First Impressions: Torchlight II

I've always wanted to try out this genre of games but I felt that I never really had the time to appreciate them fully. Diablo III arrived and while I was tempted, the price tag of a newly released game and the stories of people spending hundreds of hours on the game stopped me. Then Torchlight II appeared on my recommended list during the Steam summer sale. It was under £5. I thought it was a bargain so I bought it and made myself jump in when the holiday's came around...

I loaded up the game and selected my character - male, outlander (uses ranged weapons and some magic), customised hair and face. I then selected my pet - a panda named Bamboo. I decided to play the game at normal difficulty so that I could get a feel for the game before I attempted a harder version *. After watching the intro which outlined what has happened between the first game and the start of this one I started on my quest.

I went for a dual pistol layout for my character and started to head for the first hub, picking up items and levelling up along the way. Arriving at my destination, I sorted out my items in the stash, grabbed a few quests and treated myself to a spot of fishing. The combat I had experienced so far was smooth and simple with my pet and I being able to take most things down with one shot. I progressed to the next area.

Soon, the game started to come into its own. Every couple of minutes I would find a better gun to equip to my character, armour with more effects appeared and I socketed a couple of gems to test them out. I soon began to run out of inventory space but never fear panda pet is here! I put a couple of double items I had in his inventory and sent him of to town to sell them. I quite like this mechanic because it means that you can carry on with the action and don't have to break immersion just to sell stuff.

The next section had a recommended level that was higher than mine, so I decided to grind for a bit. I travelled up the map and spotted a little bit of the map that I hadn't explored yet. A quest marker appeared and told me to go into a cave. I followed blindly and battled my way through to the boss. Defeating him with my abilities was nice and simple but there was definitely a noticeable spike in difficulty.

The final thing I did in my short play session was feed some fish to my panda. Fish, when fed to your pet, change them temporarily into another one with different abilities. I sadly picked up the only fish in my inventory that changed my cute panda into a mole creature permanently! Thankfully, all it took was to feed him another, this time temporary, fish and wait for the timer to come down before I got my panda back.

Overall, this seems to be an addictive game which I can't wait to get stuck into and improve my character.

Thanks for reading, Satamer.

*Question: who would like to see a hardcore mode playthough of Torchlight II with me and (maybe) Harry? Comment suggestions.