Torchlight Review (XBLA)

Torchlight is a fantastic loot game that will keep you coming back again and again. The loot you collect is randomly generated so you never know what you'll find. That carrot constantly dangling in front of you is a great motivator that will suck you in for hours at a time. The asking price of 1200MSP ($15) is a bit much, considering that the PC version of the game can be had for less, but you will definitely get your money's worth out of it. Torchlight is addictive and fun and is highly recommended.

Torchlight is a hack-and-slash adventure RPG game built on the addictive premise that there is always more awesome loot for you to find, and always increasingly powerful monsters for you to use your powerful new toys against. It is a never ending quest for more power and new skills and better weapons and armor, and it is one of the most addictive XBLA games around.

There is a story here somewhere, but it doesn't matter. The town of Torchlight is sitting on top of a huge underground labyrinth and you have to venture deep into the Earth to kill evil stuff. You have three classes to choose from, and even get to choose a pet, and from there on its killing time.

The gameplay is simple. You move around with the left analog stick, attack with the X button (with both melee or ranged weapons), use potions with the bumpers, cast spells with the triggers and Y and B, and pick up stuff with A. A is an important button, because that is the button that picks up loot. Precious precious loot.

Pretty much all the game is is walking around, hammering attack buttons to kill enemies, and then picking up the stuff they drop. It sounds simple, but it is one of the most addictive experiences we've played in a while. There is always a better sword, or better armor to find. Or maybe you did find something great but you don't meet the requirements to use it yet, so you keep playing and playing and playing until you can. This carrot is always dangling in front of you, begging you to play through just one more floor of the dungeons and kill one more boss. It is awesome. You can also catch fish at specially markets spots in levels to feed your pet to power it up, which is pretty neat as well.

The game takes only around 6 hours to kill the main big bad boss, but after that a new dungeon opens up and you just keep on playing. You can earn 170/200 Gamerscore in that first 6 hours, but the final 30 points require you to max out your Fame level, which takes quite a bit longer. There are 100 XP levels and 55 Fame levels, so it is a pretty long game if you actually want to max everything out. By its very nature it is a grind, which is usually a bad word in gaming. But grinding here and collecting more loot is fun. You won't notice the hours flying by.

We do have a few complaints. The load times are a bit much sometimes. Like, 20-30 second waits, which isn't cool. Also, when tons of enemies are onscreen and lots of spells are flying, the game can slow down to a crawl. And finally, there is no multiplayer. This is a game begging for co-op, but it is nowhere to be found. We'll have to wait for the sequel for that.

The presentation is nice overall. The environments you explore are decently varied (but the handful of different themes do repeat a lot) and look good. The enemies are detailed. You can zoom the camera in and out with the left stick, and it is surprising how much detail everything has up close. The music is also surprisingly great.

Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.