Preview: Torchlight III (Steam Early Access)

by Jim Smale · June 29, 2020

In Torchlight III, Novastraia is again under threat of invasion and it’s up to you to defend against the Netherim and its allies. Gather your wits and brave the frontier to find fame, glory, and new adventures!

Pros:

Decent graphics.
5958mb Download size.
Steam achievements.
Controller support.
ARPG gameplay.
Four characters to choose from–Forged, Rail master, Dusk Mage, and Sharpshooter.
3 pets to choose from-Golden Retriever, Brown and White Owl, and a white Alpaca. Each pet has color/breed choices and every time you get a pet it will have a different buff.
Hardcore mode option.
Basic character and pet creator and you can change/randomize the names.
Five difficulties- Practice/Normal/Hard/Painful and Ridiculous.
In-game cutscenes.
Earn EXP and level up to get points to put into a skill tree.
Camera-you can zoom in and out.
Trevail-maim hub with shops, blacksmiths, gamblers, etc.
In the hub, you can see and interact with other players.
Fort-you have your own Fort that you can decorate, customize, craft, grow items, etc.
Portal-spawn a portal to either your Fort or the hub at any point.
Many enemy types and mob types like elites and bosses.
Relic-craft and find a relic, this is a powerful attack or buff that is on a cooldown timer. You can swap out your relic at your Fort.
The mission structure is a lot more open and you can freely move around the map and do multiple quests in one go.
Fast travel point portals-find and activate these so you can freely fast travel.
Decent loading times.
If the servers fail to load multiplayer servers then you can play on in an offline single-player variation.
Boss chests and pet chests at the end of an encounter.
Cool still image cutscenes.
Life bound-these items will be stronger than normal but disappear forever if you die.
Impressive enemy counts on screen.
Really cool detailed locations with many secrets and dungeons in them.
Strong loot lust game.
A lot of bright colors.

Cons:

When looking at gender it resets your name.
Have to click in each character to see info on them.
It boots as multiplayer only and only goes to a single-player if the server drops.
I can’t quit the game from the main menu.
No tutorial.
Can’t see the controls/key bindings.
Unlocked a load of achievements for things I hadn’t done yet.
I had situations where I couldn’t interact with them or a door wouldn’t open.
After death, a lot of enemies continue to animate.
No clear cut system for showing if loot is good or not. Instead, you have to click into the inventory and compare it.
No actual pause button.
Episodes of slowdown especially in boss fights.
Slow starter and kinda poorly explained on what to do.
They don’t explain how and what the fast travel points are and why you should seek them out.
A lot of issues with ranged weapons and magic in terms of the scenery, any sign of elevation or verticality, and your attacks won’t hit.
Bullet sponge drawn-out boss fights.
The map is no help at all and doesn’t always fill things in or allow you to pan around with it making it hard to track missions.
Can’t send your pet back to town to sell things.
Occasional server crashes and disconnects.
The fast travel points are not easily found meaning you forget about them and then have long slogs of travel ahead of you.
Not even at the same level mechanics-wise as Torchlight 2.