Abysmal storytelling can't hide the fact that Diablo III brings its A-game when it comes to pulse-pounding action.
+ fast-paced combat
+ great resource mechanics encourage tactical play
+ easy to join up with friends
+ skill system allows for customization and experimentation
+ fantastic sound and art design
+ the loot!
The Bad:
- abysmal characters, story, and writing
- inconsistent tone is jarring
- early game is poorly paced and lacks any real character building
- online-only system can sometimes keep you from playing
It's been over a decade since Diablo II reset the bar on action RPGs that its predeccesor had established, and there have been many pretenders to the throne in that time. From the flawed Silverfall to the not-quite-there Loki to the simple Torchlight to the epic Titan Quest, there have been many efforts to either expand or just straight up mimic what the Diablo franchise had done before them. However, Diablo III has arrived on the scene, bringing with it a degree of finely-tuned action perfection that once again sets the standard for gameplay, albeit at the heavy price of a cohesive story and interesting world.
What sets Diablo III aside from the others, and what truly makes it feel like it belongs in 2012 and not 2002, is its excellent resource management mechanics. Each of the five playable classes has a different resource that they build and use differently, from the fast-regenerating Arcane Power of the wizard to the barbarian's Rage, which builds from nothing with each attack. The absence of any resource-restoring potions (and the very long cooldown on healing potions) means that you'll need to bring your best tactics to the table. Combined with a pantheon of interesting enemy types and a diverse array of powerful skills, Diablo III makes the leap from being a "clicking game" to being a real test of wits and skill. Everything felt so finely balanced and responsive to my choices that I played on the "Hardcore" mode, in which character death is permanent, a testament to how much I truly trust the game mechanics to be more than just a click fest. When you die, it's not because your numbers aren't better than the enemy's numbers, it's because you didn't play your best and make the most out of your resources and skills.
And using those skills will not just pay the bills; it will also reward you with sweet loot. Bucket loads of loot. Whatever you don't need you can sell or break down into crafting components to be reforged into something hopefully a bit more useful. Socketed items can be customized with insertable gems and, in a long overdue move, gems can be removed from items without destroying either one, meaning that you're more likely to start using gems as soon as you find them.
It's a welcome bit of customization that goes well with the equally flexible skill system. You'll end up unlocking six skill slots which you can fill as you see fit. Furthermore, each skill can be customized with one of six different skill-specific runes. For example, the Entangling Shot skill has runes which can make it hit more targets at once, increase its slow duration, or do extra shock damage, to name a few. All told, you'll be able to find something that suits your playstyle. Should you change your mind, however, you can quickly and easily respec your character's skills and runes on the fly. Since there isn't a traditional skill tree or "points," you never have to worry about dumping points into skills that end up not being as useful as you had hoped. Instead, you simply unlock new skills and runes as you progress. Purists may moan about how this limits player control, but this couldn't be further from the truth. The various combinations of skills and runes give you plenty of control over how you play without forcing you to commit permanently to any choices.
Which is a good thing because then you'll be able to quickly change your skills when you switch from playing alone to playing with up to three friends, where the tactics change and you can move from being a jack-of-all-trades to taking a more specialized role as part of a team. Teaming up with your crew is ridiculously easy using the in-game friends list, something which may allow you to look past the game's online-only status (even for single-player mode). It's an entirely different game with friends, and smart improvements like personalized loot and the ability to join players are a little ahead of or behind you in quest progress make it almost entirely hassle-free.
So the action's intense and involving, the loot is ever-flowing, and the online features are smooth and streamlined. That's a whole lot to love, but there's something conspicuously absent from that list: storytelling. In any way, shape or form. The Diablo games have never exactly been Shakespeare, but they've always lived by the mantra, "a simple story, well told." They took a standard tale of good vs. evil and gave it a great setting and interesting characters. Diablo III, sadly, follows the mantra "no story, told poorly." Characters oscillate between providing no justification for their actions and straight up holding up a skull and soliloquizing, "this is my evil plan, try to stop it" with a lack of tact that would make a Bond villain blush. Even characters who return from previous Diablo games are reduced to absolute dullards, as if their definig character trait is "they were in Diablo II". The writing is lazy at best and just embarrassing at worst. The ghost of a deranged sorcerer holds tons of promise as the game's only unique and multi-faceted character, but even this excellent opportunity is almost immediately squandered as he is relegated to "one-note-villan" status with exactly zero good reason.
The storytelling woes mean that while all of the action and looting is great fun, it lacks context. It feels less like a world and more like a game. It certainly doesn't help that the game can't pick a consistent tone - it oscillates from serious to whimsical at some odd moments - but none of the tones are done particularity well. The serious moments don't work because the world isn't convincing and the humor just falls flat and feels out of place. And in the end, it takes its toll on the gameplay. Going through the game a second or third time on the higher difficulties works from a gameplay perspective, but it just feels flat otherwise. There's no sense of purpose and no sense of accomplishment outside of some new skills and items.
It also doesn't help that everything takes its sweet time to get going. The first two acts (of the game's four) feature not only the least interesting story elements and quests, but on your character's first playthrough, a severe lack of customization options. The lack of available skills and runes at early levels means you aren't really playing the way you want to - you're playing with whatever small set of skills you've managed to unlock at that point. While the action picks up and you'll have a more diverse skill set by the time you hit the third act, the gameplay feels incredibly shallow in the twenty or so levels it takes to progress to the point where you can actually make some choices about how your character will play.
But in the end, it's not enough to derail what is otherwise a truly incredible experience. Diablo III's lack of storytelling may make it just a game - but it's one hell of a game. It's a polished, focused, streamlined, well-oiled action machine that plays well either alone or with others. If history repeats itself and the next ten years see dozens of games trying to copy Diablo III's gameplay, I think I'd be just fine with that.