One of lime and another of sand. Torchlight fans had the right to open the champagne as soon as TL Frontiers took another direction, but just because that same project has been reconfigured as TL3 doesn’t exactly mean it’s magically wonderful. Is the final result okay? Yes, but do not expect the big deal: almost thank you that it has not been launched in a bad state.
As Halloween approaches, I can’t help but think of Torchlight 3 as an unfortunate Frankenstein monster, who lives, thinks and moves but feels a bit weird altogether: as many of you know, the game began its journey with the nickname Frontiers. After the closure of Runic Games , Echtra thought about betting on the free to play format in a spin-off, but by contrasting this decision with the fans, it was concluded that a premium product better fit the expectations of everyone. I imagine this transition must not have been easy at the design level, but in the end, that’s what early accesses are for, no? Well yes, and this is definitely a much better game than I expected, thanks in part to the ideas of its most dedicated players. But at the same time I can’t help but think that there are areas that are not quite up to the standards of Diablo III (2012) or Path of Exile (constantly evolving since 2013).
It has a handful of good things, eye. The sense of humor that the Torchlight series has always shown is still present, intact; The character classes are interesting and original, the boss encounters have that tiny component of ‘bullet hell’ that is so appreciated in this class of games, and it also has small innovations of its own harvest such as the implementation of the customizable forts, a relatively successful implementation of pets, or the “Fazeer’s Dun’djinn challenge,” a sort of ‘endgame’ dungeon that’s not as cool as I’d like, but at least it entertains and more or less fulfills its duties.
TL3 is an amalgamation of “things that could have gone better “, indeed. The evolution of the game throughout its early access is nothing short of abysmal: it has only improved in all its aspects. We are facing an enjoyable gameYes, but it is as if so much time had been spent correcting and improving aspects of the game, that there was not enough to achieve that factor of genius that would make us recommend it to anyone. Personally, I would say that this game will end up parading through my digital library without pain or glory because it is too linear in every way – more on this subject below – but of course, there are opinions of all kinds, and I insist: it’s fine, it has many things good, but it’s the feeling of “this game has been doing better for years” or “this other one does it better for free” that I think is going to put a lot of potential buyers back. If you are still interested in the subject, here are more details about it.
Have fun, but only as I tell you
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A video tour of Torchlight 3: from cozy fort to a spider-infested mine
You probably know that saying, “don’t ask the elm for pears.” Torchlight 3 embraces that saying. It’s a smooth, entertaining action RPG with charisma and humor, but also one that makes it clear very quickly that it has little to do against the most popular alternatives of the genre. At all levels. It has the essentials at the level of map design, base of operations, options to improve our character, and more or less imitates some of the most popular post-credit options in the genre. You have a few good ideas. And this is where we come, because as I anticipated, in broad strokes it is the result of a failed project that has been rebuilt with the best success rate that we can realistically ask for. However, it has its good moments from the beginning and the occasional pleasant surprise.
You cannot pause the game alone, there is a system similar to the “battle pass” … you can tell from leagues what the direction of Frontiers was.
Personally, I would say that one of his greatest successes is how he poses class systems . Instead of going for the typical base classes and their crushed archetypes, hit the spot with (four) more original archetypes. So, the forging that I have used for most of the time in this review is actually a valid robot in both melee and ranged, and has a branch of skills for each option, but also its own heat mechanic. that allows him to transform cooldowns into powerful abilities at any range. The Twilight Mage, on the other hand, combines black and white magics that are balanced against each other, again, through different skill trees.
But there is an additional agent in these trees , and that is that to the two that each class has by default we add a third tree as deep as the previous ones, only with more generalized effects. This subclass or specialization is given by a common relic . So, I have bet on the blood-drinking relic, which serves to generate damage over time and absorb life; And although they stay with us for a long time, the truth is that once you progress enough it is possible to create the rest by some construction for the fort. And this is where we begin to find the first big problem in the game, which is the linear factor that has been anticipating you from the beginning of this article.
I level up, get a skill point. I decide to spend it on my melee tree, and oh, surprise! I unlock a new skill, in which I can invest more points or cruelly ignore it and equip the next one. There is nothing else to choose from. By the time I invest 15 points, I will have absolutely unlocked all the skills of that subclass, and my only chance will be to invest more points to empower what I already have. Ball point, there is literally no more. There are no variants for each skill as in D3, nor can you choose the order in which they will appear: you advance and that’s it. The same for absolutely all subclass trees.
It becomes heavy that the average mission of the campaign is ‘get to this site and kill this boss’The same philosophy also applies to maps , hand-recreated with semi-random enemies. Yes, there are some environments more open than others, some have goblins and others spiders, but what ends up being tiresome is that the average mission of the campaign is neither more nor less than “get to this place and kill this boss”. Checking the details of the mission you can verify that indeed “this site” is reached by crossing the last area you have unlocked and looking for that cave at the end of that one. It is likely that the next mission will send you to the same area again, only instead of finding the cave, now you have to reach the passage that connects the next area. And it’s not that I have anything against washing maps and searching for caves, on the contrary; it’s just that the narrative accompanimentIt is conspicuous by its absence and when it is there it is rather poor at all levels and in the end it ends up being openly lazy, as if everything were an excuse to advance to the next area that you see in gray every time you open the world map.
There’s no question at all: the way the worlds are interconnected is the hardest part of the entire game to swallow, and the point where probably all the criticisms you can find converge. And what happens to what is inside each zone once you get there? There are some pillars with temporary, unimaginative, slightly useful powers; a handful of traps you can use to your advantage, again unimaginative. Against him they play the dubious solution that has been given to the issue of visibility through the environment and especially the fact that there is a terrible shortage of enemy archetypes.; In their favor, it can be said that these enemies are quite well animated and that seeing the goblins emerging from any hole feels careful, like something out of an animated film, better than in other games of this style.
Logically, when these opponents die they drop gold and lootof different rarity with random affixes. I think the demands of the hands are well balanced because those of one hand are offset by shields or accessories, while those that are used with two hands come equipped with various affixes, often forming synergies with each other. I have not seen any kind of particularly novel mechanics, since elementals usually work with the application of weaknesses, or external agents; and physical, with damage and critical chance or stacks of speed and damage. It would have been nice if the enemies at least formed events, herds of elites or clustered on the same screen making the most difficult abilities to conjure to take on some prominence, but this is rarely the case. Put yourself in my place: you spend about 10 seconds of continuous fire, completely immobile, only and exclusively to load the highest level of heat and to be able to launch embers to a distant group. You end up stunning two large spiders and a small one that just appeared. It was not worth it.
It is true, at least, that the game is agile and generous with loot from the beginning and you don’t have to go far for pieces of higher rarities to start falling, forcing you to choose between several small-time affixes or a few more specialized . And what if you don’t like what you got? A small blessing that could already be implemented in other ARPGs: you can put your junk in your pet’s inventoryand ask him to sell them in town for you. You lose their aid in combat for a while, but at least it saves you time and effort. A pity that the value of the objects is so unbalanced that there is not even a way to evaluate the quality of the ‘rolls’. Be that as it may, pets are undoubtedly a mini point in favor of the game: they do not justify their purchase, far from it, but they are more than welcome. And you’re going to see a lot of them.
During the character creation screen we choose a pet – owl, llama or dog – almost as if it would stay with us throughout the game, but make no mistake: it will take a few hours until you find another in a special “chest”. In fact, you will find many, although you can only equip one at a time. They fight alongside you and have a small selection of skills at our disposal. But beyond capturing the attention of the enemies and granting us some small power-up, they end up being useful because of the possibility of asking them to sell objects and that’s it. Something surprising, because the game has a lot of interest in you getting all of them as if they were Pokémon. For example, when defeating a certain type of enemy a portal may appear. After reading the description of this, you may want to cross and try your luck with the boss on the other side. If you win, you will almost always get loot and a new pet that will probably last only a short while by your side.
The vast majority of skills are unlocked during the main course, and later on, also through the Legendarium.
It would have been nice if at least the enemies formed events, herds of elites or clustered on the same screenIn the worst case, you will die. Potions in Torchlight 3 are purchased from a merchant or appear very rarely as random loot and can be accumulated to a small amount. If you run into a boss you are not prepared against, bad thing. You cannot pause the game even if you are playing solo, much less in the inventory menu, so you are still forced to fight a tough opponent using limited potions. If you run out and you don’t have a good life steal, maybe it’s time to say goodbye to the objects related to your life, as if it were an MMO. Since they usually come with attributesvery useful, that can force you to rethink your character specialization just for being killed. Of course, take that as advice, don’t create the whole character around these kinds of objects. Be that as it may, we must add to all this that bosses tend to abuse the same mechanics (shoot a group of fireballs, throw rocks or run in that direction) although the fighting feels somewhat intense and rewarding when winning.
By the time you reach the more advanced content of the program, you will be doing essentially two things: improving your fort, and challenging dungeons.. The first is a kind of extension of the typical town that serves as a base of operations, so that apart from the most basic merchants you will have the possibility of building your own trunks, decorative objects and most importantly, an altar of enchantments. to get better affixes and passives from the Legendarium (kind of like Kanai’s cube from Diablo 3, which has been active since 2015). The second is that “Dun’djinn challenge” that I mentioned in the opening paragraphs and which are naturally a simple pun to say ‘dungeon’. And it’s not exactly a roguelike, but in this sense it resembles it. The challenge is actually an item for the fort that is earned at the end of the campaign. In it, we are offered the possibility of choosing challenge cards, each with a positive and a negative effect. Finish a ‘set’ of three cards, and the next one will have another modifier until you die. In the process we are offered some random target, followed by a boss. The result? As simple as it seems, but worse is nothing.
“Discreet”
Torchlight 3
Torchlight 3 has changed a lot, for the better, during its Early Access phase. The end result is enjoyable, but if you were confident that this new installment would prevail as an alternative at the level of Diablo 3 or Path of Exile, bad business: neither its forts nor its pets do justice to a game that sins of linear and of conformist, repeating ad nauseam formulas that have worked in the past without contributing significant news. His greatest achievement? Not having screwed up loudly. His biggest failure? Stay at it.
- Pets are cute, and they can also sell things for you
- The strong ones can look really good if you put enough interest in them
- There are no really archetypal classes, and the relics give them more interest
- Too linear at all levels, especially in the world map design
- There are many “crumbs” of the failed f2p MMO that was originally going to be
- Dun’djinn challenge is very scrappy – needs dedicated updates
