Torchlight II Review

[daibakuha]

TL2 is probably the best game released this year, and is arguably the greatest action RPG of all time. I've been having a blast from start to finish, exploring the world, fighting monsters and laughing at all the cool references to things I find.

 

[Vigormortis]

I'm not sure who's been "raging" at you, but it's certainly not coming from me. I've no qualms with people who aren't fans of the games I like. "Different strokes for different blokes", so-to-(crudely)-speak.

That part wasn't aimed at you, it was more a cautionary disclaimer because currently it seems that on both the GFAQs board and the Steam board for this game (and to a lesser extent the official forum) even an extremely mild criticism causes vast amounts of rage, and I wasn't sure if any of that had leaked on to the escapist.

Ah. I understand.

It's always a shame when a fan-base becomes irrationally angry over something simple.

'Course, it's equally a shame when a group actively goes out of their way to insult or belittle something and it's subsequent fan-base.

Sigh...I swear the concept of "maturity" is an illusion.

 

[remmus]

Snip

Yes passives and actives have synergy, that's what passives are for, but in TL2 none of the active skills seem to work well together, I never found myself doing "combos" so to speak. As an example: (I'm going to assume you have played enough to know what i'm talking about, if not I apologize)

Spoiler

The engineer has the Coup de Grace passive that causes you to do massive damage to stunned enemies, but IMO it would have been more engaging if this was some kind of active AOE that did the same thing alowing you to "combo" by, say dashing into a bunch of monsters with shield bash then using Coup de Grace to deal massive damage. I would say this is an overall weakness of TL2's skill system, it just feels like the best builds always come from maxing a bunch of passives and the 2-3 actives that benefit from them the most.

OT: I'm certainly enjoying it for $20 but there are a lot of little annoyances that add up to make the game less than great.
[sub] Disclaimer: I freely admit this is all opinion, so the rage that TL fans seem to be showing to people who dare say the game isn't perfect is wasted on me [/sub]

meh each to there own, I find these kinda games combat becomes clumsy if you must keep track of and dance your fingers on the numbers to link skills, hence I usually have one...maybe two active skills and all kinda of passives (heck I had a very successful, fun run of a pure passive skills Berzerker) So to me passive synergy is great

 

[Coffeejack]

I think what I love most about this game is how enemies will be spewed from cracks in the walls or side halls as you're exploring crypts and ruins. It's a great change from games like Titan Quest, where enemies are just placed in a certain part of the map and wander around aimlessly within a small radius.

 

[Atmos Duality]

"Torchlight II's stubborn adherence to the old ways of hack-n-slash outwardly rejects the majority of changes games like Diablo III tried to introduce to the genre, especially when it comes to stats, skills, and leveling."

Diablo III did not "introduce", it "removed"; oversimplified.
It deemed all choices but that to grind for loot needless, and took them away from the player.

So far, Torchlight 2 plays like the true successor to Diablo 2, even if it doesn't look the bit graphically (but I don't mind the graphics...just wish they looked less "WoW-ish").