Torchlight II

c'est fun

0/10 for originally. Torchlight is FATE's illegitimate love child but this is just a totally shameless clone of Diablo 2. "But some of the Devs of that game worked on this one" And? Why does that validate reselling the same product with a marginally different skin? To sell a story so derivative and pointless they just take the same beats and shove them here. Although it's not quite that perfect clone, there's also hints of Diablo 3, hints of World of Warcraft (the Werewolf town was giving me major Worgen town vibes. The most incredible thing about this game is that it came out in 2012, not the early 2000's, but years after Titan quest, Diablo 1 and 2, half a year after 3, months after Borderlands and a "looter shooter" but lets face it's its just a first person ARPG. And frankly the fact it came out 3 years after the first torchlight is mad, cause for as mid as that game is, this does so many things worse (mostly because it's so desperate to become Diablo 2 it makes the same mistakes that does). I don't even like Diablo 2, bored me in a similar way this did in it's complete lack of personality. But even I can recognise the 12 yo older game is better in every way. When this came out I remember bouncing off it so hard several times, apparently in 2015 I beat it...I cannot remember doing that at all, which says a lot about this games memorability. The story is bland, its a Wish version of Diablo 2, there's no personable characters in this (much in the same way Diablo 2 constantly moving through towns left no one memorable compared to Diablo 1 where not only do I remember characters, when others use quotes from Diablo, 90% of the time it's from the first Diablo). Skills are boring, most options are minor stat increases that should have been left to stats or gear, I barely changed a thing from beginning to end. In the 1st I was constantly swapping out gear, here all of the itemizations seems so bad, so lacking in creativity or fun or personality it's amazing its a sequel. If you MUST play this game (don't play a good ARPG invest your time in that progression not a dead game of a dead series with dead multiplayer) pick ranged. Melee is so miserable, every area is completely bloated with "flees when allies perish" or "leaps back" (btw for the creatively challenged, that's functionally the same thing), it's not the odd enemy archetype, it's every single area, with SEVERAL types of them, and by their hundreds. Devs are you allergic to players having fun? Sure as heck felt like it. Bigger open maps...yay more wanderings though nothing, just randomly generated snooze fests, so glad Randomly generated maps are no longer the selling the point they used to be, can't beat an actual crafted zone with points of interest and good designed flow. Speaking of flow, great choice having the 2nd to last area being so barren of enemies, right as the stories ramping up, you slow down the combat, genius. And whats with the alchemy system? Gone from an easily readable series of progressive steps up to...whatever the heck it feels like. "Fortune smiles on you" so why have I got back the exact same tier of gem for the cost of 3 of them or a lower tier of a different type and not always the same type either. So for all my merging attempts I literally made zero progress that drops themselves didn't do. Honestly games like this need their own category of slop, it's not AI, it's not low effort, it's not even asset flips, but what devs like this, pocket pair, concerned ape do, is chop up the bodies of popular gaming tropes and memes and poor them into a trough for the masses to feed on, the quality and how those things go together don't have any point beyond filling up the masses. The content goes nowhere and means nothing. And why people praise "supporting the original devs"...when all they've done is make a mid clone of a product that already exists. One of the most joy devoid experiences I've had with a game recently, struggled to get through it for this review but I wanted to. There are better ARPGs to play...and many of them came out before this unoriginal tripe did. And it's a shame, I love the Stylized fantasy art style and a good ARPG like that would be a breath of fresh air in a lot of dark broody ones but somehow they have the fun visuals but totally forgot fun anywhere else in the game.