
Runic Games announced yesterday that folks on Xbox Live really like Torchlight. Or at least the idea of Torchlight. The hit PC hack and slash RPG which was recently published on Xbox Live Arcade on March 9th sold enough upon release to result in the best overall sale day in the company’s history.
If you didn’t play the PC version and want to take a spin on the couch with the XBLA game it’s well worth it. This is an excellent entry in this genre and for 1200 MS points, it’s a no brainer. That said, it remains a solo game; if you want multiplayer Torchlight you’re going to have to wait for the sequel which is set for a “2011” release.
I can actually imagine this game being better on a console… the repetitive Diablo button mashing seems more palatable at higher levels with a controller than a mouse.
Anybody tried both?
But I am playing the XBLA version and it seems perfect for a controller. They go together like PB&J
It’s an ideal fit, really.
I have paid for this game 3 times! The first I gifted it to a friend on Steam for $10, the second I bought for myself on Steam for $5 and now on XBLA for $15. This game is worth the $30 I have paid for it, and the think the XBLA version is awesome.
There is no genre I like more than a dungeon crawler. I’m also highly critical of them because they can so easily be bad. Zork and Wizardry set the bar pretty high, and the Diablos made the genre that much more enticing. The Bard’s Tale series occasionally brought a bit of humor to a style quite puffed up on epic seriousness. (Make a hack-n-slash modeled after Saint’s Row and you’ll have a big seller on your hands.)
I’m really enjoying Torchlight even though I didn’t really expect too. Maybe I’ve been lulled into a sense of ‘meh’ by games like BG: Dark Alliance, but damn if I’m not having a really good time with Torchlight. Entertainment dollar to dollar against something like DAII at $60 vs $15 for Torchlight. Torchlight wins. Maybe it’s not as ‘nice’ looking, but it’s not as uncanny valley either. The music is at least as good, and hacking and slashing seems to work about the same as DAII. Sure the need to buy identify scrolls like they were fan-belts for a Fiat can get kind of annoying, but it’s a small price to pay for a solid game that looks good, plays smoothly, and scratches that crawler itch some of us have.
I haven’t seen it yet in the XBLA version, but on Steam I just got a Identify spell that I learned and was able to keep using for a small mana cost. Same with town portal.
Really fun and brainless game. Felt like the Farmville of dungeon crawlers on Normal difficulty. Just click and watch the blood splatters multiply.
The framerate felt like Mega Man at times. Also you could see when they were creating the random dungeon mid-level. The game would freeze for 1-5 seconds… not the cleanest, but at least it only crashed on my 3 times. Good? Acceptable for a game with so much content. I can’t image the team being able to test it nearly as complete as a pre-scripted RPG.
Story isn’t too well executed. Just found myself skipping through it to get to the killing.
Regardless, very well worth the cash- go buy it.