Not an old Diablo player (just recently got the series within the last year). So far, I've enjoyed D1 and D2. D3 is subjectively better on the console - the dodge mechanic with the right-stick is very useful and no always online requirement.

But this is about Torchlight. TL1 is a lot of fun. Reminiscent of D1 without the totally foreboding atmosphere. It gets darker as you penetrate deeper into the mines under Torchlight, but never feels soul crushing. And yes, the story is cliche, but so was DIablo (kill the big bad foozle at the end of a grueling dungeon -- see Wizardry, Bard's Tale, etc.).

TL2 reminds me more of Diablo 3 rather than Diablo 2. Same number of classes and similar skill trees. One thing I dislike about D3 is the inability to tweak your character's build with the skill trees. Thankfully, TL1 and TL2 retain a skill tree more like D2. TL2's story apes D2's story (so far) almost exactly, and is pretty light.

In all honesty, I have a hard time going back and playing any of the Diablo games now that I've been playing the Torchlight series. The pets make all the difference to me. No more warping back to town every few minutes because my pack is full. Also, modding is very active for the games. Last night, I found a mod to add Claptrap from Borderlands as a pet. Easily my favorite (and only) mod so far. "Minion, let's roll!"

Definitely check out the games.

Flynn

As been an avid Diablo 1 and 2 player when they came out i can say Torchlight lack the atmospere, depth and feeling of the Diablo series. It's a fun hack n slash game similar to Diablo but lacks anything thereof. I do like the reminiscence of the Diablo music in the town, feels kind of being in Tristram again.

I think that if you liked Diablo 1 & 2, you will probably also like Torchlight. But you need to go in with the right expectations. It's not "what Diablo 3 should have been" or "the spiritual successor to Diablo 2". Quite the opposite, Torchlight's designers stated from the beginning that their goal was to create a simple game that stuck to the basics of the ARPG genre that they knew were fun -- hack and slash adventuring with lots of sweet loot. If I'm not mistaken, the game was developed in only about 12 months with a relatively small team.

If you look at the game in that light, I think it's fun and I think it succeeded in what it set out to do.

If you want more diablo clones that are gewd like diablo 1 and 2, you should also try vanhelsing 1 and 2, victor vran, grim dawn, and the master piece path of exile online :D

If you are still around, thread OP, you have to go for GRIM DAWN. True "successor" to diablo 2.

I already had a DRM-free copy of Torchlight II via Humble Store. But grabbing the GOG release is every bit worth it. I also gifted my brother, red1977, a GOG copy for his Birthday (May 23rd).

I like how Torchlight II can appeal to RPG vets, yet still be inviting to casual gamers like my brother. That in itself is a major technical achievement in my book.

is it easy to set up a multiplayer match with your brother or a friend? if both have the gog galaxy installed?

I'm not running Torchlight II (GOG nor Humble) thru GOG Galaxy yet. I've run the Humble Store (which is also DRM-free) version and played online with friends. Just setup a Runic account, no Steam or GOG Galaxy needed. It's free and cross-platform: Win/Mac/Linux compatible.

First impressions of torchlight 2 (I've played a lot of diablo 2 + expansion):

- Levels are comparatively detailed but (due to that?) they also feel cluttered and cramped, and sometimes it's quite hard to tell the playable area and background apart. Imho it needs alteration to contrast/shading/fog, and less detail in the background. It's better in some of the dungeons. Still, levels feel a bit cramped and abrupt dead ends which don't necessarily look like dead ends on first sight are abundant. However I'm not at all against having a bit more shape and detail than in the rectangular world of D2 (with mostly identical looking caves).

- Cartoonish graphics are a mixed bag. This is very subjective so I'm not gonna say much. But I love the animals (I have a deer and I wish I could ride it). People are mostly kinda uh, ugly. Monsters are just weird and a lot of the time, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about them. They also aren't very memorable for some reason? Like, I still can't remember the name of any monster. Heck, spiders and skeletons aside, I really don't even remember how most of the monsters so far look. I kinda miss hacking good old brutes, though I'd be happy to do it with a shotgun.

- Difficulty so far is easy. I started on normal, never spent a second reading about what builds make sense, didn't spend too much thought on spending skill & stat points (just tried anything that looks fun or useful). So now I'm up to about level 17 and I've pretty much rushed through everything without ever experiencing anything like a close call. And a lot of the time I was running with unspent skill & stat points. So due to the lack of difficulty, the action has been pretty aimless and non-strategic, which gets a bit boring. All battle feels kinda the same and just blends in my mind. I've seen a few "boss" style monsters but even they were easy. Aside from that, nothing particularly memorable. I can only hope it gets better later on. Oh yeah: levels feel cramped, enemies are fast. I don't feel like there's a lot of time to chain skills to get the ultimate mix of boost on yourself and antiboost on an enemy. You do get shortcuts to instantly activate skills, however.

- It feels like there's way more loot than in Diablo. It *feels*, maybe there isn't? I think the inventory is a little bigger, and more importantly, all items take only one inventory slot. And when it gets filled, you transfer your haul to the pet, effectively doubling your inventory size. It's all nice, no more hours spent rearranging the inventory to make an item of certain shape fit without being able to rotate it... Except that I feel like there's way, way more loot than in Diablo 2? And so there's so much more useless junk to filter through. And so it isn't very exciting to discover new items when you literally drown in them. Finding a better replacement piece of armor for some of your slots feels like it's more of an exercise in not missing it when you trip to town to sell that huge mountain on useless junk. I don't think I ever stopped to examine & identify items while out in the wild or in a dungeon. If there was an interesting looking drop, I didn't notice it or I forgot it five seconds later because more drop. Or noticed it but didn't want to spend the time to filter through my inventory to see if it's useful... In D2, I would usually notice most of the interesting drops and instantly examine to see if it could be more useful than what I have in hands.

- Pets are nice I guess? The extra inventory space is cool. Like the D2 hirelings, it doesn't look like there's much you can do to interact with them though. So, they're just there, they attack things, and you put items in them. That's it. At least they don't seem to die as easily as D2 hirelings. Stags are cute. Maybe the other animals are too.

- I can't make sense of the story. Not that I care much. Gameplay matters. The intro cinematic didn't explain much and the game's throwing too many weird names of places and people and things at me at once. I can't figure out who's who and what's what.

- There are various UI conveniences compared to D2. Gold on ground is picked up automatically. Potions stack. You have shortcuts to drink health / mana, and with a modifier, the same shortcut could feed your pet. The potions don't even need to be in your quickbar. Actually, I'd take them out of the quickbar if I could have some indicator onscreen telling me how many potions I have (to avoid surprises). Afaik, for instant use skill bindings, the skill must be in your quickbar, which has a limited number of slots. Shame.

- You can pay money to enhance items. Cool, though the ehancements so far weren't that cool, nothing like the twice-a-game gamble of potentially turning one item into something very powerful as in D2.

- You can destroy things you've stuffed into sockets. I think the item stays intact otherwise. Cool.

- There's a shared stash. For co-op? Nice.

- IIRC you can destroy an item to recover the stuff in its sockets. So if you've socketed something awesome into a not-so-awesome armor and come across a better armor, with sockets, great. Cool.

- In single player at least, you can save anywhere and won't be forced to start back in town. Cool.

- I think the load time tips tell you about this. Maybe. They're called embers. WHY, OH WHY do game developers put these informatives in loading screens that whizz past so quick I don't have the time to read? At least give me the option to pause or access these tips outside of loading screens. How about a "help" button that can explain more than just the UI on screen? I guess gamers today, they just head to a wiki. And I don't like that :<

- Automap looks cleaner and easier to read. Important things are labelled and you can mouseover to see where entrances/exits take you to. There are too many map modes (places on screen) to cycle through; I wish I could limit them to the two or three that I use.

- Music is very Diablo like. Nice.

- I wish there were more classes. Oh but you can mod them in, I hear. Well, I'm sure you can. But I'm always a little concerned about the quality of fan made additions, in terms of looks, balance, consistency, etc. Not to say they're always (or even usually) bad but I'd still have to filter through them and playing with poorly made or overpowered stuff can really ruin the experience for me, like cheating. Also, you can always compare and discuss official builds but if it's "random mod from the internet, version 0.3x7 or something", I'm not super interested in hearing about it.

- Shotguns are cool. Did I tell you I'm a huge fan of Doom?

- Performance is great on my PC which isn't exactly a thing most gamers would consider. Fanless mini PC with intel integrated graphics. Gameplay is smooth. EXCEPT FOR ONE, INCREDIBLY ANNOYING THING: sometimes I get a momentary freeze/lag spike and as if the game stops to load some resource. A sound or something like that. When it happens, it's nearly always when I kill some monster. I.e. during a fight, if there's more than that one monster to fight. This is very annoying. Not super frequent, but frequent enough for me to have noticed it enough to feel annoyed about it.

- So is it a great game, a diablo killer? Or an average, forgettable wannabe killer / clone? Hard to say yet. It doesn't feel super memorable. It hasn't made me super excited about finding items or seeing new places. As I said before, everything kinda blends. Blands. That said, it is fun enough. Fun enough that I've played up to the point I am at, and fun enough that I'm going to play further. If the next areas get more challenging and getting more skills gives me more strategy to play with, I can't see it becoming worse. Unless it gets very very grindy and repetitive... I'll probably play again with the other classes and on harder difficulties. So yeah, it's promising. I'm also looking forward to co-op with my sister (we played D2 a lot), though finding the time is harder and harder.. and I'm not actually sure that she'll like the art style and setting. Yep, she's definitely more into medieval style fantasy and games with guns don't seem to interest her that much :( <<Though there is a melee class and a mage class, I'd like to see more classes, with more traditional ranger/thief/assassin/necro/paladin/etc builds. And I'm sure she would too.>>

- What the heck is the difference between internet and lan play, and why does the game care? I heard I need an account for the other. Why.

- I'm probably forgetting a lot of stuff because people are interrupting me. Anyway, just initial first impressions. Impression may change dramatically over the course of the game.

I think the takeaway right now should be that 1) there are nice features in the game 2) it's fun enough, at least for the first few hours that I've played 3) there are some negatives but so far no glaring flaws that would make me frustrated or otherwise thumbs down the game. No killer flaws. No killer features. That's a net positive. If 2.5/5 is average, 5/5 is for masterpieces, classics and legends, then right now I'd have to rate the game somewhere around 3 starts, a little above, maybe even 3.5. If it holds up till the end, then the rating will rise. If it turns out to be more of the same, an endless grind until the end, then the rating wouldn't rise above 3.5.

You can also teach your pet spells, like Heals and Summons, effectively using them as a field medic or support team. Best bet: if you find a "Heal All" spell, teach it your Pet! Summon Archers? Summon Zombies? Summon Skeleton? Same thing. The Pet will often cast these spells on their own and when needed.

there is also the SynergiesMOD whose aim is to Heres a quote from them "Our goal is to completely convert Torchlight 2's balance into a more unforgiving and exciting experience." http://www.synergiesmod.com/

I think I saw a tip say something like that. These damn things vanish all by themself with a timer and sometimes I've gotten multiple informatives at the same time. Making it impossible to read some. Annoying. Please game, just give me the time to read them (later if I will) and tell when I'm done reading.

Anyway, I only got 3 or 4 spells so far and mostly crap ones.

- Pet AI remains dumb. They'll happily walk into traps and gas clouds. They'll happily stand next to a bomb waiting for it to explode with >200 damage. That said, they will flee if they get to near death.

The only spells I actively go after are Identify and Portal.

Screw the rest. :P

You never grab any Summon or Heal spells? Damn, you're hardcore.

NO I AM NOT!

I never play the harder difficulties, just the med. :P

Also summon spells are a pain. I keep attacking whatever I have summoned. :P