When comparing Artemis vs Torchlight II, the Slant community recommends Torchlight II for most people. In the question“What are the best LAN party PC games?” Torchlight II is ranked 10th while Artemis is ranked 26th. The most important reason people chose Torchlight II is:
Much of leveling up is permanent, which not only gives a sense of connection to ones built characters but also means there is a large incentive to replay to make different builds.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro The focus on social interaction and teamwork creates a highly interactive game
A team of players will have to cooperate in order to play and succeed in this game, making it highly interactive. Each player will need to interact with the rest of their team throughout in order to succeed, making for a very social and party centric game.
Pro Fulfills every fun Hollywood space battle trope you can think of
Artemis is designed around many popular sci-fi tropes, providing an enjoyable sense of fan-service for those who are interested in sci-fi pop culture and movie media.
Pro Creative scripting system where anyone can write a scenario makes for endless gameplay
Users can create their own mission scripts, which they can then share on the developers' forums so that other players can make use of them. This way there is a never ending amount of new gameplay.
Pro A choice of 6 distinctive roles, that allow for a variety of play styles, which keeps the gameplay fresh and interesting
Crew on the bridge consists of a captain and 5 stations.
- Engineering - in charge of energy distribution and the DamCon.
- Science - in charge of scanning and information distribution.
- Weapons - in charge of military equipment.
- Comms - in charge of monitoring communications between enemies and friendly ships.
- Helm - in charge of piloting the ship.
Being that there are a few different roles to choose from it will take many play-throughs to experience them all, which gives good variety to the player, especially when considering that the experience even with the same role can play out differently with a group of different players.
Pro The player vs. player gameplay completely changes up the strategy of the game, making it much more competitive
Version 1.1+ allows for PvP, making Artemis very interactive in a different way from the co-op. This way those that want to be competitive have an outlet of gameplay.
Pro Node Played it
Pro Incentive to replay due to limited respec system
Much of leveling up is permanent, which not only gives a sense of connection to ones built characters but also means there is a large incentive to replay to make different builds.
Pro Elaborate loot system
Loot in Torchlight II is varied and dependent on a wide array of circumstances. There are so many variables that come into play as to what a player will find that makes searching out better and better items a game in and of itself.
Pro Varied level design
Unlike the first title there are many areas to see in the game that all have different looks. Plus there are large open ares as well as close quarter caverns.
Pro Works on different OS's: Linux/Mac/Win
Torchlight II is a multi-platform game that works on OSX, Linux and Windows. Which is great for users who dual-boot as the game can be played no matter what OS is booted at the time.
Pro Well implemented and fun action-RPG combat
Torchlight 2 has all the typical RPG mechanics such as classes, loot, skill trees etc. However all the little touches and details come together to make playing the game really fun and a great balance between depth/complexity and being able to get started killing hordes of monsters. Killing monsters is very satisfying and the loot system keeps things very interesting without feeling like you're just grinding for better items.
Pro Well implemented co-op
You can team up with up to 5 other plays to take on the hordes together. There is also a PvP mode if you'd rather kill your friends instead of team up with them.
Cons
Con Difficult to play online
Artemis is built with LAN play as its focus, making online multiplayer a bit of a pain as the user has to port forward. However you can use a service such as Tungle and connect to the dedicated Artemis network, which makes the process much easier
Con Lacking in story
The characters are flat and the overall story is pretty boring/standard. While not unexpected for such a game it would have been nice to have something other than loot driving advancement in the game.
Con Limited respec system
Much like an old school dungeon crawler, there is little to no useful respec system here. You can respec the last three skill points used on a character, but that is it. This tends to lead towards plenty of skills in the skilltree that ended up going nowhere, which are just wasted points. Unless you know specifically where you will be putting each and every skill point for your build beforehand, no respec may have an impact on making a perfect build.