Torchlight II

[Kevnvek]

So I finally finished Borderlands 2 (which I'll still undoubtedly play more of later) and started up Torchlight II. It's pretty neat so far, though I haven't played much. I made an Engineer (tank with summons and some other tricks), but it was a tough choice between him, the Embermage (mage), and the Outlander (guns/ranged). Berserker looks dumb to me.

One thing I do hate already, and hated in the first and with most games like this, is the lack of respeccing. It was absent entirely from the first game, and with so many skills with so many ranks to invest in, that's a real pain. I don't want to have to use a guide to make a solid character, I'm playing for fun and like choice. II lets you undo the last three points spent, but that amounts to a whole lot of nothing with about 15 ranks in each skill.

There is a trick though. Respec potions exist in the game even if you can't get them normally. Here's a save file with a shared stash full of respec potions http://www.mediafire...u89az8b3tlv0pt6 . Download this and replace your shared stash save file (backup the old one, then replace it back again after moving the potions to your character stash if you already have stuff in there). You could summon them with a console command too but that character or your profile will be flagged as a cheater. Should be a normal feature of the game for a fee, like Borderlands. Also changing your character's appearance after creation. Borderlands nailed that too.

But so far the gameplay is pretty neat. Only summon so far is a healing bot which is nice, and other than that my Engineer has a few AoE melee attacks to play with, and a cannon shot I just unlocked.

Kind of don't like the art style though. The cartoon cutscene in the intro is like one of like Shank's but not nearly as good, and a lot of stuff looks too cartoony. Why do none of the female characters wear shirts? Seriously? One in town just has hair covering those bits, another in front of a mine has two small straps. I dropped a shirt in front of the town lady and she wouldn't take it . It's like they want the game to appeal to 13 year old boys. I can understand it being kind of indie and having a lower budget, but there are some great looking indie games out there these days, and Torchlight 1 was successful enough.

[Dateranoth]

How's the story so far?

[Kevnvek]

I played a little bit more of it, and will be again in about an hour or so. I've started using cannons, which act like slow, powerful, somewhat short-range shotguns that can stun enemies. My guy is wrecking sh*t with them. One of the skills for cannons lets him rapidly fire shots that do 120% or so damage and pierce through all enemies in a long line for mana. Also my healing bot now restores some mana as well. I'm thinking I'll go down the middle tree that focuses on mechanical summons, cannon skills, and defense bonuses. The left tree seems more for two handed melee smashing AoE style, and the right is a more defensive one handed weapon and shield style.

I didn't actually managed to play another story mission so I can't say much about the story. All I did was fully clear out the big open overworld area after the first little town, because I also was by playing Borderlands 2 some more with PK and GG.

[Dateranoth]

Well, in that case lets get down to the grit. How does it compare to D3?

[Kevnvek]

Hard to say, as soon as I try to play it a little, Borderlands 2, just, keeps, PULLING-ME-BACK-IN! I'd say about the same in terms of gameplay, but with a bit different style. Even if the story wasn't perfect, Diablo 3 certainly had better presentation, if only for the much higher budget. You do get some pretty fun skills to mess around with in TLII.