Torchlight Demo

Hack & slash RPGs may not offer story depth and character evolution over the course of the plot, but they are certainly not meant to do that anyway. Instead, they are heavily focused toward your ability to withstand hordes after hordes of enemies, all while you gain levels, gather money and find rare armor sets to improve your stats.

Torchlight is an action-oriented RPG that takes you through the story of the village with the same name, which revolves around its ember mine and the people who work in it. Although ember is powerful and attractive, it also has some pretty nasty effects, not to mention the fact that it lures some unsavory creatures from the depths of the Earth.

Your role is to explore these mines and kill everything that stands in your way, using one of the three available characters and their respective skill sets. As you might have noticed, the game is heavily influenced by Blizzard's epic Diablo series, but it is definitely not afraid to show it. Thus, although the mechanics have suffered some rather substantial changes toward improvement, some elements have been directly taken from the H&S classic, including even some very similar sound effects.

Even if the gameplay is as easy as it can get, since you move or attack on the left-click button and cast your abilities with the right-click, that doesn't meant the game is easy per se, because the enemies get more numerous and substantially more powerful as you advance through the levels. On the other hand, you also get to level up and improve your character, as well as find better weapons, or sturdier armor.

Many more elements have been lifted directly from Diablo as well, such as sockets for jewels, teleportation scrolls to get you out of trouble, as well as the fact that the dungeons are created in a procedural manner. This means that no two experiences can ever be the same in the game, because the maps are randomly created when you choose to enter an area.

In the end, Torchlight has enough personality to be a good title on its own, despite the components it borrowed from other sources. The story, the characters and the heavily improved combat system make it a very enjoyable experience, not to mention the fact that there are hundreds of items and monsters waiting for you each time you start an adventure.