Torchlight II is a fine game, but it doesn't give me a lot to write about. In a way, that's a good sign, because it means I have no complaints. On the other hand, I've got a blog here, and it would wound my pride to just keep posting, "more hack and slash, finding and sorting loot, exploring levels, irrelevant story . . . grade acceptable." So I decided to wait for something unexpected, or until I encountered something that challenged me intellectually or ideologically.
I honestly thought I would get through the entire game before this happened. And then I entered the Luminous Arena. What you have to do is go through a dungeon while staying inside a circle of light. The light moves, and as you move with it, monsters spawn, and you have to survive them while keeping up with the light. The object is to make it all the way through without dying, and unlike every other area in the game, when you die, your already slain monsters will respawn. It is a sudden jump in difficulty that completely blindsided me.
I worry that I won't be able to get through it. For hours now, I've been neglecting my armor upgrades. You have ten total pieces (shirt, pants, gloves, boots, belt, shoulders, helmet, amulet, and two rings) and you have to worry about four different types of defense (physical, fire, ice, and poison armor). Plus the individual pieces can have individual enchantments, boost your attributes, or hold gem slots. Since there's no quick sort button, I've found myself somewhat overwhelmed. What I've been doing is settling on "good enough" and hoping that my offense alone would be able to get me through. So far, it has, but the Luminous Arena is proof that such a strategy is unsustainable.
At this point, the obvious thing to do is buckle down, grind out some more gold and xp, buy myself a new set of equipment, and power through the arena. That's the virtuous path, the way of the true gamer. But (of course there's a "but") it would be easier to start from scratch. Build a new character with a different class, and try out an alternate build. Coast my way through the last four hours, and move on to another game.
It's a plan that tempts me due to the obvious fact that Torchlight II is a "lifestyle game." It's the sort of game where you get as much out of it as you're willing to put in, and is deep and wide enough for you to put in practically everything. I admire games like that. There are times when I wish I could just commit to one game and then play it to utter mastery. But that's obviously never going to happen, so playing the game as if it might is kind of counterproductive.
There are four classes and multiple playthroughs, and a special hardcore mode where you only get one life, and then alternate builds within the classes, and a huge variety of equipment with which to customize those builds. I started with the intention of playing through the campaign once, in order to see the "whole game," but it's kind of an absurd way to approach it. It seems just as authentic to sample Torchlight II's diversity as it is to focus exclusively on a single playthrough.
Yes . . . I'm actually just checking things out, not giving up in the face of a difficult level. I'm practically a hero.
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