The review of Torchlight 2: after seven years the Runic Games ARPG arrives on consoles. We have tried it on PS4
When Torchlight entered the market in 2009, we still lived the memory of Diablo II as the great ARPG phenomenon. The title developed by Runic Games then received a direct sequel that, after seven years, finally arrives on consoles. Our review of Torchlight 2 starts right here, that is, from the awareness of the past. We played it again, testing the joys and sorrows of a conversion that bases the work of mapping the commands on the good already done with other exponents of the genre. Waiting to be able to get your hands on the next episode of the series, Frontiers, what better way than to go back and spend hundreds of hours alone or in company.
A useless story
The narrative pretext of Torchlight 2 is absolutely forgettable. It must be said that the entire segment relating to the plot and its staging does not represent the target audience of the game in question. For the record, know that Torchlight 2 restarts more or less where the first had ended, with the mission of the new protagonist who will prove to hunt and defeat a previous hero now corrupted by the Ember: a mineral capable of donating large Magic powers. Nothing transcendental, but on the other hand a great narrative depth is not expected from a title like this. In the course of the four acts necessary to close the campaign, we will have the opportunity to know and carry out missions for a myriad of NPCs that fill the game world, all while we enter the maze of outdoor maps and classic dungeons but well done. The fact that narratively the game does not rise in the hyperspace of authorship, does not however exclude a deepening of the lore of the not indifferent game. Listening, reading and observing are three important elements for any respectable RPG and Torchlight 2 is no less.
Still fresh gameplay
Like all good hack 'n' slashers, starting a new game also means choosing one of the four available classes. Whether you lean more towards the warrior or the magician, the choice made at the beginning is less conclusive than one would have us believe. When you have finished creating your character aesthetically, it's time to get down to the battlefield and Torchlight 2 takes just a few seconds before launching into the fray. The first tasks to be carried out, as often happens, are simple in nature and easy to complete, useful for becoming familiar with the basics of gameplay and to bring you to the first real city available. From here on, the typical progression unravels between killing hundreds of enemies, exploring the maps generated by the game and collecting the loot.
While these actions are being carried out, the classic experience that leads to a leveling up is recovered and, precisely the management of growth, gives the game a different peculiarity from most of its illustrious colleagues. Skill trees are three and each of them allows you to acquire active and passive skills. Spending five points in the same skill leads to an increase in rank and quality of the skill itself, up to a maximum of fifteen upgrades each. It is not necessary to choose a specific route but you will be free to decide in which of the unlocked abilities to spend your points, thus allowing you to create combinations in the extremely varied builds. This freedom in shaping one's character has been revised in some way even in the subsequent Path of Exile (for many the best ARPG on the market, as well as free to play) although declined in a different way, through a growth similar to that of the Final Fantasy spherography X.
Returning to Torchlight 2 and the activities in the game, it is impossible to enclose in a single piece the myriad of content that presents the game of the now defunct Runic Games. In addition to the campaign, the dimensional gaps that can be found while exploring the maps, the increasing difficulty up to the impassable limit of permadeath and the opportunity to bring each character up to level 100, also joins the excellent multi player component of Torchlight 2, through which six friends can collaborate together, without compromising their loot. In fact, the game reshapes the difficulty and the response of the enemies based on the number of users connected simultaneously, avoiding however to divide the rewards, pushing even more on cooperation.
Porting to consoles
We had the opportunity to test the game on PayStation 4 Pro, an element that could somehow change the technical performance on the other platforms, but we are still talking about a title that, already at its original release, was not too expensive from the point of performance view. If indeed the artistic aspect can attract or not, it is impossible to deny its qualities, as well as the variety of models for enemies and for trillions of cosmetic and equipment elements, this does not mean that Torchlight 2 turns very well in this new look on console. The framerate is granitic, an important element to give fluidity to a game that requires its definition by itself.
The issue of command mapping is different, obviously the same for each new platform and the team has been busy trying to rethink the interface already present on the PC. Where before there was a classic lower bar, which showed life points and magic accompanied by all the active abilities, now these elements have been moved to the lower left corner of the screen and put back inside a circular ring. Each fast use slot (obviously customizable in the inventory) is associated with a pad button, either frontal or backbone. This choice is optimal, although it requires a few tens of minutes to be fully digested by those who are used to this kind of PC games. In fact, it is difficult to think that we can do better from this point of view, although sometimes it happens that we have no right answer from our alter ego when we decide to attack while standing still or vice versa.
