8 direction top-down style movement

I am very new to torque 2d, I have had some previous experience with TGEA, but never TGB. I am wondering how to implement simple 8 direction movement like in Zelda using the physics system.

My current code looks like this:

...

function PlayerSprite::startMove(%this, %direction)
{
    %this.isDown[%direction]=true;
    %this.accelerate();
}
function PlayerSprite::stopMove(%this, %direction)
{
    %this.isDown[%direction]=false;
}

function PlayerSprite::accelerate(%this)
{
    for(%i=0;%i<4;%i++)
    {
        if(%this.isDown[%i])
        {
            %dir=Vector2Direction(90*%i,35);
            %this.applyLinearImpulse(%dir, "0 0");
        }
    }
    
    %this.moveschedule = %this.schedule(250,accelerate);
}

With the startMove and stopMove functions bound to WASD keys. But this causes the player to move twice as fast diagonally as horizontally or vertically. This could probably be fixed by interpreting the combination of certain keys as a direction, but I don't know how to do that without some really ugly if or switch statements. Also only accelerating to a certain max velocity would be useful too. So any guidance would be greatly appreciated :)