Maybe I just don’t “get” this kind of game. In fact, my experience with Torchlight II  is exactly like my experience with the first game. During the first couple of hours, I thought “OOooh, this is somewhat fun!” but after a while of *click click clickity click clickity click* I felt like there were better things I could be doing with my time. I got through a couple of levels of the first Torchlight, but I felt like I needed to stop because after more hours of clicking through more monsters, I figured I pretty much experienced everything there was to experience in the game. Now, Torchlight II is here to bring us more of the same. In fact, this game probably doesn’t even deserve an in depth review; there really isn’t much to talk about. If you’ve played the first game, than you’ve pretty much played this one. It’s not a bad game by any means, but it’s not a particularly interesting one either.

At Least the Environments are some what cool!

Ok, before I start ragging on the game, I figured I would start off with a couple of the things in this game I did like.

I had this strange sense of involvement when I was in the snow part of the game. I think it really has more to do with me liking winter so much, but this part of the game pulled me in pretty well. I liked the kind of darkness the environment had and the music was spot on for the atmosphere it was pulling. Soft, gentle, even a bit weird, it was pretty absorbing. The game actually does well with the environments, but it was this part of the game that struck me pretty well.

The other part I liked is the pet that follows you around in this game. Like in the first game, you can have a pet to help you fight and to sell equipment. The pet you have really does make selling equipment really convenient, as there were many times where I had more items than I knew what to do with, so I just gave most of those items to my pet so he can run into town and sell everything. While the first game only let you choose between a dog and a cat, this game allows you to choose between a hawk, a lizard-type creature, a wolf, and, in my case, a ferret. And the ferret is pretty freakin’ awesome! He has these cool goggles and he’s a tough fighter as well.

There’s only one true badass in this picture and he’s not the one wearing the heavy, spiky looking armor!

The characters you get to play in this game can be a little more customized than the first game…..That’s all I really have to say about that part.

*CLICKY CLICK CLICK CLICKITY CLICK CLICK CLICK*

This is pretty much my entire experience with the game.

“Hey! I need you to go into this dungeon to do stuff for me. It doesn’t matter what, just get all the way to the end killing everything that gets in your way.”

*click, click, click, click, click, click*

Ok, maybe that’s unfair. You occasionally have to right click in order to damage a whole group of enemies. So, the experience is more like this.

*click, click, click, right click, click, click, click, right click*

Yeah! That’s it! Sure, there are side quests, but it’s just more clicking on monsters until they finally decide that lying down and acting like they’re dead might be  smart thing to do.

The game is definitely very playable. The controls work, it runs smoothly, and there isn’t anything that’s broken with the game. In fact, everything in this game is set up in a way that makes the game incredibly intuitive. You have your standard number keys to assign your special moves, there are quick keys for restoring health and mana, and, while I managed to find myself with my inventory being full all of the time, managing my inventory and selling items is pretty easy.

But, when I got right down to it, the game gets incredibly monotonous really, really fast! After the first couple of hours of play, I had to really force myself to get back to playing it, but I really just can’t do it now. I lost all of my incentive to try to go on with this game because I already felt like I’ve played the entire damn game already. Go to dungeon, kill monsters, go to another dungeon, kill some more monsters. I honestly think this game appeals to people who love grinding or something like that.

The game is held together by this incredibly loose set up which I’m hesitant to call an actual plot. Apparently, there’s an alchemist and you need to catch up with him by going through all of these different dungeons. The dungeons you go through may or may not be related to the main plot of the game. It didn’t matter any way, I found myself doing the exact same thing in every dungeon; kill monsters, stuff my backpack with more items to sell, and go through another dungeon to do the exact same thing.

If you’ve read my Dark Souls review, you’re probably wondering why I found that game a lot more entertaining, because you can basically say that game is really only made up of different levels to kill more monsters.  Well, Dark Souls is very skill based. Each level I went through provided new and interesting challenges; it gave me a reason to play more of the game. New monsters to beat with different strategies helped give the game staying power.

In Torchlight, however, you just click on monsters through the entire game. I’ve given this game nearly 8 hours and the game didn’t really provide anything new or interesting besides just having a different background to look at while you are clicking through more monsters. There’s no epic story, no new challenges, just more monsters to click through. Sure, there are different kinds of monsters, but they all can be defeated the same way. By rapidly clicking your mouse on them.

*CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK*

There is a co-op mode, which might make the game a little bit more fun, though, it’s probably only really significantly improved when you’re playing with actual friends than just playing with strangers online. I’ve given co-op a couple of tries, but it’s just more monster clicking with some other guys doing monster clicking with you. The few servers I was in were pretty quiet. We just killed monsters while nobody talked. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing when most of the people I play with just don’t feel like talking, but with a game like this, it could have broken up the monotony. Like I said, it’s probably way more fun with friends you already know.

Click the exit button and find a more interesting game.

There’s not really much to say about this game. I find it funny how this game has been getting overwhelmingly positive reviews, but maybe there are people out there who either really like grinding or are just getting something out of the game that I’m not. It’s not a bad game, I mean, it is pretty entertaining for a while, but it didn’t hold my attention for very long. You could definitely do worse for twenty dollars, just know that it’s not going to one of the most memorable games you’ll play this year.

BoG’s Dark Souls: Torchlight II Score: 6.0

Why so high? The environments are decent, especially the snow environment, and the ferret makes things incredibly cool!

Why so low? The game gets boring and tedious incredibly quickly

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Sean Conner

Editor at Bag of Games

If you ask my dad, I’ve been playing games before I was even 2. This could be the reason why I’ve stuck with games for such a long time.

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