WingedKagouti on 8/3/2019 at 19:15
Quote Posted by Sulphur
the story was nonexistent.
From someone who has played D1, D2, T1 and T2 fairly extensively, I'd say the "non-existent story" either holds true for both franchises or neither.
Sure, the animation quality of the cutscenes were higher in Diablo 2 than Torchlight 2, but that has a lot to do with the budget and resources available to the different development teams. But as far as story being told during gameplay, they're fairly equal. The same comparison can be done with Diablo 1 & Torchlight 1 for a similar result.
Sulphur on 8/3/2019 at 19:23
This might be viewing things through rose-tinted glasses, but D1/D2's narratives had a decent amount of lore, and D1's particularly stark ending led to D2's story being all about your needing to kill the hero you played from D1 after he literally went through hell and back. I was, lessee, 15 years old when I saw D1's final minutes twist the knife for your character, and then D2 came around with that casual kick to your nuts in its opening cutscene, and it was glorious. The story got weird and frankly pretty damn opaque the closer you got to D2's ending, but that sequence is always going to be a highlight of the series for me.
With the Torchlights - the conceit may be the same, but it's written in the language of generic boilerplate fantasy. You could levy the same criticism upon Diablo 1/2 (structure: boilerplate hero quest), but I wouldn't call Diablo's execution of its story generic. It fleshed out the things it needed to (literally in places) and delivered something that stood out, for better or worse. In comparison, I don't even remember who T1's characters or villains were outside of everything being Diablo, but nowhere as interesting, and that's with the benefit of Torchlight being a game I played more recently (9 years ago compared to my 20-year old memories of Diablo). Even outside of the main questing, T1 feels anonymous. There's no Wirt, there's no cow level, hell, there aren't even the dulcet tones of Deckard Cain.
And that isn't even addressing the broader point that atmospherically and stylistically, D1 (and to an extent D2) still works as a package designed to reinforce the feeling of something nasty and brutish, right down to the soundtrack using the wailing of babies as textural counterpoint. For all the rough edges that Torchlight sanded away, it seems much of the character was lost, too.
WingedKagouti on 8/3/2019 at 20:25
Quote Posted by Sulphur
This might be viewing things through rose-tinted glasses,
I'd say
very rose-tinted glasses.
Outside the CGI cutscenes, the amount of storytelling is almost the same in Diablo 2 as in Torchlight 2. And I wouldn't say the writing quality for either game is better than the other. Diablo 2 is a "bigger" game than Torchlight 2, but that is in part due to most Diablo 2 acts being fairly padded with a lot of space that you basically just have to run through to get to your destination for whatever quest you're doing (main or side). Torchlight 2 suffers this as well, but to a noticably lesser extent.
This is with having replayed both D2 & T2 within the last year. The cutscenes are quite literally the only thing the Diablo series does better than any competitor. Had the two series swapped their release time (with graphics & UI apropriate for their new generation), your viewpoint would likely have been swapped around as well.
Sulphur on 8/3/2019 at 20:36
I haven't played much of Torchlight 2 (as you may have surmised), as I got very bored with it within a few hours. Having said that, I'll concede the writing isn't benchmark-worthy for either series by any means, and for Diablo that's probably down to a heavy set of rose-tinted glasses on my side.
The over-arching point, though: sure, I'd say D1/D2 doing that story twist first had an impact, but would I remember it as vividly 20 years later if I'd played Torchlight first instead? I really don't think so, for all of the reasons outlined above.
WingedKagouti on 8/3/2019 at 20:48
Quote Posted by Sulphur
I haven't played much of Torchlight 2 (as you may have surmised), as I got very bored with it within a few hours. Having said that, I'll concede the writing isn't benchmark-worthy for either series by any means, and for Diablo that's probably down to a heavy set of rose-tinted glasses on my side.
The over-arching point, though: sure, I'd say D1/D2 doing that story twist first had an impact, but would I remember it as vividly 20 years later if I'd played Torchlight first instead? I really don't think so, for all of the reasons outlined above.
I think you're underestimating the impact of the first game in a new genre from a period of time with several successful new genres.
Sulphur on 8/3/2019 at 21:08
Believe me, I've always reserved some of my sense of wonder for present and future things no matter how cynical my forum presence might seem. I'd already played Diablo's ASCII-based predecessors before it came out (Angband and Nethack, if you can believe it), so it's not like Diablo was completely new to kid me. :) Anyway, if I do happen to replay Diablo and Torchlight back to back, I'll revisit my feelings about both. I do appreciate that you're making this discussion as objective as possible, though. *hat tip*
icemann on 9/3/2019 at 03:34
I've played Diablo and Torchlight, and D1 and D2 had FAR more lore and story than Torchlight to point that I can't even remember any of the story for Torchlight.
Tony_Tarantula on 10/3/2019 at 02:22
Quote Posted by icemann
I've played Diablo and Torchlight, and D1 and D2 had FAR more lore and story than Torchlight to point that I can't even remember any of the story for Torchlight.
The miners found an evil in the mine's that go many, many, layers deep with buried ruins and an ancient evil lies beneath it all.
An adventurer shows up and defeats the ancient evil being.
The end.
icemann on 10/3/2019 at 06:54
So basically the ruined Dwarf city bit in Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the ring. Except several levels long.