fighting if other monsters blocked their path and they were in "move to" mode.
* Pets and minions sometimes miss their attacks because the attack animation fails to complete before the enemies move away. This makes pets and minions half as effective as they should be, and honestly made one talent tree for the Alchemist feel like a complete waste. Once I noticed this issue, I had to roll a new character.
* Gems are too few and far in-between to make gem combination relevant. Also, gems on armor feel like a waste.
* Talent trees were given a formidable try, but still fell flat from expectations. One big issue I see here is that you get one point per experience or fame level increase, but you can put up to 10 points per talent, meaning you'll be spending a long time maxing out one good talent, and in turn, not getting to explore the rest of the tree, making the gameplay feel somewhat monotonous.
Overall, I feel like Torchlight is a re-skin of Fate, but with downgraded mechanics and somehow less inspiration.