It’s been a long time since I’ve last touched Diablo I and II, long considered revolutionary games for the action-based RPG genre. The series caused massive waves in the world of gaming, and even today we can still see its influence in modern game design. Hell, it did more than just influence the industry; the formula was so successful that a slew of copycats followed – hence the creation of the term “Diablo clone”. That’s not a bad thing, however, as refinements and innovations were made upon the basic concept.
I picked up Torchlight, among others, over the last week during Steam’s Thanksgiving sale. Being that I’ve already heard good things about the game from others, it was pretty much a no-brainer. Disappointment was not an emotion I had that day.
As I so subtly hinted in the opening paragraph, Torchlight very much feels like Diablo gameplay-wise. The similarities are such that I’d advise anyone who has played Diablo to start Torchlight at the hard or very hard setting if they want a good challenge; a lot of basic premises like elemental resistances and such are still in effect. Of course, it feels a little unfair to base my opinions of one game on another but…
Anyway, let’s start with the graphics. I definitely enjoyed the art style; it gave the game a more cartoony, light-hearted feel to it. Your mileage may vary, of course, but I find a lot of dungeon crawlers to be rather dark and dreary. It’s rather nice to see a change every once in a while.
I can’t really comment on much of the audio; I’d say it’s on par for the game’s theme. Nothing really stuck out and impressed me, but of course the game would be much worse off without it. It’s just like good web design: audio plays an invisible but vitally important role. For the most part though, I just couldn’t pay attention to most of the stuff I was listening to since I was too busy running around like a madman trying not to get killed. 
In that aspect, I suppose it did its job well, giving clear signals on when to dodge projectiles and such.
Personally I thought the story was rather weak and shallow, merely present to provide a small backdrop to the world. I barely know anything about the characters in Torchlight such as Syl and Aldric, though I guess the journals did provide some information on the latter. Hell, I don’t really know much about Ordrak either, beyond the fact that he’s a corrupt being I have to take down. Ah well, I didn’t go in expecting much anyway.
Gameplay-wise, Torchlight is quite solid. I wish there was a little more information on how skill damage is calculated (things like ricochet which is based on “weapon DPS”) but that’s not a really big deal (unless you’re a min-maxer, of course). There weren’t really any skill trees or synergies – just abilities you can put points into once you reach a certain level. This removed a lot of complexity in choosing how to build a character (though at the same time reducing the game’s depth). I prefer it this way though, since it lets you experiment without investing too heavily in one particular style. The pet that always tags along with you is quite a nice little innovation to the genre since it does away with the whole go-back-to-town-to-sell-everything-since-you-have-no-more-room-in-your-pack problem; the ability-granting fish was rather cool too, though quite odd and out-of-place.
One major issue I found with the game was the huge ramp in difficulty between floor 29 and 30. The Dark Zealots on floors 30-34 are quite insane as they can literally kill you in one hit, giving you next to no notice. It was quite frustrating dealing with them; indeed, I just suicided my way to the final boss because I was fed up part way through. At least in the rest of the game the difficulty ramped up at a reasonable pace; sure, there were always things that could 2/3-hit you, but you could avoid them by playing carefully. The final boss was rather tedious as well, though I was quite underleveled at that point (my character was only at 25 compared to the boss and his minions all at 30). Basically I just suicided a couple dozen times spamming traps everywhere to take him down. Good thing I wasn’t playing on hardcore mode, eh? 
All that said though, I believe modability is definitely Torchlight’s greatest strength. Any part of the game that causes irritation can be changed to better suit the player. For example, I thought having to constantly identify items was a massive waste of time so I hunted down something to change it. Mods can even add huge amounts of extra content to the game, from things like quests to completely new classes. There are quite a few resources for mods as well. In addition to a few select sites, TorchLeech, an unofficial tool that manages modifications to Torchlight, helps in organizing and finding most of what you need.
Anyway, in summary: definitely try this game out if you’re into action-based RPGs (hell, even if you’re only tangentially acquainted with the genre). I think there’s a free demo floating about somewhere too.