Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Mixed reactions"

For all of its hype, media attention, and showmanship, Diablo III is the sort of let down one feels when they see their favorite action star come back to the cinemas after a long hiatus. Yes it might be epic to see them again in all of their (probably) camping/cheesy glory, but in the end you know they can't do all of the awesome stuff they once could. Diablo III, for me, is the same way in a sense; masquerading as a back in action type of actor, but not being able to keep their legs up in the face of newer action heroes.

Diablo III starts off with a bang in the way it plays and feels. It's a very familiar setup with its point and click interface, inventory management and scenery. The game takes only a few brief moments to bring you into the world and before you know it you're clicking away at vile creatures and zombies. The new skill tab is very streamlined and very easy for new comers to build and create a character suited to them. It's also very user friendly in the sense that it allows one to swap skills in and out if you find a particular skill isn't really one that suited to your gameplay style. Most of these skills are very flashy and eye catching, and you feel a sense of power when you manage to take a big creature down with one of them.

Inventory Management is also another very friendly face. Diablo III's inventory is almost exactly like its predecessors, containing a large amount of blocks on the character, and in Diablo II fashion, an extra chest for that gear you want to save up. It's also very friendly in the sense that every item in the game takes up only a couple of blocks, allowing you to hold more gear than in the previous two iterations, when sometimes a large item took up 4x the amount of space. It's also nice that the inventory space in the back-up chest is shared amongst characters, so that if you find something really nice for a different character class, you can just transfer it to them.

The world of Diablo III has also been given a face lift, and for the art style they went for, it's been made beautifully. Each area in itself feels like its own little world, from dark forests, to underground tombs, from desert city jewels to battlefields, Diablo III varies its environment before, and like GS' review, it feels like a globe spanning adventure.

But that last idea is what starts off the negatives. It's not unique. There's nothing that hasn't been done before in the previous two games. It's not globe spanning, you're just going to a new location in the same area. It's like visiting the Bronx when you've been the Manhattan Island and claiming it's an entirely new world. Maybe in a sense, but it's still New York no matter where you are. *Spoilers* and that's the biggest problem, the first area is an iteration of the first game, and the last few areas look, feel, and basically play out like areas from the last game and it's expansion pack. There's an entirely different world that is talked about in lore, but has not been explored like it should be. This is actually a huge let down, because there are character classes from the last game that you see a few of in the game itself, but they're continents and homes are largely ignored and/or forgotten. Some of them could have been really interesting locales to visit, but Blizzard played it safe and went back to the basics.

Another step sideways, for all of its previous acclaim, is its art style. There was a large amount of controversy that Blizzard went through when revealing its art style for the game. It is quite beautiful, in its more simplistic and less realistic design. But it's not the design that gets me, but the lack of feeling that its style has. What made Diablo I so great was its dark, sinister, gothic art style. It made it so good because it made you afraid of what might be in the next room. It's the kind of style that you sit in the dark with your headphones in and your heart races to see what could be coming at you. And that's the problem with Diablo III, you're not afraid. There was never a point when, as playing it, there was terror at what could be coming at you. You can run in bashing enemies and dominating the battlefield and you never feel as though this could be your last fight before you die. Diablo II had the same negative feedback, and apparently Blizzard didn't learn from it.

The loot system in Diablo III is also slightly broken in a sense. Yes you can acquire a large amount of magic and rare items, and yes you may feel like you're smashing a piñata when you take down a large boss character, but its system is fatally flawed. There's no sense of wonder when it comes to the game. All of the magic games are automatically named and give you the stats right away. Rare and unique items have to be "identified", but it's a two second lapse and then you can determine whether or not to keep it or throw it back on the ground. That there lays the main problem. None of the items in Diablo III make you feel powerful. So many of the items that drop are useless garbage, that are actually laughable when dropped in later acts to the point of being miserable when all that drops are basic magic items. There's no sense of mystery; maybe you should run back to town to see if it's immensely powerful or keep grinding in hopes of a better catch. Another problem with the loot system is similar to Diablo II's, where all the items are worth nothing to shop keepers. Items that they sell are almost always garbage to you, which makes it worse because they sell them at astronomical prices while items that you have which are clearly better sell at only a tenth of the price. This makes having to acquire money a tedious task, especially since you require a vast amount of money to upgrade your team. Luckily in Diablo III, you can salvage items to make better ones, because you'll get better gear doing that than actually grinding bosses.

Finally, hireables make a comeback and are completely mismanaged. In Diablo II, some of the skills a hireable uses could completely change your game play style. In Diablo III, the hireables are all mainly useless in their fights. Hireables do such little damage that they are nothing better than fodder in order to keep some monsters away from you. This in itself is a hard task because the monsters usually auto target you and therefore they cannot help much. The game attempts to provide back story for hireables and make you feel for them, but this is also largely ignored and does not provide any meaningful context. All of their "big problems" that arise through various chat options are only solved through chat options and could have been potentially larger if they had of been some sort of sidequest. You aren't given a reason to care for them, and it's sadly misused. I personally didn't talk to one of the hirelings through the entire game, and at the end went through their entire backstory/big problem/solution in two minutes of dialogue.

Over all, Diablo III is an amazing package for those who didn't play the previous two iterations. It's full of fantastic combat that gets you hooked for hours on end. It's extremely user friendly and it's a beautiful game. But for those that are veterans, and are coming back from the yesteryears of the previous two games, it feels a bit like a reunion episode of one of your favorite TV shows: full of memories that you dearly cherished, but empty because you know it's too far in the past.