sexta-feira, 14 de dezembro de 2012

Torchlight 2

I've played Diablo 2 for a long time. I would even still be playing it, if it hadn't such an old engine and mechanics intended to make the player linger on playing just for the items - a kind of a BS system for me now that I got older and started questioning things - but at any rate that game was a special one among so many other games I've played.

It's not surprising then that I liked the idea of a sequel as it was announced by Blizzard a good while ago. At that time, though, I had not yet played their gold mine called WoW, so I had no idea they were going to go backwards and undo what the excellent patch 1.10 of Diablo II did to that game.

Thing is, Diablo III has no customization. None. Zero. Nich. The only things that you can customize are the armor and sex. Boo, look how good Demon Hunter I am on black lycra and heels!

Luckily, this post is not about Diablo III's mistakes - it's about another game who stayed true to D2 virtues - and it was no surprise for me when I discovered that many developers of D2 were responsible into this.

To sum what I loved in Torchlight 2, it is a game that makes you think. Makes you plan. It is almost Diablo 2 with a few minor but needed tweaks: where in Diablo 2 you would need some skills as prerequisites for the higher level ones, on Torchlight 2 you get them as autogranted at specific levels. While on Diablo 2 the skill point system was irreversible, ie a point spent is lost forever, here you have the option to undo the last 3 ones used. It's still restrictive, but I think that was meant for the player to "feel" the skill into their playstyle. Increasing it to 5 wouldn't be bad, though.

The same 5 points for any attribute you wish is used, but then again an interesting change was made: almost all points are useful for all classes. Strength, for example, increases all critical damage bonus - inclusing spells - and dexterity all critical chance, again, including spells. So, even as the Embermage, the game's flavored mage class, you would still need to consider these 2 factors before dumping all points into focus, which increases all elemental damage, and vitality, which would be a classical choice made by players on their Sorceress on Diablo 2.

The battles are fun. Really. The game is action-full, fast paced, and you have to analyse carefully what you're doing and facing on the same level as you click.  Even playing as an Embermage on Veteran that killed stuff fast, I found myself dying over casual mistakes like getting hit by a slow but strong Troll - my favorite part was reading at status that the biggest damage I had taken was 2.6k when I had 2.3k hp.

To sum it up, this is a game that delivered everything that I was expecting. Granted, as I had read on a game reviewer, the story doesn't inspire much emotion. Maybe it was the fact that there wasn't no voiceover.

But, again, T2>>>D3.